THE MEASURES, WEIGHTS, AND MONEYS OF THE GREEKS AND ROMAN S. THE metrological systems of the Greeks and Ro- the Greek ñxus. It is sometimes improperly conmans, and the methods pursued in the determination founded with Ulna. Uina is the Greek όργυια ("dicof their standards, have been regarded with interest ta ulna àñò tŵv whévwv, id est a brachiis; proprie est by those curious in antiquarian researches. While spatium in quantum utraque extenditur manus."-Serthe relations of the various parts of each system have vius ad Virg., Ecl., 3, 105.) Pes sestertius=24 ped. been satisfactorily ascertained, the values which have is rendered by Boëthius and Frontinus gradus or been assigned to their units, whether of length, capa-"step," a term, however, not found in any classical city, or weight, when referred to those of modern writer. Passus ("a passis pedibus") was a pace, equal times, exhibit considerable discrepance. This may not to five pedes. Decempeda or Pertica (modern Perch) excite surprise when it is considered that these values was employed in measuring roads, buildings, land, &c. have been deduced from observations, made with differ- Actus is the length of a furrow, or the distance a plough ent degrees of nicety, upon models possessing conflict- is sped before it turns, and corresponds to our Furlong: ing claims to perfection. A learned professor of Stut- it equalled 120 ped. The Itinerary unit, by which the gard* has reviewed the labours of his predecessors in Romans assigned the length of their own roads, was these inquiries with masterly skill, and has imparted milliare (mille passuum)=5000 ped.; that by which to his investigations a precision which entitles them to they expressed the valuation of maritime distance, or reliance. His results have been adopted, and his mode that between places situated in Greece, was the stadi of procedure exhibited in the following pages. In um=125 passus=725 ped.; and that employed in conformity with his plan, and for the reason that we measuring the roads of the Gauls was the leuca or possess more numerous specimens of the Roman leuga (whence our League is derived, though more than standards than of those of the Greeks, which furnish double in value)=1 milliaria. more accurate data for the estimate of both, the former will be first treated of. 1. ROMAN MEASURES OF LENGTH. The Romans, like other nations of antiquity, derived their measures of length from the different members of the human body, the unit of which was the foot. Their Pes was divided both into 12 uncia and 16 digiti. The first division, by which it was recognised as the As or unit, and its parts expressed by unciæ, was generally adopted. Thus, when authors make mention of pes uncialis, they understand the 12 of pes; thus, also, pes dodrantalis means, bessalis, quincunqualis,trientalis }, quadrantalis, and semiuncialis of pes. The second division, into 16 digiti, is the more natural, and was principally used by architects and land surveyors; and, though it latterly came into more general use, is seldom found in the specimens of the pes, unaccompanied by the first. Palmus, the palm, or the width of the hand, is the rahator of the Greeks, and was invariably received by the Romans as the fourth of pes; but St. Jerome, in his comments on Ezechiel (cap. 40), has assumed it as the three fourths, by which admeasurement it nearly answers to the Greek oraμn, and the modern Italian Palm. Cubitus is sesquipes or 1 pedes, and is seldom met with except when it is used in translating * J. F. Wurm. His determinations are given in the old French measures, weights, &c., and have been reduced to the English and American standards by a comparison of the "Manual des Poids et Mesures" of M. Tarbè, and Mr. Hassler's able report to the Treasury Department in 1832. Other works have been consulted, of which may be mentioned those of Greaves, Hooper, and Arbuthnot, the papers of Raper in the Philosophi cal Transactions of the Royal Society of London for the years 1760 and 1771, and the profound report of President Adams to the Senate of the United States in 1821. † See the section on Roman Weights. Actus § 2. ROMAN MEASURES OF EXTENT. The unit of extent was Jugerum (nearly of our acre), which was also distributed into uncia: Columella describes it as being 240 pedes in length and 120 in breadth=28,800 pedes quadrati; and, consequently, uncia=2400, Siciliquus 600, Sextula=400, and Scrupulum=100 ped. quad.; which last is evidently a decempeda quadrata. These were used by surveyors; but those more commonly mentioned by Heredium, Centuria, and Saltus. Clima is a square writers on husbandry were Clima, Actus, Jugerum, whose side is 60 ped. (Columella, 5, 1.) quadratus ("in quo boves agerentur cum aratro, cum impetu justo."