LIFE OF VITRUVIUS.

The materials for a life of Vitruvius are only to befound in his own Treatise. Among the ancientauthors he is merely mentioned by Pliny, as one ofthose writers from whom he compiled; and byFrontinus, in his Treatise on Aqueducts, as thefirst who introduced the Quinarian measure. Thoughpractising in Rome, and in the service of theemperors, living in Rome, and writing the sub-joined work in that city, there appears nothing thatcan lead us to assert that he was a native of theplace. Maffei, a Veronese, strove to prove the authorhis countryman, and in corroboration adduced an in-scription which existed on a triumphal arch in Veronaas hereunder;

L. VITRUVIUS L. L. CERDOARCHITECTUS.

Had this arch, however, been built by our Author, itwould not prove him a native of the city, not lookingto the difference in the agnomen, a circumstance whichAlciati attempted to reconcile, by supposing that ofPollio to be a corruption of Pellio, and that then itwould be synonymous with Cerdo, both the one and theother signifying a currier. Philander, however, com-pletely refuted this conjecture, if indeed refutationcould have been necessary, for the arch itself contained