Talk:Ancient Roman units of measurement/Archive 3

message: This is, of course, the talk page of the article Ancient Roman units of measurement.However Jimp and me (Paul Martin) discussed here firstly the digital or hexadecimal foot. Later on, we decided to separate the two discussions, but some back-links refer also to here. If you are arriving from one of these pages, please see:  Talk:Hexadecimal metric system.
Please see ancient weights and measures for previous edit history and discussions wrt this article.
Newer discussions:
 Archive I   (archived for making place for further talks.)    -- Paul Martin 18:39, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

message: Yes, happy new year Paul though it be late.  No, I'm afraid that I still can't swallow your wording and, yes, it's the same old problem.  No, your "modern 296.352 mm definition" is not widely accepted but nor contrary to what you claim is your 35 barleycorns definition.  If you're going to be insisting otherwise in the article, let's see some references.
My argument is unchanged.  No, the Austrians were not in error.  They merely discarded one definition for another (if their foot had indeed been defined in this way to start with).  We are not at liberty to redifine the Roman foot.  It was what it was.
I've removed the following and done a little rewording.  I hope you find this compromise acceptable.
Jimp 16:43, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Reply

message: The Roman foot is defined to be  of the Nippur cubit.
If you read the given souce: On the Ancient Determination of Meridian Arc Length by Eratosthenes of Kyrene by acting Director of the Institute for Geodesy and Geo-Information Technology, TU Berlin  Dieter Lelgemann, WS – History of Surveying and Measurement, Athens, Greece, May 22-27, 2004. Page 2 / 9 :
<quotation>
Our knowledge about the set of ancient non-metric length units (that are the cubit/foot or pechys/pous units) is mainly based on the Nippur cubit (NC = 518,5mm; museum in Istanbul), the so-called Gudea unit (GU = (20/28)(20/28) NC = 264,55 mm; ouvre / Paris) as well as the pes romanus or “Pous Romaikos” (pr = 16/28 NC = (28/24) GU = 296,3mm). All the ancient metric relations are governed by the very old Egyptian definition of a Remen (Pygon): 1 Remen = (20/28) royal cubits = (20/24) trade cubits = (20/16) “Pous”.  </quotation>
   (The important ratio given in this quotation was bolded by me.)
Your "fact"-tag is gratuitous, since for a better legibility an encyclopedia is not oblied to refer all banal assertions.
Mister Lelgemann is incidentally not alone with his assertion: PR = 16 / 28 NC. In the contrary, all the contemporary specialists in ancient measurement are unanimous.  I don't know any serious scientific for contesting it. Do you know one?
:Hello Paul,
:I'm afraid I don't agree that this assertion is banal.  It's no less than a definition that you're giving here.  Ian Cairns made the same point in January (below). A little number in square brackets directing us to the link is not about to interfere significantly with legibility.  Moreover, can we not find something a little more concrete?  I'm not disputing Lelgemann's authority.  I'm refering to the fact that this paragraph doesn't explicitely state that the Pous Romaikos was defined as 16/28 NC.  All we have is this ratio.  Is this ratio something we find stated in ancient literature or was it something we find empirically by study of ancient buildings and artefacts? Jimp 2 June 2006 (UTC)
:: Hi Jimp,
:: Old Egypien metrologists defined the later called Roman digit when – in the early third millennium BC – they decided to share the prevalent Nippur cubit into 28 digits.  Sumeriens themself shared the cubit into 30 digits, cf. sexagesimal system. The egyptien geometers needed to use a good trigonometrical approximation: 20√2 ≥ 28.  Old Egyptian geometers could not calculate the square root of two, but they needed a round value for the hypotenuse. This one percent error was satifying in practice.
:: The attested raw Nippur cubit is 518.4 mm. This value divided by 28, then multiplied by 16 gives 296.22857142 mm, after an appropriated rounding, that is 296.2 mm.
:: Because all the ancient metrologists took reference by preexistent measures, (since they were metrologists and geometers,  not bunglers), so: the ratio is the definition.
:: These values are confirmed not only by study of ancient buildings, but also by hundreds of graduated rulers, dating from very ancient times up to early modern time. (Since Bohemia, Oldenburg and Augsburg for example preserved the Roman foot up to the late 19th century with an excellent accuracy.) Some ratios we can find stated in ancient literature. This ratio is – to my knowledge – not related by ancient writs. Modern researches makes on evidence that the Nippur cubit was used since, at least, the middle of fourth millennium BC. However in Roman times – more than three millennia later – the Nippur cubit was replaced by more recent, deduced units. Ancient metrologists cann't refer to the Nippur cubit, because they ignored its older existence. Sadly, we don't have theoretical, metrological treatises before the first millennium BC.  Nevertheless:
::•  The confirmed and preserved value of the Roman foot – in its five millennia tradition – proves the ancient ratio-definition.  •  None scientific specialist in ancient metrology, nowadays disputes the fact that the Roman foot is 16 / 28 Nippur cubit.
:: However, you are right: "A little number in square brackets directing us to the link is not about to interfere significantly with legibility."  Together we will find the way to make it clearer in the article.  -- Paul Martin 11:27, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  PR = 16 / 28 NC 

