MORGAN. — THE PREFACE OF VITRUVIUS. 1 73 



tions ; cf . Cic. Att. 14, 20, 3, cum scripsissem ad eum de optivio genere 

 dicendi; so Lael. 4 (scriptus ad te); Off. 1, 4. The work was in- 

 tended, Vitruvius says here, for the personal use of his patron, to assist 

 him in the ways indicated by lines 10-16. But another reason is given 

 in 160, 6 ff., namely the lack of writings on architecture in the J^atin 

 language. 



10. te aedificavisse et nunc aedificare: among the important early 

 buildings of Octavian which Vitruvius may have in mind are the 

 aedes divi lull (cf. 70, 18), begun in 42 b. c. and finished at least as 

 early as the year 37, when it appears on coins ; 50 and the curia lulia, 

 projected by Julius Caesar and dedicated by Octavian in 29 (Dio C. 

 51, 22). Other buildings of course had been planned, and some of 

 them may have been finished before Vitruvius published his work. 51 



animadverti . . . te . . . curam habiturum: Schneider found fault 

 with the use of the fut. inf. with the verb animadverto and thought 

 that some such word as spero or confido had dropped out in the latter 

 part of this long sentence. But Vitruvius has the future also in 32, 7, 

 animadverto fore ut, etc.; and cf. Cic. Div. 1, 112, animadverterat 

 olearum ubertatem fore. 



12. tradantur: the emendation of Schneider; traderentur, codd. 

 The error, as Rose suggests in his second edition, may be due to the 

 preceding gestarum. 



13. conscripsi: "I have composed," "drawn up"; cf. the The- 

 saurus, s. v., 375, 36, under the lemma "scribendo componere, litteris 

 mandare." It seems unlikely that this word ever means "compile" 

 in Vitruvius. It might possibly have this meaning in 218, 14, his 

 auctoribns frctus sensibus eorum adhibitis et consiliis ea volumina con- 

 scripsi; but this is improbable in view of all the other passages in 

 which it appears (5, 28; 134, 7; 142, 7; 151, 20; 159, 21), and of 

 the use of conscriptio, "treatise," three times (103, 14; 104, 4; 155, 

 10). Cf. also Cic. Top. 5, itaque haec, cum mecum libros non haberem, 

 memoria repctita in ipsa navigatione conscripsi tibique ex itinere misi; 

 Verr. 2, 122, leges conscribere; Brut. 46, praecepta conscribere (and so 

 Vitr. 5, 28; 159, 21). 



praescriptiones terminatas : " definite rules " ; cf. "bestimmte Vor- 

 schriften" (Reber). Vitruvius always uses praescriptio in this sense: 

 cf. 62, 8 ; 121, 23 ; 204, 13 ; 280, 10. ' In all these passages he promises 

 success to those who follow the "rules." See also his use of the verb 

 praescribo in 5, 19, and 83, 17; also Cic. Acad. 2, 140, praescriptionem 



50 Mommsen, ibid., 80- 



61 See Mommsen, ibid., 79-82, and Sontheimer, 120. 



