28 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



errand, and resolve to kill him. They step aside somewhat 

 from the beaten track, and allow him to pass by. As soon, 

 however, as he had got away from them an oSpov they start to 

 catch him. He immediately hears the thud of their feet, and 

 stops to listen. Take it that ovpov is a furrow-length, surely 

 this is an unwonted start to give a man, unless your furrow is 

 very short : again, at a furrow-length sound would scarcely 

 reach his ears. Not to press the words into too literal a 

 mould, we may infer that, as a standard of measurement, 

 ovpov means a shorter rather than a longer distance. 



In Od. viii. 120, seqq., a foot-race is described, and the 

 successful competitor beats the others by the measure ovpov 

 rjlxLovouv — not a long distance, for they were all swift-footed ; 

 they stir up the dust of the plain as they go. 



Clearly the measure is a fixed, if somewhat loose, standard 

 of reference, like pistol-shot, stone's-throw, lump of chalk, bit 

 of string (fathom), bow-shot, ear-shot. So have I heard the 

 great splashes of rain fresh-fallen on a sun-baked pavement 

 compared in size to eighteenpence. 



The distance of an ovpov, either as a start or as a finish, 

 cannot be great. Dolon gets an ovpov start, and the Phaeakian 

 athlete wins by an ovpov. The word clearly comes within the 

 scope of a short measure of some kind. I take it to mean a 

 measure of width. In a similar way our forefathers used " rod " 

 or "rood": so many furrows lengthways nmltiplied by so 

 many rods breadthways make an acre. Our forefathers knew 

 nothing about a standard-acre any more than they knew a 

 standard-mile. An Irish mile is a painful distance for a weary 

 traveller to contemplate ; a German acre is a puzzling thing 

 to calculate. The English, the Flemish, the German, the 

 French ell present a pleasing variety : they take their rise 

 from the length of a man's forearm, but how I do not know. 



ovpov may be cognate with the Ionic evpo<; — a word not 

 found in the Iliad, once in the Odyssey, evpos is used of 

 wddth on the grand scale, as e.g. of big rivers, but without any 

 approach to definite significance, ovpov is used, however 

 loosely, to indicate a unit of measure. 



Hence we explain the ovpov dpovprjs as the side-marks and 

 not the end-iiiarks of a field : the balks and not the headlands 

 (xeAo-ov apovpiqi) of a man's share in the common field. If this 

 be so, we arrive at an ancient system of landmarks or measure- 

 ments arising out of common rights in common land. 



The width of the ovpov will, of course, depend upon the 

 length of the furrow\ Now, a Furrow is a measure of length 

 better known as Furlong. (Por-ca, according to Columella, 

 was, in Spain, a measure of length : porca seems to have been 

 a rustic word, and by false analogy is used to indicate a ridge. 

 Colum., ii. 10, 6, used avXaKL^eiv as equivalent to imporcare. 