message: Your current article version:  A far better simple modern conversion is 35⁄36 of an English foot.  If the idealistic value of the English foot with 304.8192 mm is indeed a modern value, the ratios are ancient, not modern!
In the other Lelgemann source, Lelgemann writes page 4 / 7: 
<quotation>
Recognise the conservative and long tradition of this non-metric system from the relation English foot = (24/28) Pous basilikos = 304,75 mm. 
</quotation>
You see "to err is human" even for a great university professor. Because just before he make the relationship: one pous basilikos = 6 / 5 roman cubit = 533.3 mm.  So he want say: one English foot = (16/28) Pous basilikos. That's an evidence.
Your quotation: "... but nor contrary to what you claim is your 35 barleycorns definition." If the Roman-English foot ratio 36:35 is widely accepted (give me a contemporary specialist, who contests, excepting yourself), then also the 35 barleycorns definition is widely recognised, since this is the same.
Michael Florencetime's (thus not mine) 296.352 mm definition for the "idealistic" Roman foot is not yet widely accepted, so we can let it out of the article. Meantime...
:As for Michael Florencetime's definition, let's include it the day he's elected Emperor of Ancient Rome.  The article is "Ancient Roman units of measurement" not "Modernised Roman units of measurement".
:So ... Lelgemann didn't say this but this is what he meant to say ...?  
:You want a contemporary specialist who contests the ratio?  I can give you better than a specialist, I give you logic.  We have the metre, the Roman foot and the English foot.  The metre was never based on either foot.  The Roman foot came before the English one and before the metre so it was never based on either of these.  The English foot is the one in question here.  
:It is the English foot that seems to be chopping and changing.  If it had once been defined as 36/35 of a Roman foot, then this definition is no longer valid.  One definition has been discarded for another.  One definition was dumped and a different on adopted (the reality is of course more complex) just as with the Austrian foot.  Jimp 2 June 2006
:: Reply to Jimp's objections:
:: •   I liked your "Emperor-humor". However in science a conventional definition can be accepted even afterwards. Especially in context of an obsolete measure with a spread of ± 0.17 %.
:: •   Yes, to err is human. Typos are not seldom even in serious scientific tracts. Did you never observe it? Sometimes one has to detect the obviously "meant sens".       Since the well-known pous basilikos is about 533.4 mm, the English foot cann't be 24/28 PB = 457.2 mm, but must be 16/28 PB = 304.8 mm. Obviously a typo.
:: •   You are right. The decimal "metre was never based on either foot."  However, since the PB is 36/35 NC and the EF is 4/7 PB, the English foot is also 144/245 NC.       (Because you don't accept the idealistic values, you will get an error of 1/2400 or about 0.04 %.)       However, just like in communicating vessels, if you define one value, you define all values.  The remain is all conceitedness of this or that standard institute.
:: •   No, the English foot has "never been defined as 36/35 of a Roman foot." Rather 15/16 French pied-du-roi.  However, since the french foot is (32x24 =) 768/1225 (= 25x49) of        the Nippur Cubit, so the English foot is also (12x12 =) 144/245 (= 5x49) NC, like we already saw above. The remain is all conceitedness of this or that standard institute.       Yes, in 1959 the legal standard institutes adopted a 127-smooth number definition for the English foot. One English foot is legally: 23 x 31 x 1271 tenth of millimetres.       An odd definition, but the legal one!  The illegal, but elaborate 7-smooth (cf. A002473) definition is 28 x 35 x 72 tenth of µm, admittedly 1/15875 (≈0.0063%) more.       Of course, this idealistic definition must be corrected by the factor  (2 x 5 x 19, 109 257)  /  (218 x 36)  to be scientifically correct, like I explained it there.  So the value of 1959 is good at about  99.99915 %.
:: -- Paul Martin 11:27, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  English ft. = 36 / 35 PR 

