Aggenus Urbicus

Aggenus Urbicus (also Agennius Urbicus) was an ancient Roman technical writer appearing in the Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum, a collection of works on land surveying from Late Antiquity. It is uncertain when he lived, but he may have been a Christian living in the later part of the 4th century, judging by expressions he uses.[1]

Only two, fragmentary works are preserved in the Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum under his name:

  • De controversiis agrorum ("On Land Disputes")[2]
  • Commentum de agrorum qualitate ("Commentary on Land Quality"), a commentary on the work of this name by Frontinus.[3]
  • The Liber Diazographus ("Multi-coloured Painter Book") attached to the Commentum is sometimes counted as a third work.
  1. ^ Smith, William Smith (1867). "Aggenus Urbicus" . In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. p. 71.
  2. ^ Editions: Friedrich Blume, Karl Lachmann, Adolf Friedrich Rudorff: Gromatici veteres. Die Schriften der römischen Feldmesser. Band 1, Georg Reimer, Berlin 1848, pp. 59–90; Carl Olaf Thulin: Corpus agrimensorum Romanorum. B. G. Teubner, Leipzig 1913, pp. 20–51.
  3. ^ Editions: Friedrich Blume, Karl Lachmann, Adolf Friedrich Rudorff (ed.): Gromatici veteres. Die Schriften der römischen Feldmesser. Band 1, Georg Reimer, Berlin 1848, pp. 1–58; Carl Olaf Thulin (ed.): Corpus agrimensorum Romanorum. B. G. Teubner, Leipzig 1913, pp. 51–70.