Talk:Ancient Roman units of measurement

Why no Stadium unit of length?

Pliny talks of a stadium in Book II and calls it 625 feet. Why is there mention of this unit here? the table on lengths correctly lists the STADIA at 625 roman pes or feet somehow the length is calculate incorrectly according to your table the Roman foot is 296 mm (Berriman gives 296.3 mm) in any case 625 x 0.296 is 185 meters and not 190.5 as shown Also the Parthenon according to Nicholas Kollerstrom, Ph.D. is supposed to be 100 attic feet or 30.897 meters wide therefore the attic stadia of 600 attic feet would equal 185.382 meters if both the attic and roman stadia are equal then the roman foot = 296.66 mm in any case 190.5 meters is WRONG Roland Boucher rolandfly@sbcglobal.net

The 190.5 measure would be compatible with an Olympic stadion, a special unit used for foot races.

Measured fields define the property of landowners from the Sumerians onward. Property tends to be defined by contract and international treaty so its been stable and international for the last 4,000 years.

The Greek root stadios means 'to have standing'(as a landowner). Early on Stadions are used to measure the sides of fields and are related to both body measures such as feet and agricultural measures such as yards and paces. 600 Greek feet or pous of 308.5 mm are the same as 625 Roman feet or pes of 296 mm. In England up until the time of Queen Elizabeth the Roman units were the standard. There are 600 to a degree of 111 km. For the Persians a degree of 111km was divided into 500 stadia of 222 Remen. In Egypt horses were used for warfare from the time of the Hyksos but fields continued to be plowed with oxen until the time of the Romans. Once fields were plowed with horses the half acre khet of 100 Royal cubits to a side or acre setat of 2 khet became a combination of three fields 300 royal cubits by 100 royal cubits with one left fallow. 300 royal cubits of 525 mm measured 157.5 mm, the Egyptian minute of march with 700 minutes of march being 110.25 km.

Whether we are talking 4800 Greek pous or 5000 Roman pes or English Fote to a Myle the measure is 8 stadions or stadiums or furlongs until Queen Elizabeth changes the length of a furlong from 625 to 660 English feet making a mile of 5280 feet such that there were twice as many seconds in a century as there were inches in the circumference of the Earths Great Circle.

The Sumerians measured in hands of 100 mm such that there were 300 mm in a foot, 500 mm in a cubit, 600 mm in a great cubit and 1000mm in a double cubit or nibu. The Egyptians and Romans measured in palms, the Greeks and Persians used hands. The foot measure of three hands (fifteen fingers) or four palms (16 fingers) was nominally 300 mm though it varied from 308.4 mm to 296 mm depending on which system was chosen.

In the time of Herodotus, the standard Attic stadion used for distance measure is 600 pous of 308.4 mm equal to 185 m. so that 600 stadia equal one degree and are combined at 8 to a mia chilioi or thousand which measures the boustredon or path of yoked oxen as a distance of a thousand orguia, taken as one orguia wide which in Egypt Herodotus tells us defines an aroura or thousand of land and at 10 agros or chains equal to one nautical mile of 1850 m. (10 stadions or stadiums)

Several centuries later, Marinus and Ptolemy used 500 stadia to a degree, but their stadia were composed of 600 Remen of 370 mm and measured 222 m, so the measuRement of the degree was the same.

The same is also true for Eratosthenes, who used 700 stadia of 157.5 m or 300 Egyptian royal cubits to a degree, and for Aristotle, Posidonius, and Archimedes, whose stadia likewise measured the same degree.

