, architect and engineer, active in the 1st century BC. He is best known as the author of the multi-volume work De Architectura
("On Architecture").
By his own description Vitruvius served as a ballista
(artilleryman), the third class of arms in the military offices. He likely served as chief of the ballista (senior officer of artillery) in charge of doctores ballistarum (artillery experts) and libratores who actually operated the machines.
A harmonious design requires that nothing be added or taken away.
Architects should be educated, skillful with the pencil, instructed in geometry, know much history, have followed the philosophers with attention, understand music, have some knowledge of medicine, know the opinions of the jurists, and be acquainted with astronomy and the theory of the heavens.
Building well has three conditions: firmness, commodity, and delight.
Pictures should not be given approbation which are not likenesses of reality; even if they are refined creations executed with artistic skill.
Such as possess the gifts of fortune are easily deprived of them: but when learning is once fixed in the mind, no age removes it, nor is its stability affected during the whole course of life.