message: *I have modified you area table to reflect the true logic behind the basis of these measures:
**The largest area used by the romans is 1 square mile or mille passuum.
**All other area measures are fractions of this largest unit and must change accordingly.
**If the foot is 12 inches the saltus becomes 57,600x57,600 inches which is not a mille-passum using your 11.667" roman foot. It is, however, a geodetic Greek foot which is 25/24th longer then the roman foot at 12.154"
**The mille-passuum is therefore 8 x 7200 geodetic inch or 8 x 7500 conventional roman inch. The foot used for Roman Area is therefore Geodetic.
**I have recalculated all of your area measures  but left your figures remaining to show the difference in metric area between the two feet.
--Michael saunders 13:01, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Area Amendment

message: If 20 ounce = 1 pint and the concept originates from somewhere....
"It will therefore be convenient to begin with the definition of the Standard of Weight by declaring, that nineteen cubic inches of distilled water, at the temperature of 50°, must weigh exactly ten ounces Troy, or 4,800 grains; and that 7,000 such grains make a pound avoirdupois; supposing, however, the cubic inches to relate to the measure of a portion of brass, adjusted by a standard scale of brass.  This definition is deduced from some very accurate experiments of the late Sir George Shuckburgh, on the Weights and Measures of Great Britain; but we propose at a future period to repeat such of them as appear to be the most important. 
 
We think it right to propose that these measures should again be reduced to their original equality; and at the same time, on account of the great convenience which would be derived from the facility of determining a gallon and its parts, by the operation of weighing a certain quantity of water, amounting to an entire number of pounds and ounces without fractions, we venture strongly to recommend, that the Standard Ale and Corn Gallon should contain exactly ten pounds Avoirdupois of distilled water, at 62° of Fahrenheit, being nearly equal to 277.2 cubic inches, and agreeing with the Standard pint in the Exchequer, which is found to contain exactly twenty ounces of water."
1819 Metrological Survey
are we sure we shouldn't be using 20 uncia = 1 sextarius ??
*40,007,862,917 mm Polar Circumference
*875 Eratosthenes inch (1575000000) : 864 Greek inch (1555200000) : 900 Roman inch (1620000000) : Polar circumference
*1/50th Earth of 5000 stade of 300 cubit of 21 inch (250,000 stade)
*1/60th Earth of 60 schoene of 60 stade of 400 cubit of 18 inch = 252,000 stade of 300 cubits of 144 / 7 inch (700 stade per degree)
*360 degrees of 75 roman miles of 60,000 inch
*4/60th Earth to Egypts Border (24 degrees North) + 1/50th Earth to Alexandria (31.2 degrees North)
British and Eratosthenes Pound
*12 * 24/25 = 11.52 inch
*11.52 * 2 * root 2 = 32.583480
*32.583480 * 2.54 = 82.762040
*82.762040 ^3 = 566883.175282
*566883.175282 / 125 = 4535.065402 This is 1cc short of 10 pound of distilled water using British inch
 
*82.762040 * 1.00007178 = 82.767981
*82.767981 ^3 = 567005.270044 Cubic megalithic yard
*567005.270044 / 125 = 4536.042160 This is exactly 10 pound of distilled water using Eratosthenes inch
Pound Weight
Roman Libra
*11.52 * 875 / 864 = 11.666'
*11.666' *  (864 / 275 / Pi) = 11.667504
*(11.667504 * 2.54 )^3 = 26027cc Quadrantal
*(11.667504 * 2 * square root 2 * 2.54) ^3 = 588938.610cc Cubic megalithic yard
*588938.6101 / 1800 = 327.188cc Libra
*588938.6101 / 21600 = 27.2656cc Uncia 360 * 60
*588938.6101 / 172800 = 3.408cc Drachma 360 * 480
*cubed root (327.188 * 1800 / 567005.270044) = 1.0127313 (875 / 864)
*cubed root (327.495 * 1800 / 567005.270044) = 1.0130480
*cubed root (327.453 * 1800 / 567005.270044) = 1.0130047
Uncia and Sextarius
*27.291 g * 20 sextarius * 8 = 4366.56
*4536cc / 4366.56cc = 1.03880400
*cubed root 1.03880400 = 1.012770
*875 / 864 = 1.012731
Hi Michael saunders, I see your talk contribution. I'll reply you soon. --Paul Martin 13:39, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Weight vs Volume discussion

