JU´GERUM
JU´GERUM or
JUGUS (the latter form,
as a neuter noun of the third declension, is common in the oblique cases and
in the plural), a Roman measure of surface, 240 feet in length and 120 in
breadth, containing therefore 28,800 square feet (Varr.
R. R.
1.10;
L. L. 5.35 M. ; Colum.
R. R. 5.1.6;
Plin. Nat. 18.9, cf. § 178;
Quint. Inst. 1.10.42; Isid.
Orig. 15.15). It was the double of the
Actus Quadratus, and from this circumstance, according to
Varro and Columella, it derived its name (as if from
junctus). The word is really, however, a by-form of
jugum; and Pliny's etymology is far preferable:
“quod uno jugo boum in die exarari posset.” The jugerum was
not, like the
ACTUS a measure of
length as well as of surface; the contrary notion rests only on a single
passage of Pliny, who describes the vale of Tempe as
ferme sesquijugeri latitudine (
H. N. 4.31). He
is here, no doubt, translating from a Greek source, and uses
jugerum loosely as the equivalent of
πλέθρον (Hultsch,
Metrol. p. 64
n.). The uncial division [As] was applied to the jugerum, its smallest part
being the scrupulum of 10 feet square = 100 square feet. Thus the jugerum
contained 288
scrupula (Varr.
R. R.
l.c.). The jugerum was the common measure of land among the Romans. Two
jugera formed a
heredium, a hundred
heredia a
centuria, and
four
centuriae a
saltus. Two jugera were the traditional amount of land given to
each citizen in old times as heritable property (Varr.
l.c.; Niebuhr,
Hist. of Rome, 2.156 if., and
Appendix i.). The jugerum was a little over 2 roods 19 perches, or almost
5/8 of an English acre; see the Tables. (Cf. Hultsch,
Metrol.
p. 69; Mommsen,
R. H. 1.195=1.162, tr. Dickson; Rudorff,
Gromat. Inst. p. 280.)
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