1. See Oksanish (2019), 94f., 144f.; Riggsby (2016).

2. Formisano (2016), 151f. and passim.

3. The body in Vitruvius has been well surveyed by McEwen (2003), who covers all of these metaphorical usages; but Oksanish (2019) has shown there is still a lot left to say on the matter.

4. Interestingly, the Vitruvian text itself has often been cast as an entity inherently lacking, e.g., it does not equip us with enough knowledge to do the job; or it is a stylistic failure (see Rowland, Howe, and Dewar [1999], 15); or it never tells us what we want it to tell us about contemporary architecture (Wallace-Hadrill [2008], 144). For the deliberate gaps in Vitruvius’ text as revealing of ‘tacit knowledge’, see Cuomo (2016).

5. Although for a compelling against-the-grain reading, taking 3.1 as a space of bodily asymmetry (rather than symmetry) leading to the full-on dismemberment to come, see Laterza (2018), 198.

6. Text here and elsewhere is from the Loeb edition (Granger [1931]), translation from Rowland, Howe, and Dewar (1999).

7. Of course the metaphor is also there to validate ‘fashioning’ as a natural and architectural process—thanks to the anonymous reviewer for clarifying that.

8. Although see Laterza (2018), 196–8, for qualification of this view.

9. On the structuring potential of this open window imagery, its importance in the construction of scientific discourse, and its meaning in the context of book 3, see Laterza (2018).

10. Cf. Oksanish (2019), 182f., and Daniel Anderson in this issue. Laterza (2018), 195, citing Rigoni (1974), 453, notes a tradition that takes Socrates as symbol of a dichotomy between interiority and exteriority, but explains the choice of Socrates more as motivated by the need to set up an opposition between two competing epistemic models.

11. On the relationship between nature and human design in Vitruvius, see Roby (2013). On the problems of identifying a true ‘man of scientia’ thrown up by this passage, see Oksanish (2019), 146f.

12. Oksanish (2019), ch. 3; and cf. Oksanish (2016)—e.g., 278, ‘Vitruvius's aim is comprehensibility, not comprehensiveness.’

13. Formisano (2016), 159.

14. Laterza (2018), 196–8.

15. The passage has long been seen as key, especially as an articulation of Vitruvius’ anti-architect: see Oksanish (2019), 148–78; Wallace-Hadrill (2008), 149; Courrént (2011), 23; Nichols (2017), 5, on Dinocrates as typical Vitruvian ‘straw man’ or, 63–5, a foil with Horatian overtones of self-aggrandizing; and for complement and complication, Formisano (2016), 156–8.

16. Formisano (2016), 157.

17. The Loeb translation ironically misses the crucial ut inde in mare profunderetur but Rowland, Howe, and Dewar (1999) remedy the omission.

18. On the echo chamber of forma here: Formisano (2016), 157; Oksanish (2019), 161.

19. Indeed Dinocrates’ plan could be seen as a perverse literalization of the classical function of techne or ars, to pull off exactly what physis/nature accomplishes on its own (thanks to the anonymous reviewer for this point).

20. For Dinocrates’ other faults here, see Oksanish (2019), 153f. In Oksanish's reading (2019), 155f., Alexander is also made to fall short of his implicit counterpart here, i.e., Augustus.

21. And seduction might be just the right metaphor here: see Oksanish (2019), 164f., on the erotic implications of Alexander being taken in by Dinocrates’ form.

22. A large part of Rome's grain supply was sourced from Egypt and came through Alexandria, the very city here mentioned. Most dating estimates put Vitruvius somewhere around 27–22 BCE (Rowland, Howe, and Dewar [1999], 3–5); Oksanish (2019), 5, positions De arch. somewhere soon after 27 (cf. Baldwin [1990]). If it came out towards the later end of the 27–22 range, it would have been synchronized perfectly with some crippling famines in Rome (in 23 and 22) and therefore launched amid a particularly hot topic of grain supply; see Geue (forthcoming).

