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LENGTH The Roman foot is defined to be of the Nippur Cubit . Since the Roman cubit measures 17.5 English inches, the English foot is of the Mesopotamian Cubit . Thus the Roman foot measures 35 English barleycorns. Since late Antiquity the Roman foot was sometimes divided into unciae, 12 equal parts. Although, the ancient digit measure largely dominated before beginning of Middle Ages . ''Notes:'' The value: 296 millimetres for the Roman foot is a usual rounding to the closest millimetre precision. A correct usual value, nearby the length really used by ancient Romans. However, the value of the historical Roman foot scientifically obtained by modern statistical methods is 296.2 mm ± 0.5 mm or about ±0.17% ''(cf. Rottländer, Tübingen, Germany)''. The widely accepted ratio of the Roman foot and the English foot is 36:35. The latter one is below)''. The comparison of the Roman foot with the height of a sheet of A4 paper is descriptive, but +0.27%, out of range. ''For the modern conventional value of the roman foot, please also see this General Note .'' AREA The Roman acre is the squared Roman arpent, 120 pedes by 120 pedes. This equals 14 400 square feet or about 0.126 hectares. ''Note: '' Some researchers assert that the Roman surveyors used a perch of ten Greek "Pous of Kyrenaika", i.e. 3.087 m instead of the perch of ten of their own feet, equal 2.964 m. According to this hypothesis – currently not supported by the majority of modern metrologists – all the Roman area measures should be multiplied by 625/576, i.e. 8.5 % larger. If the irrefutable proof for the real existence of a Roman surveyor perch of 10 Roman feet 6⅔ digits can be adduced, then the saltus equates to one Roman square mile exactly. VOLUME Liquid measures The Roman jar, so-called "amphora quadrantal" is the cubic foot. The congius is half-a-foot cubed. The Roman sester is the sixth of a congius. Dry measures Like the jar, the Roman bushel or "quadrantal" is one cubic foot. It is almost 26.027 L. One-third of a quandrantal is a Roman peck. WEIGHT
The Roman pound is exactly three-quarters of the Greek mine. Thus the Greek and Roman drachms are related by the ratio 32 to 25. Actually this Greek mine is obviously the 64th part of a Talent – a foot cube filled with water – built-on ''a postulated foot'' of 512 / 625 Egyptian Remen , which must have existed. This foot equals 1024 / 1000 Roman foot. ''(Remark, that the American Printer's Point used since 1879 by Nelson Hawks is the 864th part of this foot, or perhaps 0.062% more.)'' With the value 327.453 g and by supposing – ''hypothetically'' – the same conditions of purity, temperature, etc. of water, like in the SI -definition of the Kilogram , one obtains: / 256 ≥ 0.296 339 m for the Roman foot. One and a half ounces was called by Romans "sescuncia". Some of these nouns were used to designate Roman bronze coins. TIME The Julian Calendar was introduced in 45 BC replacing the earlier Roman Calendar . In the Julian calendar as in the Gregorian Calendar an ordinary year is 365 days long and a leap year is 366 days long. The difference is which years are leap years. In the Julian calendar every fourth year is a leap year. The Gegorian calendar uses a more complex algorithm to more closely approximate the length of the Tropical Year . REFERENCES Vormetrische Längeneinheiten by Rolf C. A. Rottländer , Rottenburg / Köln ''(also see Search-Engine ).'' Recovery of the Ancient System Foot/Cubit/Stadion — Length Units by Dieter Lelgemann , acting Director of the Institute for Geodesy and Geo-Information Technology, TU Berlin . On the Ancient Determination of Meridian Arc Length by Eratosthenes of Kyrene Dieter Lelgemann, WS – History of Surveying and Measurement, Athens, Greece, May 22-27, 2004. Knobloch, Eberhard , Dieter Lelgemann und Andreas Fuls : "Zur hellenistischen Methode der Bestimmung des Erdumfangs und zur Asienkarte des Klaudios Ptolemaios." zfv (Zeitschrift für Geodäsie, Geoinformation und Landmanagment) 128. Jahrgang, Heft 3/2003, S. 211-217. GENERAL NOTE In 2003, the conventional value of the Roman foot was defined to be 296.352 mm exactly one by Michael Florencetime . This proposal is too recent to be already ''widely accepted''. However, the value of 25 x 33 x 73 = 296 352 µm exactly one has the clear advantage to deliver always plain, easy and round values for the deduced units of the ancient Roman foot. Like it is already widely accepted since long times, the Roman foot is 14 / 25 of the Egyptian Royal Cubit , because one Egyptian remen equals five Roman palms. In his definition M. Florencetime – who also developed the twice-sixteen-hours Hexadecimal Time in 1989 – set the ''Egyptian Royal cubit'' to 21 x 33 x 5-1 x 72 = 529.2 mm or actually he defined the well-attested Carthagian Foot – five ninth of the ''Egyptian Royal cubit'' – to equate the exact value of 21 x 31 x 72 = 294 mm. In concordance to modern and therefore avoids odd values, resulting by arbitrary ''particular'' roundings of the ancient Measure s. SEE ALSO |
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