Hyginus Gromaticus (Gromaticus from '' groma'', a surveying device) was a Latin writer on land-surveying, who flourished in the reign of

Trajan Trajan ( ; la, Caesar Nerva Traianus; 18 September 539/11 August 117) was Roman emperor from 98 to 117. Officially declared ''optimus princeps'' ("best ruler") by the senate, Trajan is remembered as a successful soldier-emperor who presi ...

(AD 98–117). Fragments of a work on boundaries attributed to him are found in ''

Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum The Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum (Corpus of Roman Land Surveyors) is a Roman book on land surveying which collects works by Siculus Flaccus, Frontinus, Agennius Urbicus, Hyginus Gromaticus and other writers, known as the Agrimensores ("land sur ...

'', a collection of works on land surveying compiled in

Late Antiquity Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English ha ...

. The 'surname' Gromaticus ("surveyor") is a false attribution.

Origin of the epithet "Gromaticus"

Hyginus Gromaticus (''Gromaticus'', meaning "surveyor," derives from groma, a measuring instrument used by ancient Roman

surveyors Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...

) is known only from his work ''De Constitutione Limitum'' (On the Establishment of Boundaries) in the ''

'', a collection of works on land surveying compiled in

. He probably lived between the end of the first century AD and the reign of the Emperor

. His epithet "Gromaticus" is a false reading which goes back to the oldest manuscript, the ''Codex Arcerianus'', in which the subscript of the text reads ''exp(licit) Kygini gromatici constitutio feliciter'' ("The Establishment of Kyginus the surveyor explains well"). Other manuscripts, like the Palatinus Vatic. lat. 1564, have ''explicit liber Hygini gromaticvs'' ("The Book of Hyginus on Surveying explains..."), where the adjective ''gromaticvs'' clearly describes the book not the author. For this reason, in the most recent edition, Brian Campbell avoids the name and calls the author "Hyginus 1" (to distinguish him from "Hyginus 2", another author in the ''Corpus Agrimensorum'').

Works

Hyginus' ''De Constitutio /nowiki>limitum/nowiki>'' is preserved only in a corrupt text. However, the contents include important evidence on the Latin reception of Greek astronomical and

mathematical Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

texts, since in his discussion of the construction of the decumanus and

cardo A cardo (plural ''cardines'') was a north–south street in Ancient Roman cities and military camps as an integral component of city planning. The cardo maximus, or most often the ''cardo'', was the main or central north–south-oriented street ...

(the east-west and north-south streets that formed the centre of a town's

grid plan In urban planning, the grid plan, grid street plan, or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid. Two inherent characteristics of the grid plan, frequent intersections and orthogona ...

), Hyginus is decidedly in favour of the construction of the decumanus using a

gnomon A gnomon (; ) is the part of a sundial that casts a shadow. The term is used for a variety of purposes in mathematics and other fields. History A painted stick dating from 2300 BC that was excavated at the astronomical site of Taosi is the ol ...

(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).Bubnov Appendix IV, pp. 363-364 and Appendix VII 394-553. Editions of the work appear in C. F. Lachmann, ''Gromatici Veteres'', i (1848), Carl Olof Thulin, ''Corpus agrimensorum Romanorum, I Opuscula agrimensorum veterum'' (Leipzig, 1913). and Brian Campbell. ''The writings of the Roman land surveyors'' (2000), with an English translation. 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 ''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 ...

''), was formerly attributed to him, but is probably of later date, about the 3rd century AD (ed. W. Gemoll, 1879; A. von Domaszewski, 1887) and is now attributed to "Pseudo-Hyginus".

References

Bibliography

*' * F. Blume, K. Lachmann, K. Rudorff (ed.): ''Gromatici veteres. Die Schriften der römischen Feldmesser.'' 2 Volumes. Berlin 1848–52, pp. 166–208
(online)
* N. Bubnov: ''Gerberti postea Silvestri II papae Opera mathematica (972-1003).'' Berlin 1899. (Reprint: Hildesheim 2005)
(online)
* B. Campbell. ''The writings of the Roman land surveyors. Introduction, translation and commentary'' (= ''Journal of the Roman Studies Monographs.'' 9). London 2000. * M. Clavel-Lévêque, D. Conso, A. Gonzales, J.-Y. Guillaumin et al. ''Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum V. Hygin, L'Œuvre gromatique.'' Luxembourg 2000
(online)
* J.-Y. Guillaumin. ''Les arpenteurs romains. Tome 1: Hygin le Gromatique, Frontin.'' (= ''Les belles Lettres 1, Collection des universités de France Série latine''). Paris 2005. * J-O. Lindermann, E. Knobloch, C. Möller. '' Hyginus – Das Feldmesserbuch. Ein Meisterwerk der spätantiken Buchkunst. Herausgegeben, übersetzt und mit Kommentaren versehen'', Darmstadt 2018. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gromaticus, Hyginus 1st-century Romans 2nd-century Romans 1st-century Latin writers 2nd-century Latin writers Ancient Roman writers Silver Age Latin writers Ancient Roman surveyors Ancient mathematicians