23. On Vitruvius’ distinct emphasis on direct observation as a driver of scientific leaps, cf. Rowland, Howe, and Dewar (1999), 17.

24. Of course Vitruvius’ self-presentation here rests on a huge ‘physio-ethical’ discourse in which ugliness or defect can be rhetorically paired with stellar moral character; see Oksanish (2019), 170–5. But that move also required a fair bit of discursive work, given the ‘Thersites problem’; see Oksanish (2019), 183f.

25. This section is of course a reflection of contemporary Roman epistemic imperialism—see Nichols (2017), 25.

26. On which see Nichols (2017), 7f.; on Vitruvius’ engagement with Greek knowledge in particular, see Nichols (2017), ch. 1, and (2018); and for Vitruvius’ relationship to Greek culture in general, see Wallace-Hadrill (2008), 144–210.

27. For the moves between these metaphors in this section, cf. Nichols (2017), 35f.

28. Cf. cum ergo et parentium cura et praeceptorum doctrinis auctas copias disciplinarum, ‘When therefore I had increased my store of knowledge through both parental care and teacher instruction’, Vitr. 6.praef.4.

29. Vitruvius is likely channelling the streaming together of water metaphors and literary tradition, as well as drawing on the Roman legal universe of water rights: see the classic Volk (2010) on this convergence in the proem to Manilius book 2 (thanks to the anonymous reviewer for the hint). There is also an investment in dispelling plagiarism, common to both Vitruvius and Manilius here (Volk [2010], 192f.)—the fluid swirls of water bring up the possibility and impossibility of originality. Volk (2010), 195, argues nicely that Manilius is polemically flexing against Vitruvius by ‘repudiat-[ing] all literary tradition and insist[ing] on his own absolute originality.’

30. See book 8 and König (2016).

31. Cf. Nichols (2017), 40, ‘Roman auctores create a contemporary culture utterly reliant on the past.’ For Vitruvius’ respect for tradition, cf. Rowland, Howe, and Dewar (1999), 18.

32. The verb is crucial in Vitruvius, and almost deserves its own study. It appears programmatically of Vitruvius himself at 1.praef.3, 3.praef.1, 3.praef.3, 4.praef.1, 5.praef.3, 6.praef.6, 7.praef.11, 14, 8.praef.2, 9.praef.1—so endemic as to be a real signature move of Vitruvius’ authorial positioning in the prefaces. It is also an observational act ascribed to many third-person models throughout, e.g., early humans (2.1.1), or the inventors of the measurement system in 3.1.7f., or the architect Callimachus in 4.1.10, or Aristippus the philosopher in 6.praef.1, the judges of the poetry contest in 7.praef.6, Ptolemy himself in 7.praef.8, Archimedes in 9.praef.10, Euripides in 9.1.13, or technology forefathers in 10.praef.4. The frequency speaks for itself.

33. See Oksanish (2019), 179.

34. Cf. also Vitruvius’ language of benefit (fructuum summa, ‘total profit’) from his education in 6.praef.4f., as well as his disavowal of the wrong kind of abundantia (6.praef.5): wealth.

35. On the birth of this important myth of scientific discovery in antiquity, see Courrént (2008).

36. Cf. Oksanish (2019), 181, ‘Because of his attention to matters other than his physical self, he is able to take advantage of the opportunity that was provided by chance.’

37. On the body as ‘tool of scientific discovery rather than one for personal gain or self-aggrandizement’, see Oksanish (2019), 181, citing Jaeger (2008), 17–31.

38. And a very Roman business at that: see Wallace-Hadrill (2008), 169–89, for Vitruvius’ ideological investment in baths as markers of Roman identity (contrasted with the Greek gymnasium).

39. Oksanish (2019), ch. 5.

40. Cf. Oksanish (2019), 184.

41. On the close relationship between 6.praef. and Plato's Symposium, see McIntosh (2014).