both Vaticans, and consulted former editions, using Jocundus as his base, but deferring to the codices in case of disagreement, except where the greater probability of Jocundus's reading won him to that. He claims that as an editor he forbore to make conjectures, unless driven to this by the most urgent necessity, which led to his being criticized for leaving many places unamended. He included much in the way of explanatory and illustrative material, being especially fitted to do this as a mathematician and a man of letters, appended a collection of imperial edicts concerning aqueducts, incorporated conjectures and notes of Opsopoeus, Scriverius, Scaliger and Keuchen, pruned out corruptions of copyists and editors, added a life of Frontinus, a prolegomenon and an index of matters treated there and in the notes. In the mathematical part of the work, in order to correct manifest errors, he recklessly changed numbers, disregarding the codex when he failed to understand the symbols, and using the system adopted by Metius[1] in his calculations, whereas Frontinus must, with all antiquity, have used the system of Archimedes.[2]
Other editions of the eighteenth century are the Bipontine (1788) and the Adler, printed at Altona in 1792. Dederich's edition (Wesel, 1841) included notes of Heinrich and Schultze. It is characterized by careless mistakes, bad judgment in the choice of readings, and a lack of intelligence in interpretation.
- ↑ Adrien Metius (1571–1635) was celebrated for adopting the fraction 355/113 to represent the relation of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, this relationship having been previously indicated by mathematicians from the time of Archimedes by 22/7.
- ↑ Cf. tables at end of book.