-Plin., 18, 3) is thus explained by Columella: "Actus quadratus undique finitur pedibus 120, et hoc duplicatum facit jugerum, et ab eo, quod erat junctum, nomen jugeri usurpavit." (Colum., 1. c.) Actus minimus or simplex was 120 ped. in length and four in breadth. Varro (R. R., 1, 10) thus describes the Heredium, Centuria, and Saltus: "Bina Jugera, quæ a Romulo primum divisa dicebantur viritim, quod heredem sequerentur, heredium appellarunt. Heredia centum centuria dicta. He porro quatuor centuria conjunctæ, ut sint in utramque partem bine, appellatur in agris viritim divisis publice saltus." Versus 10,000 ped. quad. answers to the Greek π20 pov. 3. ROMAN MEASURES OF CAPACITY. 1. For liquids. The standard measure of capacity was the Quadrantal or Amphora (derived from the Greek áudopeus), being a cubic vessel each of whose sides was a Roman foot; and, according to an old decree of the people preserved by Festus, it contained 80 libra (Roman pounds) of wine. Columella fre quently makes cadus synonymous with it, and by the | found it .972 feet, which measurement, however accu Greeks it was called κεράμιον, ἀμφορεύς, and μετρητὴς Traλikós. The greatest liquid measure was the Culeus or Culleus 20 amphora. The divisions of the amphoræ are easily inferred from the plebiscitum just mentioned, and from the following passage of Volusius Mæcianus: "Quadrantal, quod, nunc plerique amphoram vocant, habet urnas 2, modios 3, semimodios 6, congios 8, sextarios 48, heminas 96, quartarios 192, cyathos 576." The Urna was so called, according to Varro, "ab urinando, quod in aquá hauriendá, urinat, hoc est mergitur, ut urinator." Congius was the cube of half a pes; one of Vespasian's is still extant, marked with the letters P. X., which denote pondo decem, ten being the number of pounds it contained by law. Congii of wine or oil were given to the people by the emperors and chief magistrates on holydays, which gifts were hence called congiarii, and persons frequently derived surnames from the number of congii of wine they were in the habit of drinking at a draught; hence Cicero's son was called Bicongius, and Novellus Torquatus, a Milanese, Tricongius. (Plin., 14, 22.) rately it may have been determined, can now be of little use, inasmuch as the present standard foot in greater than that employed by him, by an excess not easily ascertained, though it has been estimated by Raper at, which, applied as a correction, would give the Statilian foot .970056 ft. Auzout, according to Raper, found it .96996 ft., and Revillas .96979 ft. The mean value of the Statilian foot deduced from these observations is then 11.639224 inch.-2. The Cossutian foot was found on the tombstone of Cn. Cossutius (probably the same with a celebrated architect mentioned by Vitruvius), and dug up about the same time with the Statilian, in the gardens of Angelo Colozzi, from whom it has taken the name of Colotian; the divisions are scarcely perceptible; Greaves found it .967 ft., which, corrected, is .965066 ft.-3. The Ebutian foot was discovered on the monument of M. butius, in the Villa Mattæi; it is but rudely divided into palmi, and its mean length is 11.6483 inch. —4. The Capponian foot was found on a marble without inscription in the Via Aurelia, and presented by the Marquis Capponi to the Capitoline Museum, where it is preserved with the three others. Revillas found it 11.625 inch. The value of the pes, if considered as the mean of these four feet, is 11.623326 inch. Sextarius was of the congius 2 hemina 4 quartarii 12 cyathi; hence the sextarius, from the fact of its containing 12 cyathi, was regarded as the as or unit of liquid measures, and its uncia or cyathi were denominated, according to their numbers, sextans, (b) From the foot-rules we might expect to derive a quadrans, &c. It may be remarked that the ancients, result more worthy of reliance, since they were conat their entertainments, were in the habit of drinking structed for the direct purpose of measurement, those as many cyathi as there were letters in the names of on the marble being probably intended to explain the their mistresses. (Martial, Epig., 9, 93; 1, 72.) profession of the individuals to whose memory