1 plethron (pl. plethra) = 100 podes, a cord measure

1 stadion (pl. stadia) = 6 plethra = 600 podes ≈ 185 m

1 diaulos (pl. diauloi) = 2 stadia, only used for the Olympic footrace introduced in 724 BC

1 dolikhos = 6 or 12 diauloi. Only used for the Olympic foot race introduced in 720 BC

1 parasanges = 30 stadia ≈ 5.5 km. Persian measure used by Xenophon, for instance

1 skhoinos (pl. skhoinoi, lit. "reefs") = 60 stadia ≈ 11.1 km (usually), based on Egyptian river measure iter or atur

1 stathmos = 25 km, one day's journey, 320,000 palms

75 Greek (thousands of orquia) mia chilios or Roman (thousands of paces) miliare = 111 km = 1 degree of the Earths Great Circle

12.187.95.244 (talk) 15:08, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Pes quadratus is volume, not area

There is an error in the article: it says that pes quadratus is a measure of area (square foot). In fact, the names are as follows: pes = foot (length), pes constratus = square foot (area), pes quadratus = cubic foot (volume). Pliny says pes quadratus to be equal to three modii, which makes about 26 liters, i.e. a quadrantal. 212.87.13.78 (talk) 09:04, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

If you can cite a reliable (modern) source for this, please do. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 09:53, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Dictionaries suggest quadratus means "square" and constratus means "thatched". That doesn't really match with the meanings you ascribe. I second the previous comment, that reliable sources are required.

{"A collection of voyages and travels"]Awnsham Churchill, ‎John Churchill, ‎John Locke - 1744 "pes porreftus; next, pes conslratas, or as "' Agricola reads it, contraflus; and lastly, pes quadratus. The first was the measure of longitudes, the other two of superfices. Frontinus, In pedes corralo semipedes duo,(two Roman feet, the square of the semipes)in pedes constrato semipedes quator (was the square of the Roman foot thus its perimeter measured four pes), in pedes quadrato oile similarly. Its area. 12.187.94.209 (talk) 11:36, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

As I read it, this means that pes quadratus is a measure of "superficies", i.e., area. Rwflammang (talk) 16:56, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Anyone cared to see Pliny? -89.65.254.38 (talk) 17:56, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

I always care to see Pliny. Any particular part of Pliny I should look at? Rwflammang (talk) 00:46, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

I do not know about Pliny, but here is what Balbus gromaticus seems to say about it (Expositio et Ratio Omnium Formarum, 96.8, 96.10, 96.13): Pes prostratus sic obseruabitur: ducis longitudinem per latitudinem, facit embadon (i.e. aream). Pes quadratus sic obseruabitur: longitudinem per latitudinem metiemur, deinde per crassitudinem: et sic efficit pedes solidos. Pes quadratus concauus capit amforam trimodiam.

So, according to this, pes prostratus is the square foot and pes quadratus is the cubic foot. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.205.167.254 (talk) 12:06, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, clearly Balbus, whoever he was, used pes quadratus to mean a cubic foot. This source mentions also Frontinus as using quadratus to mean "cubed". It also mentions constratus as meaning square in some cases. However, the dictionaries seem unanimous in defining pes quadratus as square foot, so it is not correct to say that it is an "error" to say pes quadratus means square foot. Some mention should be made that it can sometimes mean a unit of volume. Rwflammang (talk) 01:07, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

If Balbus the surveyor is not enough, here is Festus (258): "Quadrantal vocabant antiqui, quam ex Graeco amphoram dicunt, quod vas pedis quadrati octo et XL capit sextarios" (nb. what do you think, why this unit is named quadrantal?) Not enough? Cicero ND 1.24: "at mihi (sc. forma) vel cylindri vel quadrati vel coni vel pyramidis videtur esse formosior". The dictionaries quote this under quadratum/quadratus (OLD, p. 1530) and under constratus we find Balbus again: "Planum est quod Graeci epipedon appellant, nos constratos pedes" (OLD, p. 421). It is true that Columella, Vitruvius and many others use pes quadratus in the meaning of "square foot", but not taking into account that it apparently also means cubic foot, and that then the square foot is named pes constratus/prostratus, is clearly an error. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.205.167.254 (talk) 10:57, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Mile

See Talk:Mile. The common name is clearly mille passus (preferred by Caesar & Cicero as well as English), with mille passuum (Livy) a distant second. There were 3 "sources" for mille passuum, but none were scholarly treatments of units. Instead, they were simply popular accounts repeating what they saw in places like Wikipedia. — LlywelynII 02:58, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Your reference is a google search. Clearly, google is not an authoritative source for Latin usage, and google searches are not representative samples. We should get a real source. Rwflammang (talk) 15:43, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

See here for a reliable source. Mille passuum and mille passus are both simply Latin phrases meaning "a thousand paces". Both forms are found in classical literature. In the plural, "thousands of paces" or "miles", only the partitive form is used, milia passuum.

