http://www.pointtopointsurvey.

com/blog/land-surveying-in-ancient-times-egypt-greece-androme/
The Roman Empire is another civilization noted for its land surveying prowess. The
Romans established land surveying as an official profession; land surveyors in this time
were known as agrimensores. From the first century AD, agrimensores in Rome were
known for creating perfect straight lines and right angles. These lines would be used to dig
shallow trenches, some of which are still in existence to this day. Many Roman surveying
methods were based on those used in ancient Egypt and Greece. Some surveying tools
have been uncovered at the site of Pompeii, covered in ash in the year 79 AD. Although
ancient maps and land surveys were much less accurate than todays, it is quite
impressive that they were created without the use of GPS and other sophisticated
technologies.
The Roman Surveyors
The Roman surveyors were highly skilled professionals, able to use a number of tools,
instruments, and techniques to plan the courses for roads and aqueducts, and lay the
groundwork for towns, forts and large buildings. We half-jokingly talk about the Romans
and their straight roads, but that throwaway statement is not far away from the truth.
The Romans preferred to build straight roads wherever possible and relied upon their
surveyors to chart the route of their great highways. In most cases, the military would be
responsible for plotting the route of new roads, but civil surveyors were used to survey
courses for aqueducts, settle boundary disputes, and prepare the groundwork for
buildings. To help in their task, they used a number of instruments, most borrowed from
earlier culture but refined and improved by the Romans. With these simple tools and a
good knowledge of geometry, they managed to plot complex courses for roads and
aqueducts, their skill so great that they could design huge aqueducts with a gradient of
less than 1 in 400.

http://www.pontuali.com/marco/en/blog/381-news/260-surveying-and-engineering-inancient-rome.html
Roman monuments stand to this day as a testament to the greatness of Roman society.
Some of the most distinctive monuments are the roads and aqueducts. These structures
are impressive in their design and functionality, some of which can still be used today.
These monuments also stand as a testament to those who built them. The surveyors of
Rome played an essential role in the construction of the roads and the aqueducts, and
developed many of the fundamental principles of surveying and construction.
The first step in understanding the methods of surveying in ancient Rome is to become
familiar with the terminology, definitions, and units of measure that were used at the time.

Although surveying is one of the oldest professions, land surveyors of ancient Rome, the
agrimensores, worked in a time of early techniques in land development. Land division
was often undertaken in order to provide a place to live for veterans of the Roman army.
These settlements were known as colonia.
One prominent way to developing land into tracts was known as limitatio. This technique
involved creating a grid system of limities -- paths whose used varied. These limities were
indexed by a set of master orthogonal axes, the kardo maximus (KM), and the decumanus
maximus (DM); the latter was typically depicted vertically on a map, or forma.
In recording the surveys, the forma was oriented based on calls that let the agrimensore
know where he was in relation to the intersection, also known as a tetrans, of the kardo
maximus and the decumanus maximus. The calls were as simple as: "above or below the
KM, ultra kardinem and citra kardenem, respectively, and to the left or to the right of the
DM, sinistra decumani and dextra decumani, respectively." These calls were marked in
the field with termini that were essentially stone property corners.
With the forma and termini, the agrimensore had a rough way to orient himself within the
colonia. Another simple way for the agrimensore to orient himself was the indexed limities,
the limes quintarius. These were typically every fifth limes, the more commonly used
paths, or possibly ditches known as novercae. Tracts, or centuries, were demarked by
boundaries known as fines. This process of dividing the land, known as deductio, was
simply the act of colonization.
Along with the agrimensore, there was another individual known as the mensore, or
measurer. It was the mensore's job to aid the agrimensore in the division of the land.
Land, to the Romans, was known as ager. Ager within the territorium, land under the
control of a Roman city, was generally classified as ager arcifinius, unsurveyed land, or
ager publicus, public land.
The Romans developed forms of measurement to account for length and area. These
units were simple and could be measured by a mensore without any form of measuring
device. For example, the digitus, about 18.5 mm, was taken as the width of a finger. The
minor palmus was nothing more than the width of the palm, or four digitus. The cubit, or
cubitus, was the distance from the end of the fingers to the elbow, roughly 1.5 feet or 24
digitus.
To measure longer distances, the feet of the mensore were used. A pes was the length of
their foot. The pace, or passus, was a distance of roughly five feet. An actus was
considered 24 passi and astadium was 125 passus. For longer distances the mille passus
or mille passus, meaning 1000 passus (also 625 stadia) was used.
An actus, or 24 passus, was used as a common length and width in area demarcation.
One square actus was equivalent to 14,400 pes. Other terms for areas included the
iugerum, two square actus, theheredium, which equated to two iugerum, and the centuria,
which was equal to 100 heredia. Interestingly enough, if the agrimensore found an error in

an older survey which resulted in a gap, this land was deemed subsecivum, or
unallocated, and was left alone.
The following is a brief synopsis of Roman numerals:
I=1

V=5

X = 10

L = 50

C = 100

D = 500

M = 1000

Upon examination, two things stand out. First there was no concept of numbers smaller
than one. Precision and accuracy are apparent in Roman work, but there was no need for
the type of accuracy common to modern surveying.
The other accommodation not made with this numbering system is that 1000 is the
maximum number. There apparently was no consideration made for numerical values
exceeding this amount, yet another aspect of modern surveying not seen here.
All in all, the system of numbers and measurement was simple, but efficient, as
demonstrated by some of the Roman structures that still stand today.
Essential to every engineering project, presently as well as in ancient times, was the
need for consistency and precision in measuring. The use of measuring equipment
assisted the surveyors in this endeavor and was essential in the Romans' ability to build on
a grand scale. Some methods were less precise than others, ranging from the use of
pacing and ropes to standardized rods. The Romans also had several devices at their
disposal that utilized the fundamental principals of surveying.
Temples, town grids and land boundaries needed to be laid out by Roman surveyors.
These needed to be set in a particular orientation. The Romans used celestial bodies to
establish an approximate North/South line. The sun was the most common star used, by
observing the shadow of a vertical gnomon and marking the points where it appeared to
be the longest.
Relatively small set squares were also used by Roman surveyors. These squares could
be laid on the ground and by extending the cords from the stakes could be placed. Once a
rectangle was formed, the resulting diagonal distances could be compared against each
other to check for squareness.
The surveyors recorded their field measurements on wax tablets or papyrus. The
abacus may have been used to do complex mathematical calculations. The properties of
the 3, 4 and 5 triangle were well known and multiples could be tied in a rope or cord for
laying out right angles.

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SURVEYING IN ANCIENT GREECE
There is no doubt that the first renowned Grecian mathematicians, Thales and Pythagoras,
went to Egypt as well as Babylon in a quest to learn from the reputed practical exponents
of mathematical applications through which these long established ancient civilizations had
founded their calculating prowess.
However, it was also recorded by the first historians, Herodotus (c. 450 B.C.) and Strabo
(c. 24 B.C.) that the Greeks adapted many of the Egyptian calculation and surveying
techniques, modifying and developing them with their own sophisticated advancements
into a very refined system, The Greek surveying was in turn inherited and further
progressed to an even greater level of accomplishment by the Romans, whose procedures
were well recorded in such publications as the Corpus Agrimensorum, and whose
equipment and individuals were well recovered from the legendary site of Pompeii frozen
in time in the year 79 A.D. on the 27th August.