Chapter CXVI: Book XV: On Buildings and Fields

ANALYSIS

I. Cities (ch. 1).
Of India (6), Persia (7–10), Mesopotamia (12–13), Syria
(14–15), Palestine (16–26), Phoenicia (27–28), Egypt
(31–36), Asia Minor (37–41), Greece (43–48), Italy (49–62),
Gaul (63–65), Spain (66–72), Northern Africa (74–77).
II. Architecture.[353]
1. City architecture (ch. 2).
a. Kinds of cities (3–14).
b. Walls (17–21).
c. Gates, squares, sewers, etc. (22–46).
2. Dwellings (ch. 3).
3. Buildings for religious purposes (ch. 4).
4. Storehouses (ch. 5).
5. Workshops (ch. 6).
6. Entrances (ch. 7).
7. Parts of buildings (ch. 8).
8. Defences (ch. 9).
9. Tents (ch. 10).
10. Tombs (ch. 11).
11. Buildings in the country (ch. 12).
III. Fields, landmarks, land-measures[354] (chs. 13–15).
IV. Roads (ch. 16).

[353] Architecture appears in a disintegrated form in the
_Etymologies_ (bks. xv, chs. 2–12; xix, chs. 8–19). A comparison
with Vitruvius’s work on architecture (translated by J. Gwilt,
London, 1880) shows that the main differences between the
subjects treated by Isidore and those in Vitruvius’s work lie in
the omission by the former of the account of building materials
(bk. ii), temple architecture, water supply (bk. viii), dialling,
and mechanics.

[354] See Introd., p. 32. The two chapters, “De Mensuris Agrorum”
and “De Itineribus,” together with three chapters of bk. xvi, “De
Ponderibus,” “De Mensuris,” “De Signis,” are given in Hultsch,
_Metrologicorum Scriptorum Reliquiae_, Leipzig, 1886 (_Scriptores
Romani_ in vol. ii). Hultsch finds (vol. ii, 34) that Isidore
made use of Columella and a number of minor writers on these
subjects.

EXTRACTS