376 SOME THOUGHTS ON 



positive metrology, we must take into account the degree of 

 scientific culture and of practical accuracy which may be sup- 

 posed to have existed in different ages and countries. What 

 follows is merely some remarks on detached points. 



5. I do not now recollect Boeckh's explanation, founded on 

 the general view already noticed of the relation between the 

 Greek and the Roman foot, but a different one to which I 

 think he makes no reference, seems to me far more probable. 

 The Komans starting from the assumption that the pace is five 

 feet (which is as near the truth as any relation expressed so 

 simply could be) made a unit of itinerary measure of a thou- 

 sand paces length. Observe by the way how like this is to 

 the derivation of the sestertium from the sestertius. Now, it is 

 a general principle that units tend to divide themselves into 

 halves, quarters, &c., although they are for the most part mul- 

 tiplied by tens or twelves, the decimal system seeming much 

 more natural in the upward than in the downward scale. Thus 

 the Komans would speak of distances as being a quarter or half- 

 a-quarter of a mile ; and this last fraction was sufficiently near 

 the stadium to be identified with it. On the other hand, the 

 Greeks, starting from another natural assumption, made the 

 orgyia six feet, and a hundred of the former became their unit of 

 distance. The stadium would seem less an itinerary than, if 

 the word may so be used, an athletic measure, for it is cer- 

 tainly more natural to measure distances by paces than by 

 fathoms. So it was, however, that 600 Greek feet were identi- 

 fied with the eighth of a Roman mile that is with 625 Roman 

 feet, which gives the common relation of 25 to 24. I do not 

 mean that the average Greek foot was not longer than the 

 Roman. We know that it was, and the difference probably 

 corresponded to a difference in the two races of men. But what 

 we have to explain is the origin of the precise relation in ques- 

 tion. Again, it is not to be supposed that after it was recog- 

 nized, the measure-makers of Greece and Rome thought them- 

 selves bound to conform to it. Writers on metrology perpetually 

 fall into a kind of realism, and speak as if they believed that 

 there was for instance an ideal Roman foot, an archetype to 

 which the Romans perpetually endeavoured to conform them- 

 selves, and which it is our business to discover. Whereas there 



