Hi, this is my second post so I am still a bit nervous. I don't know if this topic has been discussed before but I am doing a writing course and one of my assignments was a Sarmatian character description. I did this and the teacher replied that although she liked my work (200 words only) she had a problem with me using Imperial Measurement System in historical works. She said Romans used cubits for measurement but I thought cubits were only a measure of length or distance not height. Also did Romans measure horse heights in hands. Any comments?
Welcome, and great question! I confess, i don't know how the Romans measured- but would like to know!
I read once where Marius when he reorganized the legions set a height minimum of 5 ft 10 roman inches but I confess I don't know what the difference is as I thought the Romans were a lot shorter than the Germans and Gauls.
When ever I used to make a sword blade I would measure it as The Romans may have done with a Cubit which is from finger tip to elbow ie 18inchs, then with the other hand add on about three or four fingers to get the blade length, Therefore one is useing the imperial measurement system and indeed this is why today in the UK and the USA we still have the mile as our distance measurement which was around 1,000 miles pasus or about 1,620 English yards and not meters,and just out of interest this is also the average distance between the Milecastles of Hadrian's Wall.
The Romans used the "Pes drusianus" to make their Navis Lusoriae. It is approximately 29.6 cm (or about 1 US Foot)
I don't think we know for sure if the Romans measured horses in hands, but since it is represented by four (Imperial) inches and is an average hand span (including the thumb lower joint) it is not unreasonable to suppose they did. The "hand" as a term had to come from somewhere! :wink:
i second al reactions,just think that they used their own body as a standard.all the measurements are derived from that.
Tey only gave some standards to it so it would be the same in the empire.
Do we think they used something like a modern measuring tape to send that standard length from province to province? Originally, of course, the "foot" was the length of a foot* but not everyone's foot* is the same length*. The English foot was a King Henry's foot, I read, and evidently the Roman foot became standard as Drusus' foot.
The mile, mentioned aforehand, was A Thousand Paces, which would be "left, right" marching step, about 60 inches. That works to around 5000 feet, a little short of a (now American) formerly English mile. And considerable shorter than a nautical mile. Always wondered why those two were different.
* Myself being eternally burdened with an imperative to point out the totally obvious whenever possible, I remain your most obedient servant, M. Dem.
Quote:the teacher replied that although she liked my work (200 words only) she had a problem with me using Imperial Measurement System in historical works.
Quote:I read once where Marius when he reorganized the legions set a height minimum of 5 ft 10 roman inches but I confess I don't know what the difference is as I thought the Romans were a lot shorter than the Germans and Gauls.
Let us take an actual Roman example. Vegetius (1.5.1) states that men of 6 ft. (
senos pedes) or at least 5 ft. 10 in. (
quinos et denas uncias) were approved for the cavalry of the
alae and the first cohort of the legions. There is, therefore, nothing wrong in using feet and inches as a measure of height in a Roman context. However, one must bear in mind that Roman measures were smaller than imperial. In his translation of Vegetius, Milner gives the imperial and metric equivalents of the 6 ft. measure as 5ft.
9½ in. or 1.77 m. and of the 5 ft. 10 in. measure as 5 ft.
7½ in. or 1.72 m. In a footnote, he observes that the Roman foot measured 295.7 mm., shrinking to 294.2 mm. in the 3rd century AD, as opposed to the modern imperial foot of 304.8 mm.
Quote:Also did Romans measure horse heights in hands?
I have looked in the
Mulomedicina of the "other" Vegetius (I am not getting into the argument over whether there was one Vegetius or two. I call them "brothers" but that is my little joke!). In Bk.3.2, he sets out the measurements of various parts of the average horse. He does not give a measurement up to the withers, which we would measure by hands, but he does give measurements for parts of the foreleg from the shoulder to the hoof. This does not seem to be complete (as I read it, he omits the part from the knee to the fetlock) but all his measurements are in feet and inches, as they are for other parts of the horse. In the absence of other evidence to the contrary, I would infer that the Romans did not measure horses by hands.
It's easier for sailors to measure degrees than paces. So nautical miles are a certain portion of a degree, instead of a certain number of paces.