Modern writers on the history of cartography have devoted little space to the

miniatures which illustrate, in certain manuscripts, the texts handed down to us on Roman land surveying. The writers of these treatises are known as agrimensores ("land measurers") or gromatici (from groma, the Roman surveying instrument). It is fortunate that, of the five earliest manuscripts, three contain illustrations, the colours of which are for the most part well preserved. Two of these are at Wolfen? biittel and one in the Vatican library; I am indebted to the Vatican library and to the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbiittel, for permission to see the manuscripts and for photographic material. A, the Arcerianus, is at Wolfenbiittel (Aug. f. 36, 23) and dates from the sixth or seventh century. P, the Vatican manuscript (Pal. lat. 1564), is ninth century; G, the other Wolfenbiittel manuscript (Gudianus, 105), has been shown by Thulin (1911) to be descended from P. The dates of the original maps from which these are descended are uncertain.