I have no objection to writing mille passus in the article, but clearly we would also need to point out that the plural is irregular and that it is milia passuum.Rwflammang (talk) 17:14, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

The normal rule is that mille (the singular) works (syntax-wise) like an adjective, hence mille passus; and that milia (the plural) works as a substantive, hence milia passuum. It is no surprise that even Romans find this confusing sometimes, but statistically mille passus prevails over mille passuum, and it is also considered correct by the grammarians, so it should be preferred. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.205.167.254 (talk) 20:02, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Pompous ass isn't a very appealing or effective tone to strike when failing reading comprehension quite so thoroughly. Google searches are sources for usage and specific sources were given with the original post. It wasn't a question of whether one (mis)spelling is attested but which one was more common, regarding which your "source" had nothing to contribute at all. Plural forms (especially Latin plural forms) can be left to Wiktionary entries (WP:NOTADICTIONARY) so there's nothing "clear" about needing to decline the term here at all. That said, I do support the idea given that it's irregular in spite of your difficulty with general civility. — LlywelynII 22:20, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

The 1850s were a while ago

and ancient metrology is dependent upon verifying and contrasting literary sources with field work. Even if Smith has held up over time, we should still source the estimated values to more up-to-date scholarship alongside him. — LlywelynII 22:23, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Era

I suggest we change the WP:Era used on this article to CE/BCE from the Christian based Anno Domini system since this is an article on Roman subject matter. The change was made previously, and could easily be simply reverted back, but seeking consensus here first. TY — Moops ^⋠T⋡ 14:05, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Good luck with that. Since most attempts to overturn the established era in articles are to remove CE in favour of AD, I have to affirm MOS:ERA and reluctantly oppose this proposal unless you can provide evidence that one system or other was used for most of the article's existence. It doesn't help that, when first created, the article used the Christian notation (see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ancient_Roman_units_of_measurement&oldid=19974465). --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 15:25, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Are you saying that you prefer the AD system? It seems to be far less used on wikipedia than CE/BCE. Which to me, is the better, more neutral system anyway (CE/BCE that is). I wish it was used across the entire encyclopedia, but I'll take it where we can. TY — Moops ^⋠T⋡ 17:02, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

No, I prefer CE and use it in any article I create (where relevant). But my experience has been that there are far more cases of religious zealots trying to change CE to AD. So consistently holding to MOS:ERA creates a line in the sand but it cuts both ways. Yes I think Wikipedia editors are more likely to use CE than than is typical outside professional or academic contexts but there is certainly no discernible favourable trend towards wider adoption. It has become another trench line in the culture wars. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:11, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Nah, there are far more young Americans trying to change AD to CE, because that's what their teacher told them to use. Johnbod (talk) 05:15, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

You have been around here long enough that opinionated assertions like that are contrary to WP:NOTFORUM and do nothing to improve the article. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 15:36, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Phoeey - you made (not for the first time) some very opinionated assertions, & I replied on a factual point. We both made speculations as to the motivation of editors changing the ERA, which might not be correct in every case. So far, so normal for WP talk. You then, entirely outrageously, just removed my comment (while of course leaving your own). You have been around here long enough to know that is not acceptable. Johnbod (talk) 15:57, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

It seems to be far less used on wikipedia than CE/BC surprises me. Every article linked from this one about a Roman person, war or building uses BC/AD, so far as I can tell by hovering over the links. MOS:ERA is a truce which saves us from attempts by people who feel strongly (see WT:MOSNUM#Article titles for years: BC/AD or BCE/CE for recent examples of those strong feelings) to obliterate the other usage. Can you say, as MOS:ERA puts it, what reasons specific to its content you have for changing the style of this article? NebY (talk) 18:18, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes, in particular, Roman topics are predominately BC/AD, and attempts to change them fail. I wouldn't bother trying. You realize that outside America very many people don't know what CE dates mean? Oppose Johnbod (talk) 05:15, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Grano (sing.) / Grana (pl.)

