PREFACE

1. So long as your divinely inspired intelligence and your godly presence, Imperator Caesar,* were engaged in taking possession of the world, your enemies leveled one and all by your invincible might, so long as citizens were glorying in your triumph and in your victory, with all the subject peoples awaiting your command, so long as the Roman People and Senate, freed from fear, were piloted by your far-ranging deliberations and plans, I dared not, in the midst of such concerns, publish my writings on architecture, even though these had been formulated according to extensive researches,* for fear that by intruding at an inappropriate moment I might incur the disdain of your keen spirit.

2. When, however, I perceived that you were solicitous not only for the establishment of community life and of the body politic, but also for the construction of suitable public buildings, so that by your agency not only had the state been rendered more august by the annexation of entire provinces, but indeed the majesty of the Empire had found conspicuous proof in its public works – then I thought that I should not miss the opportunity to publish on these matters for you as soon as possible, given that I was first recognized in this field by your Father [Julius Caesar]* and was a devoted admirer of his qualities. Thus when the council of the Olympians consecrated him among the abodes of immortality and passed his sovereignty into your own jurisdiction, this same devotion of mine, fixed upon his memory, naturally transferred allegiance to you. And so I was put in charge, along with Marcus Aurelius and Publius Minidius and Gnaeus Cornelius, of outfitting catapults as well as the repair of all the other sorts of war machines, and along with these men I received a stipend, first awarded by you, and continued at the recommendation of your sister.*

3. Therefore, because I had been put in your debt for the favor whereby I will never harbor the fear of want for the rest of my life, I began to record these matters for you.