probably contemporaries, and their common source was probably A, whom
he cites (7.pr.14).
Vitruuius is often more “prescriptive” than descriptive, that is, arguing for innovations
based on experience and critical evaluation rather than summing up current standard prac-
tice. The chorobates (surveyors’ level, 8.6.1–3) is otherwise unattested in antiquity, and his
recommendations for items such as polygonal fortification towers (1.5.1–8), sounding vessels
in theaters (5.5.1–8), a peculiar form of castellum aquae (8.6.1–2), and fire-resistant larch
(2.9.15) were not then standard Roman practice.
A. Boethius, “Vitruvius and the Roman Architecture of his Age,” in Dragma Martin Nilsson (Acta Ist. Sue
Rom. 1) (1939) 114–143; H. Knell, Vitruvs Architekturtheorie (1991); P. Fleury, La méchanique di Vitruve
(1993); P. Gros, A Corso, and E. Romano, Vitruvio, De Architectura (1997); I. Rowland and Thomas
Noble Howe, Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture (1999).
Thomas Noble Howe
V R ⇒ E
Analemma (geometry of sundial construction) from Vitr. 9.7.1– 7 © Howe
M. VITRUUIUS POLLIO