Person: Pollio, Marcus Vitruvius

Marcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Roman who wrote an influential early work on Architecture.

Even his name is in doubt with only Vitruvius being certain.
The Romans were building a city there in Vitruvius's time.
After Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, Vitruvius joined the army of Octavian (later the Emperor Augustus), as a military engineer.
His most famous (and only known) work is the ten volumes of On Architecture which we know was written near the end of Vitruvius's life.
The second comment must be that, for Vitruvius, architecture had a much wider scope than we would consider today.
For example water clocks, sundials and pumps are all described by Vitruvius, topics which would hardly be considered to be part of the study of architecture today.
Next we note Vitruvius's interest in history - this means that we are treated to information about earlier works and scientists which would otherwise have been lost.
After giving the fundamentals of architecture, Vitruvius looks at the siting of a city and city walls.
Vitruvius describes machines for lifting and transporting weights using a pulley, he gives the principle of the lever, and describes machines that convert circular to linear motion and vice-versa.

Born about 85 BC, possibly Fundi, Campania (now Italy). Died about 20 BC, Italy.

View full biography at MacTutor

Ancient Greek, Astronomy, Geometry, Origin Italy, Physics, Special Numbers And Numerals

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O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive