PROLEGOMENA.

...the discussion concerns a man of Roman gravity and of the highest authority in that republic which he wished to describe, Partschius set out on the right path. He said that Agrippa, not being sufficiently knowledgeable of the astronomical method of the Alexandrians and distrusting those who would not rarely dissent among themselves, consulted instead the itineraries lat. "itineraria" which were already in use by the Romans in the age of Polybius, and composed the longitudes and latitudes from those and here and there from the measurements of sailors. Certainly, it is to be credited to Partsch's praise that with great diligence he computed the numbers from what is called the Antonine Itinerary and wherever he could, and he proved these by certain arguments: that the measurement of Baetica (cf. Agrippa fg. 3) consists of 473 (477?) and 256 miles, not by straight lines measured out, but by the detours of the roads; likewise the length of Hither Spain (cf. Dim. 22) as 530; the measurement of Lusitania (cf. Agr. 24, Dim. 23) as 584 and 539; of Gallia Comata (cf. Agr. 23) as 919 1/2 and 418 1/2; of Narbonensian Gaul (Agr. 4, Dim. 21) as 378 and 248; the breadth of Northern Italy (Dim. 15) as 331; the circuit of the Adriatic Sea (cf. Agr. 13) as 1699; the whole coast extended from the Arsia to the Var (just as Pliny III 44) as 2049 miles 1; the Gulf of Tarentum (Agr. 11) as 243; the interval of Brundisium from the Garganus (Agr. 12) as 165 miles; the northern coast of Sardinia (Agr. 5) as 93; the eastern (Dim. 17) as 232; of Sicily from Lilybaeum to Pachynus (Dim. 13) as 186; from there to Pelorus (Oros. 52) as 159; from there to Lilybaeum (Agr. 8) as 235; the maritime circuit of the same island (Agr. 7) as 618 miles; the distance of Dyrrhachium from Byzantium (Dim. 11) as 720 2; the interval of the Phasis from Chalcedon (Agr. 29) as 1000 miles from Strabo (he was the first to correctly understand Agrippa's passages about the Euxine Pontus). These should be computed according to the itineraries; all these numbers either entirely agree with Agrippa (or with the Dimensuration) or they differ so slightly that it appears they emanated from the same source. However, Agrippa could not take all his things from itineraries, as he also recounts the measurements of regions not subject to the Romans. Therefore, I believe he drew primarily from itineraries, and what he could not find there, from the best books of predecessors as it seemed agreeable to him. But whether he joined the itineraries (which must be assumed to have already existed then) into one, and whether he was the first to make them public, nothing is certain about that matter. What more, it is not even certain that he...

1) He compares the length of Italy as 1016 miles according to the Itineraries, 1020 according to Pliny III 43, whom he derives from Agrippa; the breadth as 765 according to the Itineraries, 745 according to Pliny III 132.

2) Yet in this place the matter seems doubtful to me, since that Macedonia 'from the west by the deserts of Dardania' circumscribed perhaps did not contain Dyrrhachium.