PROLEGOMENA.

by the term 'commentaries' original: "commentariis" one might understand not only some book, but perhaps Agrippa’s testament, by which he entrusted to his sister Polla the duty of building the portico, which Augustus later undertook himself. From this, therefore, nothing certain is concluded. Let us see, however, what Agrippa’s work or map contained, the many fragments of which Pliny preserved, and some of which Strabo preserved from the chorographus geographer/map-maker, without Agrippa’s name being indicated. Nevertheless, I am convinced—contrary to Forbiger 1 and Philippi 2, and in agreement with Heeren and most recent scholars—that these belong to Agrippa. For they confirm that the Roman author used measurements expressed in milia miles, not stadia a Greek unit of distance (cf. p. 8); [this is a sentiment by C. Mueller which Partsch attempts to refute in vain, pp. 59 sq., since if Greek authors—I mean Polybius and Artemidorus (Partsch p. 60)—provided miles, they would only have done so when describing the milestones of Roman roads, which does not fit these fragments (5, 6, 9)]. That the author is a Roman, not some man from the street but a distinguished writer, is argued by the use of the articles ὁ χωρογράφος the chorographer and ἡ χωρογραφία the chorography. Strabo, however, used this only for Italy and the regions closest to it, either because he judged that a Roman was the most certain guide there (Partsch p. 60) or because only that part of the Roman work had been translated into the Greek language and could be used by him. This translation seems not to have borne Agrippa’s name but to have been anonymous. But let us return to Agrippa’s own work. It contained the whole world 'as far as it is known' (frg. 30, 37) divided into certain provinces, the boundaries of which and of the islands were described according to the four cardinal points, their measurements of length and breadth were calculated, and the intervals of places and islands between themselves and the nearest lands were described in miles. Finally, there were a few miscellaneous notes (cf. frg. 2, 31, 25). Whether he described the provinces more accurately, we do not know. I say that he added the measurements of the routes, both because of the maritime intervals narrated by him (fg. 6, 9, 15 all.) and because of fg. 8 and 12, and those which I cited on p. 8. Therefore, it seems to me, as it does to Partsch, to have been in the manner of an itinerary, and that Agrippa, who himself oversaw the construction of roads (Strabo IV 208), established his work with the intention that it might serve the glory of the Roman people—the masters of the world—among the many thousands of men flowing into Rome, and promote the knowledge of lands among the majority, and also be useful to those undertaking journeys. 3 Since these things are so, how could all these numbers be clearly described on a map? They could, I confess, in indicating the intervals between nearby places, if the map was long and extended but of small height, just as was done in the Peutinger Table 1; they could not be in measuring entire provinces, if indeed many individual things were depicted in their places within the provinces. However, the words of Pliny cited above, when accurately weighed, overthrow the entire question. For Agrippa described the individual measurements not when he was proposing the world map, but when he 'was about to propose it.' The table was completed long after his death: but Pliny praises the measurements and other things as if brought forth by Agrippa himself, whom he 'produces,' 'has produced,' 'hands down,' 'believes,' or 'thought,' or of which he is the 'author.' It appears that Pliny took the third fragment from those things which Agrippa had already written when he 'was about to propose' the painted world; premature death prevented him from proposing it himself. But if anyone should object to me that Pliny took everything from the painted map, and that Pliny only feigned with a weak conjecture that these were 'produced' in Agrippa’s book, the source of the table: there is added a fact not yet mentioned by anyone so far as I know, but most worthy of mention, that where Pliny once praises the map itself, he does not cite 'Agrippa' but does so with entirely different words: 'The Vipsanian portico has' (frg. b); furthermore, an 'error of number,' which he criticizes in frg. 36, could be referred to the book with the same right as to the table.

1) A. Forbiger, Handbook of Ancient Geography I p. 310. cf. Strabo, translated into German by Groskurd p. XLI.
2) Fr. Philippi, On the Peutinger Table. Inaugural Dissertation, Bonn 1876.
3) Partsch says too much p. 2, when he affirms it is most certain that the Plinian lists of colonies, municipalities, and other cities also go back to Agrippa: cf. Detlefsen’s contrary opinion below.