they There were two kinds of sextarii, the castrensis and were erected. The foot-rules were bars of iron or urbicus, the former being double of the latter, or com- brass, of the length of a pes. Those most celebrated mon sextarius. Acetabulum was half the quartarius, are the three discovered by Patus, equal in length, of and was so called, in imitation of the Greeks (to whose which a model, cut in marble, was placed by him in bubadov it corresponded), from acetum, since it was the Capitol, whence the foot has been styled the Capfirst used for holding sauce for meat. Ligula or lin-itoline, and has been generally considered as the true gula at first simply signified a spoon, but was afterward regarded by the Latin physicians as a fourth of the cyathus; Pliny and Columella make cochlear or cochleare synonymous with it. 2. For things dry. The unit of this measure was the modius, which contained two semimodii, and was of the amphora, as is apparent from the passage of Volusius Mæcianus above quoted. The remaining measures, sextarius, hemina, &c., bear the same relation to the amphora in the dry as in the liquid measure, Roman foot. From the numerous measurements it has undergone, it has sensibly increased, so that its value must be assumed=128.695 Par. lin., its origi nal determination by Pœtus, reduced to the French standard by Wurm. Now the Paris line being (according to the mean value of the toises of Canivet and Lenoir, as given by Mr. Hassler) equal to .007401829 English feet, the Capitoline foot equalled.95258 feet. Besides the Pætian, other foot-rules remain, not, however, celebrated; their values are mostly between .967 and .97 ft. (c) The distances between the milestones might furnish a correct determination of the Roman foot, were it not that none are now standing within 30 miles of Rome, and, therefore, none to be much relied on as having been originally measured off with accuracy. Bianchinus, however, a celebrated Italian philosopher and mathematician of the 17th century, from the distances of the milestones on the Appian road, deduced the Roman foot-130.6 Par. lin. 11.60015 inch. 4. DETERMINATION OF THE ROMAN MEASURES. The measures of Length, Extent, and Capacity are so intimately connected that the determination of their values will easily be deduced from that of the pes. Various measurements have been made, and various modes of investigation been pursued, for the purpose of assigning the value of the Roman foot, which, from the imperfection of instruments, the want of accuracy of observation, and of attention paid to the degree of injury which the specimens examined may have suffered, differ considerably in their results. We shall give a brief account of most of these observations, and, as far as possible, assign to each its proper degree of credence. All that has served as a means of calculating the value of the Roman foot may be arranged un-reckoned from the market-places or from the gates; der the following classes: (a) Specimens of the pes found on tombstones. (b) Foot-rules. (c) Milestones. (d) Distances of places. (e) Congii. (f) Dimensions of ancient buildings at Rome. (d) The measures of the public roads recorded in the Itinerary of Antoninus and in the Peutinger Table, can be of little assistance in our inquiry, since those records not only omit fractions, which must have existed, but are frequently at variance with each other. Besides, it is not known whether the distances are and an error of half a mile in sixty, being equivalent to an error of the tenth part of an inch in a foot, no exact value of the Roman foot could be hence derived, even though the mensurations of Cassini, Riccioli, and others were totally unexceptionable. (a) There remain four celebrated specimens of the Roman foot represented on tombstones, which have (e) In the description of the measures of capacity, been respectively named the Statilian, Cossutian, Æbu- it was stated that the congius, in accordance with a tian, and Capponian feet. 1. The Statilian foot was plebiscitum (the Silian law), contained ten Roman discovered in the 16th century in the Vatican Gar-pounds of wine or water. By the determination of dens at Rome, on the tombstone of a certain Statilius: the libra, which is given in section v., the congius though in a state of good preservation, it is of clumsy weighed 50495.3064 grs.; now as a cubic inch of workmanship, and carelessly subdivided. Greaves distilled water, at maximum density, weighs 252.632 |