Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum

Roman book on land surveying

The Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum (Corpus of Roman Land Surveyors) is a Roman book on land surveying which collects works by Siculus Flaccus, Frontinus, Agennius Urbicus, Hyginus Gromaticus and other writers, known as the Gromatici or Agrimensores ("land surveyors"). The work is preserved in various manuscripts, of which the oldest is the 6th or 7th century Codex Arcerianus.

The Corpus is transmitted in several manuscripts. The oldest of these is the sixth or seventh century uncial manuscript known as the Codex Arcerianus or Codex Guelfferbytanus 36.23 Augusteus 2, now held in the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel. This is one of the few surviving non literary and non religious illuminated manuscripts from late antiquity. Like all later manuscripts, this text contains gaps and corrupt sections; the beginning and ending of the manuscript are both missing. The various scripts and formats of the manuscript show that the work is a compilation. Different manuscripts have very different contents. For example, Siculus Flaccus' text is absent from the Codex Arcerianus and manuscripts derived from it, except for a short extract appearing within another text. The Corpus, especially its mathematical portions, were also included in the encyclopaedic works of Late Antiquity. Its influence may extend to the Palastschule Karls des Großen. The collection was still widely read in the Early Middle Ages.

Individual texts from the Corpus began to appear in printed editions from 1491. In 1554, Adrianus Turnebus published a printed edition of the majority of the Corpus, including the important Agrimensores, under the title De Agrorum Conditionibus et Constitutionibus Limitum (On the Creation of Fields and Delimitation of their Borders). Petrus Scriverius used the Codex Arcerianus as the basis of his edition in 1607. The German ancient historian, Karl Lachmann edited significant portions of the collection, especially the writings of the Agrimensores Frontinues, Agennius Urbicus, Hyginus Gromaticus and Siculus Flaccus, as well as the Libri Coloniarum in 1848. The 1913 edition of Carl Olof Thulin contains only a few works. The 2000 edition of Brian Campbell is much broader and also contains an English translation.

Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum (Cod. Guelf. 36.23 Aug. 2°, Codex Arcerianus): ein Agrimensorencodex, illustriertes Handbuch für den römischen Feldvermesser, 6. Jahrhundert, in der Herzog August Bibliothek. Fotomechnische Reproduktion mit einer Einleitung von Hans Butzmann, Leiden 1970, Carl Olof Thulin, ed., Corpus agrimensorum Romanorum (= Opuscula agrimensorum veterum. I). Leipzig 1913 (Nachdruck Stuttgart 1971), .