message: Why is the leading information in each table an English word, and not the Latin name of the unit? It would seem to make more sense to use the names of the units themselves, rather than some translated terms that aren't necessarily informative anyway. Offhand, I have no idea what a peck is, let alone an arpent or a sester. These translated terms are only meaningful to those already familiar with a measurement system that is widely obsolete in the English-speaking world. I propose that the Latin term be placed in the first column, and where useful translations can be provided, they be listed in a comments column on the right end of the table. Rhialto 02:10, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  English Headwords? 

message: Just a question out of curiosity. The article states that 1 mile is equivalent in Ancient Rome to 5000 ft, while 1 league is 7500 ft. Hence: 1 league is 1.5 mile. However the article League states that 1 league is 3 miles in Ancient Rome (quote: "The league was used by Ancient Rome, which defined it as being 3 miles."). Which is true? Brynnar 14:42, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The league was originally used by the Gauls, and later picked up by the Romans during their conquests. Their interpretation of it was that a league was about 1,500 paces, or 7,500 feet. I'm not entirely sure how it came to mean three miles, but I'm fairly certain it wasn't used that way in Rome. --Xanzzibar 23:23, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Problem fixed at both pages.  League and League (unit).  Paul Martin 13:18, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A Roman mille passus or thousand paces derives from the Greek mia chillios or one thousand. The thousand is a measure of a field (aroura) laid out boustrehedron or as the ox plows in ten rows of one hundred orquia. Greek measures have short median and long forms so mia chillio of 8 stadia, (4800 ft), one aroura (5000 ft) and one nauticle mile (6000 ft); are referenced in the literature. Roman degrees of 25 leauges, 75 milliare or 110 km, are the same length as Greek degrees of 600 stadia. 69.39.100.2 (talk) 14:21, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The "3 mille" statement is also at the page for Furlong, referencing it as "the distance a man could walk in an hour" (on a good roman road, one presumes - the going may be 1.5mph over rough ground instead?). Something in the depths of my memory tells me the 7 league boots in the old story covered 21 miles at a time... but then again that might be per pace, with each boot taking 7 at a time? I think this is a good case of Citation Needed :) 193.63.174.10 (talk) 10:01, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  League = 1.5 miles or 3 miles? 

message: What is this "Roman unit" (sicilicus) doing in the article? 85.113.253.229 (talk) 18:42, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Why wouldn't it be in this article? It was used by Pliny. See here. Note that this is not the same as a shekel, which is called a siclus in Latin. Rwflammang (talk) 09:37, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Then shouldn't sicilicus article reflect this usage? Because as it sits it has nothing to do with measurement. Sicilicus is written about a theoretical usage of a diacritical mark... --76.185.116.56 (talk) 14:09, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shekel 

message: I heard once in a class of mine that the ancient Roman agricultural field divisions are occasionally preserved in modern fields. Specifically, I have an aerial picture of fields near Pula that claims to show square divisions of 20 actus per side. I can't post the picture because I have no idea of it's copyright. Does anybody know anything about this?--SkiDragon (talk) 11:25, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ancient Roman field divisions preserved? 

message: First off, they weren't measures of mass. They were measures of weight. Second, I followed at least one hatch link here that broke because the #weight section had been removed. Changed, pending some rationale on changing the terminology to something more erroneous and less user-friendly. — LlywelynII 22:00, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Presumably they used balances for measurement rather than springs, so they were measuring mass and not weight. Not that they, or anybody else really, cared. Rwflammang (talk) 13:48, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