Is there a reason the unit "grano" (pl. "grana") isn't included in the "Subdivisions of the uncia" table? In several sources on this topic, grana are said to have weighed 1/4 of 1 siliqua SteGenevieve (talk) 18:50, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

We'd need those sources. Checking Latin-English dictionaries, neither Lewis and Short[1] nor Smith mention the granum (I think grano is Italian) as a unit of weight, only as being a seed or grain. NebY (talk) 18:54, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

From the chapter "Roman Weights and Measurements in Glarean’s Liber de Asse et Partibus" (by German mathematician and historian of science and technology Menso Folkerts) in _Heinrich Glarean’s Books_ (2013 Cambridge University Press):

"The long chapter 4 (‘De unciae partibus’) is concerned with the parts of the uncia, the smallest of which is a granum (¼ 1/576 uncia). The Romans had names for fourteen parts of the uncia, and Glarean deals with the meaning of every one, its symbol, its quantitative relationship to other parts and sometimes also to coins which were in use in his time. In this context he quotes classical sources."

I don't have access to Glarean's actual work, so I don't know which classical sources he quotes. I can try to obtain this, if it would help. Additionally, we could search online coropora of classical Roman texts (rather, copies thereof, since no original MSS remain) for "granum" used for a unit of measurement.

And you're correct that "granum" is the singular of Latin "grana," not "grano." (I had just edited an article on Italian units of measurement and my brain was still occupied with that language.) SteGenevieve (talk) 16:48, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

pes monetalis / pes drusianus

For a very long time (literally hundreds of years) the historians seemed to agree that the contemporary sources clearly declared two different units of length, pes monetalis and pes drusianus, corresponding to the two primary standards that were kept in different places within the empire. Somehow our article does not mention this, and the newer high-quality sources are mum on the subject. It is pretty easy to add text, based for example, on Duncan-Jones, R. P. (1980). "Length-Units in Roman Town Planning: The Pes Monetalis and the Pes Drusianus". Britannia. 11: 127. doi:10.2307/525675., but should I? Our article based on reasonably recent sources declares a single pes value accurate to three digits (296 mm). Is it another case of Britannica oversimplifying or did the consensus indeed change? Викидим (talk) 07:31, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Interesting. That Duncan-Jones article tells us that the pes Drusianus is only attested for Lower Germany and finds "considerable uncertainty" regarding conjectures that its use can be detected in Britain, with some claimed instances more likely to be the standard pes and others indecisive. It doesn't suggest the Drusian was widespread. Still, if there are reliable sources that a primary standard existed for even the pes monetalis alone, it would be worth mentioning that in the article. Britannia, by the way, is a scholarly journal with no relationship to the Encyclopedia Brittanica. NebY (talk) 19:12, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Britannia, by the way, is a scholarly journal with no relationship to the Encyclopedia Brittanica - yes, of course. I was talking about a cite in our article that points to the The Britannica Guide to Numbers and Measurement as a source for the 296 mm claim. Duncan-Jones is not alone, BTW. It is easy to find a myriad high-quality research papers that discuss the two. However, there is very little published post-1980s (few books, but the ones I found were less reliable). So either the matter is of p.M. and p.D. was considered settled by that time (a common situation in the classical studies), or it was debunked. We should expand our article in either case, IMHO (a separate article on the pes will be even better), but the wording, naturally, has to be very different. Викидим (talk) 20:18, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Re Brittania/Brittanica - ah good! I've added a little to the text and to the notes column of the table of principal Roman units of length, with further footnote and refs. I find the pes Drusianus is already in our Foot (unit)#Historical origin; I've edited that slightly per Duncan-Jones, citing that article. NebY (talk) 16:16, 29 January 2024 (UTC)