Ul 



WKIGHTS AXD MEASURES. 



WEIGHTS AXD MEASURES. 



\V shall only give bera the usual summary, and hiUl then give some 

 Mount of the mode of determining the actual magnitude of the 

 Greek and Roman measures. With regard to U-e Hebrew measures, 

 much uncertainty prevails ; the authorities are by no means so numerous 

 s those for the other ancient measures, nor has the subject received 

 so much discussion. 



The cubic was about 22 inches ; 4 digits make 1 palm ; 3 palms, 1 

 i-->an ; 2 spans, 1 cubit ; 4 cubits, 1 fathom ; 6 cubits, 1 reed (Kaneh) ; 8 

 cubits, 1 pole (Arabian) ; 80 cubits, 1 measuring-line ;* 400 cubits 



1 stadium ; 5 stadia, a Sabbath-day's journey ; 10 stadia, a mile ; 21 

 miles, a day's journey. 



In liquid measures, the bath, or ephah, of about 6) imperial gallons, 

 is thus divided : Four logs make 1 cab, 3 cabs, 1 bin ; 2 hina, 1 seah ; 

 3 seahs, 1 ephah. The caph is three-fourths of the log. For dry 

 measures, besides the cab, seah, and ephah, 5 e-jhahs make 1 letech ; 



2 letech, 1 Chomer, or Homer. The gomer is the tenth of the seah. 

 Fur weight, 60 shekels make one maneh; 50 maneh, 1 talent of 



93*75 pounds averdupois. 



We now come to the comparison of the Greek and Koman measures 

 with our own. The Roman foot, the most important of all, has been 

 determined in the following t ways : 1. By feet laid down on sepul- 

 chral monuments. 2. By foot-rules obtained in the ruins of Rome 

 and elsewhere. 3. By the distance of mile-stones. 4. By the distance 

 of places. 5. By specimens of the congius. ti. By some obelisks. 

 7. By the dimensions of buildings. The results are given in lines of 

 1 44 to the Parisian foot, and as many dissertations on this subject 

 make great use of the line, it will be convenient to give a table of its 

 multiples in terms of the English inch. 



One line (^ inch French) is 

 - lines are . 



3 -26644134 



4 -35525512 



6 -44406S90 



08881378 English inch. 

 17762756 



-53288268 



7 -62169646 



8 71051024 



9 -79932402 



129-484 lines are 114 English inches. 



The Kputdtral feet are: 1. That marked on the tomb of one 

 Statiliur found in the Vatican garden in the 16th century; 2. That 

 found on the tomb of Cneiua Cossutius (Vitruvius mentions an archi- 

 tect of that name), dug up in the garden of Angelo Colozzi before 

 1516; 3. That on the tomb of M. ^Ebutius; 4. That on a monument 

 without inscription, given by the Marquis Capponi to the Capitoline 

 Museum at Rome. Taking the means of such trustworthy measures 

 as have been made of these different feet, it appears that the Statilian 

 foot is 131-17 Paris lines; the Cossutian, or Colotian, 130-59 lines; 

 the .Kbutian 131-14 lines; and the Capponian 130-80 lines. 



The first foot-rule was measured by Lucas Psctus, ' De Mensuris et 

 Ponderibus Komanis et GrsDcis,' Venice, 1573, who found three of 

 them agreeing with each other so far as his means of comparing them 

 went, a copy of which he caused to be engraved on stone and placed 

 in the Capitoline Museum. This was called the Capitoline foot, and 

 was frequently regarded as conclusive. Pictus himself makes the foot 

 amount to 1287 lines ; but there is reason to suppose either that his 

 measures are too short or that the standard to which he referred them 

 has been mistaken; for others make his own Capitoline foot to be 

 130-5 lines. Two other foot-rules give 12875 and 130-03 lines. There 

 was a porphyry column at Rome (now lost) marked wot. 6, which was 

 certainly meant for nine Roman feet. An editor of Vitruvius, 

 Philander (1552), makes the Koman foot to be, from this column, 

 131-63 lines ; but Pictus makes it only 130-03. Other foot-rules have 

 been made to give 130-5, 180-93, 132-89, 130-56, 129-24,181-16, 130-66. 

 Some of these are different measures of the same rule. 



Very few consecutive milestones have been found from which to 

 deduce the foot From one mile in the Appian way, and from two 

 different ones between Nismes and Beaucaire, the foot has been 

 deduced to be 1 80-60, 1 30-29, and 1 30-61 lines. From various recorded 

 distances between towns, subject to the difficulty of knowing precisely 

 from what parts of them the miles were measured, the foot has been 

 found to be 182-34, 128-42, 130-99, 129-81, 182'55 lines. D'Anville, 

 from a collection of such measures, fixes it at 130*8 lines. 



A specimen of the congius is yet remaining, which, by an inscription, 

 is declared to have been placed in the Capitol by Vespasian as a 

 standard. The congius is the eighth part of the amphora, or cubic 

 foot By ascertaining the weight of water which this contains, the 

 foot was estimated by various observers at 13M5, 133-21, and 132-44 



Pathil, or Chebcl ; ffxoimt In the Beptuagint. 



t In the historical account of the Roman foot we hare followed J. F. Wtirm, 

 De Ponderum, fte. Batkoibtu ipnd Romano* et Ortccoi,' gtutgard, 1821, ,i 

 to method, rcrif jr ing serenl of hla itatcmrnU. 



J We enumerate these, not for their Importance, bat brume they are to 

 frequrntlT referred to. 



