Time & Perspective Quote by Marcus V. Pollio

Concision here isn’t a stylistic preference; it’s an act of civic respect. Vitruvius is writing for people he imagines as perpetually enlisted in the machinery of a republic-turned-empire: lawsuits, offices, patronage duties, household management, military obligations. In that world, time is a scarce public resource, and verbosity looks less like generosity than theft. His pledge to be brief reads as an architect’s version of good engineering: don’t waste materials, don’t waste readers.

The subtext is also political. Vitruvius is addressing elites who believe their busyness is proof of their importance. By flattering that self-image ("constant occupation") he earns the right to instruct them, smuggling technical doctrine into a form that feels like deference. Concision becomes a rhetorical bribe: I won’t ask you to slow down, only to absorb what you can between obligations. It’s a neat way to claim authority without sounding like a scold.

Context matters because Vitruvius isn’t composing private musings; he’s codifying knowledge for a state that increasingly runs on standardized expertise. Roman building was a public spectacle and a public expense. A manual that can be "read and understood" quickly isn’t just convenient, it’s a tool for control and replication: clear rules that officials, patrons, and builders can enforce across projects.

There’s an anxiety tucked inside the efficiency. If leisure is "few", then culture survives on compression. Vitruvius offers his treatise as a portable concentrate of competence, designed for a class too busy to linger, but too responsible to plead ignorance.