When it passes towards the east, the sun begins to have less effect upon it, and a thin line on the edge of its bright side emits its splendour towards the earth.

Nothing requires the architect's care more than the due proportions of buildings.

In Sparta, paintings have been taken out of certain walls by cutting through the bricks, then have been placed in wooden frames, and so brought to the Comitium to adorn the aedileship of [C. Visellius] Varro and [C. Licinius] Murena.

It is no secret that the moon has no light of her own, but is, as it were, a mirror, receiving brightness from the influence of the sun.

From prescription, in the case of hypaethral edifices, open to the sky, in honor of Jupiter Lightning, the Heaven, the Sun, or the Moon: for these are gods whose semblances and manifestations we behold before our very eyes in the sky when it is cloudless and bright.

Trees which grow in places facing the course of the sun are not of porous fiber but are solid, being drained by the dryness... The trees in sunny neighborhoods, therefore, being solidified by the compact texture of their fiber, and not being porous from moisture, are very useful, so far as durability goes, when they are hewn into timber. The lowland firs, being conveyed from sunny places, are better than those highland firs, which are brought here from shady places.

For siege works against bold and venturesome men should be constructed on one plan, on another against cautious men, and on still another against the cowardly.