Aggenus Urbicus

Aggenus Urbicus was an ancient Roman technical writer on the science of the Agrimensores, that is, land surveying.^[1] It is uncertain when he lived; but he appears to have been a Christian, and it is not improbable from some expressions which he uses, that he lived at the latter part of the 4th century.^[2] There are three extant works ascribed to him. Aggeni Urbici in Julium Frontinum Commentarius, a commentary upon the work De Agrorum Qualitate, which is ascribed to Frontinus. Aggenus' commentary was not well regarded by later writers; Karl Lachmann called it "the wretched work of some Christian schoolmaster".^[3] The other two works are In Julium Frontinum Commentariorum Liber secundus qui Diazographus dicitur; and Commentariorum de Controversiis Agrorum Pars prior et altera. The latter of which Carsten Niebuhr supposes to have been actually been written by Frontinus, and in the time of Domitian, that is, the end of the 1st century, since the author speaks of "praestantissimus Domitianus," an expression which some feel would be unlikely to have been applied to this tyrant after his death.^[4]

References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). "^{article name needed}". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.