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De Munitionibus Castrorum

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Hyginus , usually distinguished as Hyginus Gromaticus , was a Latin writer on land-surveying, who flourished in the reign of Trajan (AD 98–117). Fragments of a work on boundaries attributed to him are found in Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum , a collection of works on land surveying compiled in Late Antiquity .

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22-407: De Munitionibus Castrorum ("Concerning the fortifications of a military camp") is a work by an unknown author. Due to this work formerly being attributed to Hyginus Gromaticus , its author is often called "Pseudo-Hyginus". This work is the most detailed surviving description of a Roman military camp ( Latin : castra ) and dates most probably from the late 1st to early 2nd century AD. Very little

44-525: A collection compiled in Late Antiquity . De Constitutione is preserved only in a corrupt text, but its contents include important evidence on the Latin reception of Greek astronomical and mathematical texts. Notably, in his discussion of the establishment of the decumanus and cardo —the main east–west and north–south thoroughfares in most Roman towns—Hyginus is decidedly in favour of

66-526: A critical and philological society in 1811, in conjunction with Dissen , Schulze , and Bunsen . In 1815, he joined the Prussian army as a volunteer chasseur and accompanied his detachment to Paris , but did not see active service. In 1816, he became an assistant master in the Friedrichswerder gymnasium at Berlin, and a Privatdozent at the university. The same summer he became one of

88-516: Is certain that the work was not written before the time of the Roman emperor Trajan (it mentions Daci amongst the auxiliary forces), and was before the reforms of Diocletian (the Roman legion has its traditional structure). Domaszewski suggested that the image of the camp best fits the early second century AD, prior to the reforms of Hadrian . Experts, however, still dispute the date, ranging from

110-407: Is known about the author of De munitionibus castrorum . According to the text, his work was intended to be a useful manual about how to properly lay out a military camp, specially written for a high-ranked officer: He also suggests that he was a beginner author and used other authors' works relevant to the theme: The exact date of creation of the work is also uncertain. According to Domaszewski, it

132-552: Is thus now attributed to "Pseudo-Hyginus". Karl Lachmann Karl Konrad Friedrich Wilhelm Lachmann ( German: [ˈlaxman] ; 4 March 1793 – 13 March 1851) was a German philologist and critic . He is particularly noted for his foundational contributions to the field of textual criticism . Lachmann was born in Brunswick , in present-day Lower Saxony . He studied at Leipzig and Göttingen , devoting himself mainly to philological studies. In Göttingen , he founded

154-619: The Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum reads in part exp [ licit ] Kygini gromatici constitutio feliciter ("The establishment of Kyginus the Surveyor explains well..."). Other manuscripts of the text like the Palatinus Vatic. Lat. 1564 have instead explicit liber Hygini gromaticus ("The book of Hyginus on surveying explains..."), in which the adjective gromaticus is grammatically attached to

176-673: The Textus Receptus . Lachmann was the first major editor to break from the Textus Receptus , seeking to restore the most ancient reading current in manuscripts of the Alexandrian text-type , using the agreement of the Western authorities ( Old Latin and Greek Western Uncials ) as the main proof of antiquity of a reading where the oldest Alexandrian authorities differ. Lachmann's edition of Lucretius (1850), which

198-743: The Humboldt University , Berlin (ordinary professor 1827); in 1830, he was admitted a member of the Academy of Sciences . He died in Berlin . Lachmann is a figure of considerable importance in the history of German philology. Early in his career, Lachmann translated the first volume of P.E. Müller's Sagabibliothek des skandinavischen Altertums (1816). In his "Habilitationsschrift" über die ursprungliche Gestalt des Gedichts von der Nibelungen Noth (1816), and in his review of Hagen 's Nibelungen and Benecke 's Bonerius , contributed in 1817 to

220-544: The Jenaische Literaturzeitung , he had already laid down the rules of textual criticism and elucidated the phonetic and metrical principles of Middle High German in a manner which marked a distinct advance in that branch of investigation. The rigidly scientific character of his method becomes increasingly apparent in the Auswahl aus den hochdeutschen Dichtern des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts (1820); in

242-595: The New Testament appeared in 1831, the 3rd edition in 1846, and the larger second edition, in two volumes, between 1842 and 1850. The plan of Lachmann's edition, which he explained in Theologische Studien und Kritiken (1830), is a modification of the unaccomplished project of Richard Bentley (formulated in 1720) to establish a more reliable critical Greek edition of the New Testament than

