SEXTA´RIUS
SEXTA´RIUS a Roman dry and liquid measure, which may
be considered one of the principal measures in the Roman system, and the
connecting point between it and that of the Greeks, for it was equal to the
ξέστης of the latter; and there can be
little doubt that the
ξέστης was not an
original Greek measure, but that the word was introduced into the Greek
system from the Roman, for the purpose of establishing a unit of agreement.
[
QUADRANTAL] It was
one-sixth of the
congius, and hence its name:
in the Greek system it was one-sixth of the
χοῦς. It was divided, in the same manner as the As, into parts
named
uncia, sextans, quadrans, triens, quincunx,
semissis, &c. The uncia, or twelfth part of the sextarius,
was the CYATHUS; its
sextans was therefore two cyathi, its
quadrans three, its
triens four, its
quincunx five, &c. (Wurm,
de
Pond. &c. p. 118; Hultsch,
Metrologie, p.
112: cf. the Tables at the end of the volume.)
[
P.S]