{ The foot la figured In the work of Leonardtu Portiiu, the Hrrt In which 

 anjr attempt wa nude to reitore tbe real Roman meaturea. It ban no place 

 or date ; but being printed bjr Job. Frobeniiu, moat be of Basel before 1417. 



lines. From the length of the foot drawn upon the congius itself hare 

 been obtained 132-8, 133-5 lines. From another congius preserved at 

 Paris, Auzout found 134-18 lines for the Roman foot 



There are two obelisks at Rome, which were brought by Augustus 

 from Heliopolia. Pliny gives the height of these in feet, or rather, 

 the height of the higher and the defect of the lower from it Measure- 

 ment proves that, with respect to the higher, the number of I'liny 

 must be corrupt ; but from his difference between the two, as com- 

 pared with the measured difference, the Roman foot is 137'IW lines. 



The method of ascertaining the foot by buildings is as follows : 

 Any remarkable length, such as that of the whole front of a building, 

 being known nearly in Roman feet, is presumed to be exactly that 

 number of feet which it must be nearly. This supposed that the 

 Roman architects were in the habit of choosing exact numbers of feet 

 when there was no particular reason for breaking a i 

 (' Phil. Trans.,' 1760) proceeds in the manner of which the following 

 is an instance: He finds the distances between the c"!n> 

 the temple of fartuna ririiit to be 97106 English feet If this be 

 an exact number of Roman feet, it must be 10; we know enough 

 beforehand of the Roman foot to say it cannot be 9 or 11. Conse- 

 quently, if the distance between these columns be a whole number of 

 feet, the foot must be, -97106 of the English foot By processes of 

 this sort, Greaves found 131-60 lines, La Hire 131'0 and 132-4, La 

 Condamine 130-9, Jacquier 131-08 and 131-14. Raper, who went more 

 into this subject than the others, found by different building* 131-14, 

 131-60, 131-62, 131*11, 131-16, 131-05, 131-16,131-05, and 131-1 '. f,,r 

 the mean. Wurm, from the Verona amphitheatre, ,-ulil- l:il !_'. 

 Raper thought he observed that the buildings subsequent to tin 

 of Titus give a shorter foot than their predecessors : from instances be 

 gets 13075, 130-33, 130-34, with a mean of 130-34. He ref. 

 change to the destruction of the Capitol (where the standard 

 kept) in the time of Vitellius. 



From all these data Raper's average, adopted by Wurm, is 131-15 

 French lines for the ancient foot, or 11*648 English inches or 'i'Tl 

 English feet. But Sir G. Shuckburgh made a careful review of tin- 

 three best modes of obtaining the required result, namely, rules, lmil.1- 

 ings, and tombs, and obtained -9672, '9681, -9696 of a foot English. 

 (Young's ' Lectures,' ii. 153.) The mean of these is -9683 feet, or 

 il-6196 inches. Again, if we take a mean of the results given by 

 others, namely, Bernard "970, Picard and Greaves *967, Folkes -966, 

 Raper *970, we have also '9683. We take then the Roman foot at 

 11-62 English inches, which is represented far within the pr 

 limits of error by the following: 61 English feet make 63 I. 

 feet. We are well aware that eminent authorities of late years 

 11*65 inches for the Roman foot, but we like to keep as near to the 

 foot-rules as we can, consistently with giving due weight to other 

 modes. Indeed, the question between 11-62 and 11*65 cannot be 

 settled by authority, but must be decided by closer appreciation than 

 has yet been made of the probabilities of the different methods. 



The Roman measures of length may thus be considered, we fully 

 believe, to be as well known to us as they were to themselves. The 

 same cannot be said of the measures of weight All writers agree that 

 the amphora, or cubic foot, weighs 80 pounds of wine ; but it is also 

 said that they considered wine to be of the same weight as water. We 

 have no means of ascertaining the specific gravities of their wines ; 

 those of our own vary from *99 to 1-04, water being taken as 1. lint 

 there is one very obvious consideration which, we believe, has escaped 

 notice. No metrologist has given the Romans credit for seeing that 

 water would do just as well to make comparisons and adjust standards 

 by, as wine, believing, aa they did, that both are of the same weight. If 

 we suppose then that they preferred to spill water rather than wine, 

 and assume 11 '62 inches for the foot, we have 1568*984 cubic inches * 

 English, in the amphora, or 5-6586 imperial gallons, or 56*586 pounds 

 arerdupois of water. If the Roman pound be the 80th part of this, it 

 is -7073 pounds averdupois, or -8595 pounds troy. This is 4951 grains, 

 or 60894 French grains. Now, according to Wurm, Budu-us made it 

 7200 French grains, Capellus and Koine de L'Isle 6048, Auzout 6226, 

 Eisenschmid 6216, Dupuis 6300, Leblanc and De la Nauze 6144', 

 Paucton 6812, Arbuthnot 6395. Of these, those of Romd de L'Isle 

 and La Nauze, which come the nearest to 60394, were determined 

 from weighing coins : but the most modern valuations deduced 

 coins give 5040 grains. On coins however we do not much rely. The 

 congius of Vespasian, already mentioned, gave to different ex-wri- 

 mentors 6094, 6386, and 6276 Paris grains ; but it in most probable 

 that the capacity of this vessel has been somewhat increased by rust 

 There are also some ancient weights in stone or metal, preserved in 

 different places, from which De L'lsle brings out 607 1 rains. 



Hut others make different results, whether from the coins or tin- 

 weights ; and the result of the whole seems to be, that the Roman 

 pound cannot be more accurately stated than in the following words : 

 " something more than seven-tenths of a pound averdupois." The 

 Attic TALENT is said by many writers to be 80 Roman pounds. Now 

 this being taken, as in the article cited, at 66-953 pounds averdupois, 

 gives -7119 of a pound averdupois. Between '707 and -712, or very 



* To turn cubic inohca into imperial gallons, multiply by 11 and by 2, 

 divide by 6100, and, if worth while, from the rctult subtract its two hundred 

 tliouiandth part. 



