BOOK III. XIII. 10-12 



cleared, and that all the ground not yet thrown 

 up be added to the earth ah-eady moved; just as I 

 directed in the preceding book,** Avhen I was handing 

 down the methods of ploughing, in my warning that 

 no ridges or skips should be left anywhere and that 

 there should be no hard part covered over with 

 surface clods. But our ancestors, devising a cer- 11 

 tain kind of instrument for the measuring of this work, 

 have fashioned a straight bar and on the side * of it a 

 small rod which, when reaching down to the depth to 

 which the furrow should be sunk, touches the upper- 

 most part of the bank. This sort of measuring device 

 farmers call ciconia or stork.*^ But this too is open to 

 fraud, because it makes a very great difference 

 whether you place it slantwise or in an upright 

 position. For this reason we have added certain 

 parts to this contrivance, to do away with quarrels 

 and disputes of contending parties. For we have 12 

 fastened '^ two pieces crosswise in the form of the 

 Greek letter X and of a spread equal to the width to 

 which the trencher intends to make his ditch, and to 

 the middle point, where the pieces are joined, we have 

 fastened that old-fashioned ciconia in such a way as 

 to stand at a right angle to it as upon a sub-base; 

 then upon the transverse rod, which is on the side, 



commentators disagree as to whether, in use, it was placed 

 upright, inverted, or on its side. Columella's improvement, 

 by the addition of X-shaped cross-pieces (his stella), has also 

 puzzled the commentators : some attach these pieces, at the 

 point of intersection, to the base of the T and on the same 

 plane ; others think of the X as being in a horizontal position, 

 i.e. lying flat on the ditch-bottom, with the T standing at right 

 angles to it. The latter explanation seems the more probable, 

 if text and translation are correct. 



'^ decussare = to make a decussis, Roman numeral ten. 



