Julian of Ascalon

Abstract

Students of ancient metrology have long since been acquainted with a short tract, though so far none seems to have been aware of the fact that it has been published in four different versions:(1) Themanuale legum, orHexabiblos, of Constantine Harmenopulos, a Byzantine compilation dating from 1345 and transmitted in a great number of manuscripts, has been published a number of times since theeditio princepsof 1540; the most accessible edition, with Latin translation and some notes, is that of Heimbach. In book 2 ch. 4 (De novis operibus), there appears (but not in all MSS) a page-long metrological table (# 12), purporting to derive from an architect Julian of Ascalon, according to the editors not attested elsewhere. The text in the still basic collection of F. Hultsch,Metrologici scriptores(Leipzig 1864) i. 54 ff.; 200 f., on which all students of ancient metrology depend, derives from this authority. Though there is nothing in the text of Harmenopulos that indicates the end of his excerpt of Julian, it is implicit in the discussions of modern scholars that only the metrological table is Julian's work and that the paragraphs devoted to building laws which follow it derive from a different source.