text: This question comes up so frequently that there should be a rule that no one be allowed to edit a weights-and-measures article until they understand that "weight" in legal and commercial usage has, since the 18th century, meant "mass" in the physics sense. Before that, going back to the Bronze Age, it meant that property measured by a balance scale in conjunction with a standard reference mass, thus de facto "mass."Zyxwv99 (talk) 14:59, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, we know it is called "mass" in physics and a few other sciences (not including, for example, medicine and chemistry). But the Romans didn't have Newtonian physics, so to call it mass in this article seems an anachronism. This isn't an article title, but I suggest that it should anyway be moved to its common name, weight. I'll do that in a day or two, unless there is opposition to such a move? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 15:15, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, calling it "weight" is an anachronism too, since the ancient Romans didn't speak English. But I agree, "weight" is the common name. I just wish we had an article entitled "Weight (mass)." Eventually, I hope to get around to writing it, if only so that articles such as this one could have a Wikilink to it. Many other articles are struggling with the same issue. Weight is the right word, but it really needs to be distinguished from "weight" in the physics sense. This is  motivating me to hurry up and write the article Zyxwv99 (talk) 15:45, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: They definitely were not measuring weight in the physics sense. I won't object to a name change as long as that is made clear. Perhaps with parentheses? The Roman units of weight (i.e., "mass" in the sense of modern Physics) were... The weight (mass) article would help. Rwflammang (talk) 23:42, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The weights were, I believe, called pondera, which roughly translates into English as "weights". I'm personally fully prepared to respect the redefinition of "mass" to mean what ordinary people call "weight", and "weight" to mean something else, but only in those contexts where that redefinition has occurred. I don't believe that this is one of them. Yes, some clarification, perhaps in parentheses as suggested, would be necessary. Unless there are any objections, I'll go ahead and make the change tomorrow. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:57, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the way NIST handles this: When used in this law (or regulation), the term “weight” means “mass.”  (See paragraphs V. and W. in Section I., Introduction, of NIST Handbook 130 for an explanation of these terms.) Zyxwv99 (talk) 00:50, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

text: Justlettersandnumbers, no redefinition of mass is needed, nor appropriate. English speaking physicists  redefined the word weight for pedagogical reasons at some point in the 19th or twentieth centuries. This redefinition is anachronistic when applied to ancient times. When Romans spoke of pondera, they meant what modern day physics teachers call masses. Of course, everyone else calls them weights, including most translators of ancient Latin. In modern high-school physics English-based jargon, weight is used to mean a type of force, but everywhere else it is just a synonym for mass. Rwflammang (talk) 01:13, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: "Mass?"

message: I know nothing of the subject matter, but the section on units of time seems incomplete without some mention of how the romans sub-divided the day.  Either they had no common unit on the order of hours and minutes, or they did, and the answer to this question ought to be mentioned in the article.  Flies 1 (talk) 14:52, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Expanded the time section a bit. I based everything on my memory; I'll add references when I can look them up. In the mean time, most of the linked articles have references in them. Rwflammang (talk) 08:23, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Great work! Seems like a big improvement to me. Flies 1 (talk) 20:20, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  More info on time? 

message: An editor recently changed the word astrologer to astronomer in the sentence describing minutae. I don't really have a preference for which term is used; in this historical context, it was six or one, half dozen of the other. But I think whichever term we use, we should use it consistently. If we use astronomers to describe those who divided the day into minutae, then we should use astronomers to describe the those who grouped the days into weeks, since it was the same community of professionals doing both of these things. We should also replace astrological with astronomical. Rwflammang (talk) 14:07, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Even though it was the same community, and usually the same individuals (Ptolemy for example) the divisions weren't necessarily used for the same purposes. I'll look into this and see what I can find. And sorry about putting "astronomers" into a sentence that had "astrologers" later in the same sentence. I'll just self-revert for now. Zyxwv99 (talk) 15:52, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, that's very polite of you, but the more I think about it, the more I like your change and think we should follow it through. The term "astrologers" carries a very negative connotation these days that did not apply to the mathematical community of ancient Rome when it adopted the practice of the more scientifically advanced east in following a 7 day week. It would be like saying the metric system has become more popular now since it has been adopted by those who don't know how to divide by 12 or 16, rather than because it has been adopted by the prestigious medical and scientific communities. Rwflammang (talk) 17:46, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I would be careful about making it all one or the other. Sometimes it was one, sometimes it was the other. The 7-day week, for example, seems to have been astrological. The division of the day into hours, on the other hand, was apparently astronomical. Zyxwv99 (talk) 22:22, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Astronomy versus astrology 

message: According to the article about the record label Parlophone, their trademark sign ₤ is for Libra (and also for Lindström, the German founder). --HelgeStenstrom (talk) 13:22, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: You bring up a good point. The Pound sign article does not explain the origins or early history of the symbol. However, I seriously doubt that it goes back to ancient times.  Further discussion on this topic should probably take place on the Pound sign talk page, or better yet, someone should just look it up and fix the article. Zyxwv99 (talk) 15:13, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Libra sign ₤