Mensūra
（
μέτρον). Measure. The earliest measures known are probably
those derived from parts of the human body (Vitruv. iii. 1, 5), and were at first, naturally,
less definite and exact than those employed in later times. Thus, the
foot, the finger, the palm of the hand, the forearm were all employed as primitive units of
length and breadth. Units of capacity were generally based upon such natural objects or
measures as were approximately uniform. The Jews and some of the Kelts employed the hen's egg
as a unit; the natives of Zanzibar the gourd; the Romans a mussel-shell (
cochlear). Possibly the Greek
κύαθος was originally a
pod or gourd of some kind. The filled hand also is mentioned as serving as a measure of
capacity. Afterwards a more precise system was adopted and ratified by law. Thus Phidon of
Argos fixed the standard measure for the people of the Peloponnesus (
Herod.vi. 127), Solon for the Athenians (
Andoc. 11, 25),
and Augustus for the later Romans.
The principal measure of length among the Greeks was the foot (
ποῦς), there being three different standards, the Attic, the Olympic, and the
Aeginetan. The first was 295.7 millimetres; the second, 320.5 mill.; the third, 330 mill. In
Western Europe there were three kinds of foot (
pes), the Italian (275
mill.), the Roman (296 mill.), and the
pes Drusianus (333 mill.). In both the
Greek and the Roman systems the unit (
μονάς) was the
finger-breadth (
δάκτυλος,
digitus). The
palmus (
δοχμή) was four
digiti. The foot was regarded as equal to 16
digiti. The cubit
(
πῆχυς,
cubitus) was the distance from
the point of the elbow to the point of the middle finger, and=24
digiti.
The fathom (
ὀρεγυιά,
ulna or
tensum in Low Lat.) was the length of the extended arms=six feet. The
πλέθρον (Oscan and Umbr.
vorsus) was
about 100 feet. The Roman
actus was 120 feet. Among the itinerary
measures the
stadium (
στάδιον) was 600
feet; the
ἱππικόν, or race-course, was four
stadia; the parasang (
παρασάγγης), a Persian measure,
was 30
stadia or four Roman miles; the
millarum
(
μίλιον) was 1000 feet (
milia passuum).
Of land measures were the Homeric unit
γύης (
γύη), about 60 feet; the square plethrum=10,000 sq. ft.; the
scripulum=100 sq. ft.; the
iugerum= 288 sq. rods; the
heredium=2
iugera; the
centuria = 200
iugera (perhaps originally 100); the
saltus= 800
iugera.
Of liquid and dry measures, the chief are the
κύαθος=.08 of
an Eng. pint; the
κοτύλη=6
cyathi; the
Roman
sextarius (
ξέστης)=12
cyathi, nearly an Eng. pint; the
χοῦς,
congius=12
cyathi, or about six pints; the
ἀμφορεύς,
amphora=8
congii
or 48
sextarii, about 22 quarts; and the
culleus=20
amphorae. Distinctly for dry measure were the
χοῖνιξ=four
κοτύλαι, or about one quart; the
μόδιος,
modius=about a peck; the
μέδιμνος= 6
modii.
See the standard work by Hultsch,
Griechische und römische
Metrologie (Berlin, 1882); R. Lepsius,
Längenmasse der
Alten (Berlin, 1884); Queipo,
Essai sur les Systèmes
Métriques Monétaires des Anciens Peuples (Paris, 1859);
and for a full list of equivalents, the tables given in the Appendix to this Dictionary.