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264-536: The Roman Land Surveyors (2000). Another work by Hyginus, Liber Gromaticus de Divisionibus Agrorum ("Surveying Book on the Division of Fields") is transmitted only as a title and might be the same as De Constitutio . A treatise on Roman military camps ( De Munitionibus Castrorum ) was formerly attributed to this Hyginus, but it was probably composed later, around the 3rd century and

286-524: The book rather than the author. For this reason, some scholars like Brian Campbell avoid the epithet and instead call him simply Hyginus or Hyginus 1 (to distinguish him from another Hyginus whose work appears in the same text). Hyginus was probably active around the year 100. His only extant work is De Constitutione [ Limitum ] ("On the Establishment [of Boundaries]") in the Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum ("Body of Roman Surveying"),

308-560: The construction of the decumanus using a gnomon (sundial) and compares this method with other less precise methods such as using the location of sunrise and sunset. The text has some connection with a passage included in Bubnov 's Geometria Incerti Auctori ("Geometric Works of Unknown Authors"). Editions of the work appear in C. F. Lachmann 's Gromatici Veteres , Vol. I (1848), Carl Olof Thulin 's Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum , Vol. I (1913), and Brian Campbell's Writings of

330-462: The earliest dating to the rule of Domitian . It is also disputed whether such a large camp was ever built by the Romans. Archaeological finds clearly show that in actual practice a military camp was not always so regularly organized, as suggested by the author. But, as he describes even the smallest part of the camp (including how much space is required for a soldier or a horse), it may be adopted to

352-615: The edition of Hartmann 's Iwein (1827); in those of Walther von der Vogelweide (1827) and Wolfram von Eschenbach (1833); in the papers " Über das Hildebrandslied ," " Über althochdeutsche Betonung und Verskunst ," " Über den Eingang des Parzivals ," and " Über drei Bruchstücke niederrheinischer Gedichte " published in the Abhandlungen of the Berlin Academy; and in Der Nibelunge Not und die Klage (1826), which

374-645: The principal masters in the Friedrichs-Gymnasium of Königsberg , where he assisted his colleague, the Germanist Friedrich Karl Köpke , with his edition of Rudolf von Ems ' Barlaam und Josaphat (1818), and also assisted his friend in a contemplated edition of the works of Walther von der Vogelweide . In January 1818, he became professor extraordinarius of classical philology in the University of Königsberg , and at

396-593: The requirements of the practice. He also mentions some general rules which must be considered when constructing a camp, although most of them are obvious (like a water source must be in the vicinity, etc.). The text survives in the Codex Arcerianus , a collection of agrimensores in the Herzog-August-Bibliothek at Wolfenbüttel (Cod. Guelf. 36.23A). However, it has been distorted by numerous corruptions, necessitating heavy editing. Thus,

418-488: The same time began to lecture on Old German grammar and the Middle High German poets. He devoted himself during the following seven years to an extraordinarily detailed study of those subjects, and in 1824, obtained a leave of absence in order to search the libraries of middle and south Germany for further materials. In 1825, Lachmann was nominated extraordinary professor of classical and German philology at

440-490: The text published by Domaszewski differs from that of Grillone, while Lenoir's text differs from both. A new Latin text (with English translation) has now been published. Hyginus Gromaticus The cognomen gromaticus means " agrimensor " or " surveyor " and derives from groma , one of their common tools in antiquity. Its application to Hyginus derives from the Codex Arcerianus , whose copy of

462-484: Was followed by a critical commentary in 1836. Lachmann's Betrachtungen über Homer's Iliad , first published in the Abhandlungen of the Berlin Academy in 1837 and 1841, in which he sought to show that the Iliad consists of eighteen independent "layers" variously enlarged and interpolated , had considerable influence on 19th century Homeric scholarship , although his views are no longer accepted. His smaller edition of

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484-459: Was the principal occupation of his life from 1845, is perhaps his greatest achievement of scholarship. He demonstrated how the three main manuscripts all derived from one archetype , containing 302 pages of 26 lines to a page. Further, he was able to show that this archetype was a copy of a manuscript written in a minuscule hand, which was in turn a copy of a manuscript of the 4th or 5th centuries written in rustic capitals . To say his recreation of

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