BOOK XVON BUILDINGS AND FIELDS
ON BUILDINGS AND FIELDS
Chapter 1. On cities.
5. The Jews assert that Shem, son of Noah, whom they call Melchisedeck, was the first after the flood to found the city of Salem in Syria, in which was the kingdom of the same Melchisedeck. This city the Jebusaei held later, from whom it got the name Jebus, and so the two names being united, Jebus and Salem became Hierusalem, and this was later called Hierosolyma by Solomon, as if Hierosolomonia.
42. Constantinople, a city of Thrace, Constantine called after his own name, the only city equal to Rome in deeds and power. This was first founded by Pausanias, king of the Spartans, and called Byzantium, because it extends between the Adriatic and the Propontis, or because it is a store-house for the wealth of land and sea.[355]Whence Constantine judged it very fit to become his store-house for land and sea. And it is now the seat of Roman power, and the capital of the whole Orient, as Rome is of the Occident.
66. Caesaraugusta Tarraconensis,[356]a town of Spain, was both founded and named by Caesar Augustus, excelling all the cities of Spain in the beauty of its site and in its attractions (deliciis), and more famous than all, and distinguished (florens) for the graves of the sainted martyrs.
67. The Africans under Hannibal occupied the coast of Spain and built Carthago Spartaria, which presently was captured and made a colony by the Romans, and gave its name also to the province. But now it has been destroyed and reduced to desolation by the Goths.
69. Caesar Augustus built Emerita after he had taken Lusitania and certain islands of the Ocean, giving it a name from the fact that he placed his veteran soldiers there. For veterans, freed from service, are calledemeriti.
70. Olyssipona (Lisbon) was founded and named by Ulysses, and at this place, as historians say, the heavens are separated from the earth and the seas from the lands.
71. Hispalis (Seville) Julius Caesar founded, and called it Julia Romula from his own name and the name of the city of Rome. It is called Hispalis from its situation, because it is placed on marshy ground, the stakes (palis) being driven deep, that it might not slip because of its slippery and unsteady foundations.
72. Gades is a town founded by the Carthaginians who also founded Carthago Spartaria.
Chapter 4. On sacred buildings.
8. Fanes (Fana) are so called from Fauns to whom the heathen blindness erected temples wherein those who sought for guidance might hear the responses of demons.
9.Delubra, the name the ancients gave to temples having springs in which they washed themselves (diluebantur) before entering.... These are at the present time sanctuaries with sacred springs in which the regenerate faithful purify themselves, and they were well calleddelubrawith a sort of prophetic meaning; for they are for the washing away of sins.
Chapter 15. On land measurements.
1. Measure is whatever limit is set in respect to weight, capacity, length, height and mind (animus). And so the ancients divided the circle of lands into parts, the parts intoprovinces, the provinces into regions, the regions into districts, the districts into territories, the territories into fields, the fields into centuries, the centuries into acres (jugera), the acres intoclimata[about sixty feet square], then theclimataintoactus[120 x 4 ft.], perches, paces, grades (gradus), cubits, feet, palms, inches, (uncia), and fingers. For so clever were they.