166 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



of praesto with ad and accusative, cf. Cic. Fam. 4, 8, 1, ad omnia quae 

 tui velint ita sim praesto; Deiot. 24, non solum ad hospitium sed ad 

 periculum etiam atque ad aciem praesto fuit; and for ad with the 

 gerundive, Cic. Caec. 29. While Vitruvius does not distinctly say that 

 he was appointed to any particular post in the army of Octavian, it is 

 natural to think that he and the other three men whom he mentions 

 were praefecti fabrum. The office of praefectus fabrum later became 

 a very high one (something like that of engineer in chief to a great 

 modern army), and among its duties was the supervision of those qui 

 arma, vehieula, ceteraque genera tormentorum vel nova jacerent vel 

 quassata repararent (Veget. 2, 11), a passage the latter part of which 

 recalls Vitruvius's description of the functions which he was ready to 

 perforin. But that such a functionary accompanied the smaller de- 

 tached armies of the republic is clear from Cic. Fam. 3, 7, 4, Q. Leptam, 

 praefectum jabrum meum. Sometimes there were more than one; cf. 

 Caesar ap. Cic. Att. 9, 7, C, 2, duo praefecti Jabrum Pompei in meam 

 potestatem venerunt. Further information about such officers is given 

 by Marquardt (Rom. Staatsv. 2, 516), and by Mommsen (Rom. 

 Staatsrecht, 1, 120; 2, 98). 



5. refectionem: Syntactically this word seems to belong only with 

 scorpionum reliquorumque tormentorum, and therefore Vitruvius, 

 strictly taken, does not say that he was ready to repair ballistae, or 

 to supply scorpiones and other tormenta. But I can hardly believe 

 that he was really such a specialist, and I fancy that in his eagerness 

 to produce the fine example of chiastic order displayed in appara- 

 tionem . . . refectionem, he overlooked the exact sense. Hence I have 

 taken a liberty in my translation. Still it may be observed that in 

 the tenth book (269, 10, ipse faciundo) Vitruvius speaks of his prac- 

 tical experience in constructing ballistae and that he does not say any- 

 where that he ever made other kinds of artillery. For refectio in the 

 literal sense of "repair," cf. 140, 21, and Columella, 12, 3, 9; also in 

 inscriptions, cf . Olcott, Studies in Word Formation, 28. For apparatio, 

 cf. 54, 5; 124, 21; Cic. Off. 2, 50. 



6. commoda accepi: To discover the meaning of the word commoda 

 here is important, because upon it and the next two sentences is based 

 the commonly accepted view that Vitruvius, when he wrote this preface, 

 was in retirement, and some have gone so far as to translate commoda 

 by "pension." I am not aware that its meaning has ever been thor- 

 oughly studied, and I do not find the word treated in the books on 

 military antiquities. Let us therefore examine the different ways in 

 which it is employed. Three may be distinguished. In the first place, 

 commoda is used of the emoluments, allowances, or advantages which 



