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ℹ️ The Chinese and English alongside are this site's own translation, made directly from the original text on this page (not the CUV or the WEB, which follow the Masoretic Text and a different textual tradition).
But to the land-surveyor a dispute over boundaries that has arisen is entrusted, that the insolence of quarrels may be cut off. He is, at any rate, a judge of his own art; his forum are the deserted fields. You would think him possessed when you behold him walking along tortuous paths. For he seeks the tokens of things among rough woods and thickets; he does not walk by the common road; his road is his own reading; he shows what he says, he proves what he has learned; by his steps he discerns the rights of the contending parties, and, after the manner of a vast river, takes away spaces from some and grants lands to others.
Wherefore, upheld by our authority, choose such a man, after whom the parties should blush to litigate with shameless brow, so that the rights of the proprietors may not be in confusion—men for whom it is necessary to bestow cultivation upon their own properties. From your Greatness's report we have learned that a water-diviner has come to Rome from the African regions, where that very art, by reason of the dryness of those places, is always cultivated with great zeal—one who can give plentiful waters to arid places, so that by his benefit he may make habitable lands parched by excessive sterility. Know that this has been pleasing to us, that the industry of our ancestors, set forth in books, has in our times come to be approved. For by the signs of green herbs and the tallness of trees he fittingly gathers the nearness of waters.
For in lands beneath which sweet moisture lies not far off, the fertility of certain growths always smiles forth—such as the watery rush, the light reed, the sturdy bramble, the joyful willow, the verdant poplar, and the remaining kinds of trees, which nonetheless beyond their nature luxuriate with a happy tallness. There are also other tokens of this art: when, at the coming of night, dry wool is placed on ground already inspected and left covered with an unglazed cooking-pot, then, if the nearness of water has smiled upon it, in the morning it is found damp. And when the sun has declared itself, the masters also gaze attentively at the places, and where above the ground they have beheld a thick mass of the tiniest gnats flitting about, then they promise that the gladdening thing which is sought shall be found.
They add, too, that a certain very thin smoke is seen in the form of a column, and by however great a height it has stretched up to the top, by so much do they recognize that the waters lie hidden in the depths below—so that this is marvellous, that through these and various other signs a measure is foretold, defined: at how great a depth the thing sought is shown to be. They also foretell the savours of the waters, so that neither should the bitter be sought with costly toil, nor the sweet and necessary be despised though dishonoured. This science those men handsomely handed down to their successors—among the Greeks that famous one, among the Latins Marcellus—who treated carefully not only of subterranean flows but also of the very mouth of springs.
For they say that waters which burst forth toward the east and south are sweet and clear and, by reason of their lightness, are found most healthful; but whatever waters flow toward the north and west, though they are indeed proven exceedingly cold, are unwholesome by the thickness of their heaviness. And therefore, if to that aforesaid man your Wisdom shall see, both from the reading of codices and from experience of affairs, that the things foretold hold true, you shall relieve his pilgrimage and want by suitable provisions assigned from the public store: for he shall receive his wages when he has rendered the gifts of his art.
For although the city of Rome abounds in watering streams and rejoices in springs and is most rich in the inundation of its aqueducts, yet very many suburban places are found which seem to long for this skill; and rightly is he retained who is recognized to be necessary even in part. To this man, however, a mechanic must by all means be joined, so that the waters which the one has found, the other may raise and by art make to ascend where by nature they cannot prevail to climb. Let this man too, then, be held among the masters of the other arts, lest anything desirable be thought to have existed which the Roman city could not, under our rule, contain.