Encyclopedia of Society and Culture in the Ancient World

or an inch; 4 inches were regarded as 1 bas, or hand palm; 3

palms were a troigid, or foot; 12 troigids were a fertach, or rod;

12 fertachs were a forrach; and an area 12 forrachs in length

and 6 in width was a tír-cumaile. Th e last of these measures

was signifi cant because it represented an area suffi cient to

graze a cumal, or three cows. Property was oft en measured

according to the amount of work that could be performed on

it. Th e acre, for example, developed as an amount of land that

a worker could plow in a day.

GREECE

BY SPYROS SIROPOULOS

Th e ability to measure and compare physical objects and

to express their attributes in symbols easily understood by

everyone constitutes a standard of communication and pro-

vides a way to relate abstract thought to reality. To defi ne

a measurement, it is necessary to establish a metron, a unit

with which to count objects and various subunits or mul-

tiples. Various metrical systems have developed to measure

elemental dimensions such as length, area, capacity, and

weight.

From an early stage of their communal life, people real-

ized the need for specifi c measurements. Representations of

simple forms of balances or scales have been discovered at

Knossos in Crete. Th e Egyptians had used scales since 2500

b.c.e., and it is possible that the use of such mechanisms

passed from Crete to Greece. In any case, the fi rst units of

measurement were inspired by the human anatomy. Th e fi n-

ger, palm, and foot were the fi rst natural measures. Need-

less to say, the degree of standardization varied from place

to place. Furthermore, there were situations in which these

measures were inadequate; for example, in the case of mea-

suring longer distances, the cast of a stone or spear or the

distance covered by a walker in one day were used as basic

units. Th e Greek poet Homer (eighth or ninth century b.c.e.)

uses phrases like these to describe long distances.

People also needed to measure the fi elds they plowed, the

liquids they stored or exchanged in trade, and the amount

of grain they produced. Various metrical systems developed,

all of them based on local conditions, habits, and needs, yet

all of them interdependent and volatile because of interna-

tional trade and the contact of people with their neighbors.

In classical Athens the prototype measures of capacity used

for market inspection were kept in the dome of the Athenian

Agora (market).

Th e principal unit for measuring length was inspired by

the foot, or pous, but its length was not standard and varied

greatly from place to place. Th e foot of Olympia was 1.050

modern feet, the foot of Pergamon was 1.083 modern feet,

and the foot of Aegina (which was used more frequently) was

1.093 modern feet. Th e subdivision of the pous is called da-

ktylos, or a fi nger breadth, which is equivalent to 1⁄16 of the

pous, or 0.063 modern feet (0.76 inch). Further subdivisions

are taken by the fi ngers. Th us, 4 daktyloi = 1 palaesté (palm);

8 daktyloi = 1 dichas or hemipódion (half foot); 11 daktyloi

= 1 orthódoron; 12 daktyloi = 1 spithamé (span of all fi n-

gers); 16 daktyloi = 1 pous (foot). Measures for higher di-

mensions are taken from the arm: 18 daktyloi = 1 pygmé (the

length between the elbow and the beginning of the fi ngers);

20 daktyloi = 1 pygón (the length between the elbow and the

knuckles of the fi st, used by the Greek writers Homer and

Herodotus); 24 daktyloi = 1 péches (the length between the

elbow and the fi ngertips).

From farming life the Greeks developed the measure of

a stádion, the distance covered by the plow in a single draft.

Originally the stádion contained 600 feet, irrespective of the

foot’s size. Th e Attic stádion was therefore 606.889 modern

feet; the Olympic stádion was 630.807 modern feet; and the

odoiporikón (pacer’s stadium) was 516.732 modern feet.

Th e stádion produces further units, such as these: 2 stádia

= 1 diaulos; 4 stádia = 1 hippikón; 12 stádia = 1 dólichos; 30

odoiporiká stádia = 1 persian paraságes; 40 odoiporiká stádia

= 1 Egyptian schoinos.

Th e minimum measure for area was the amount that a

pair of oxen could plow in the course of one day. Th is was

called pléthron, a square of 101 by 101 modern feet. Divisions

of the pléthron were the árura (¼ of the pléthron) and the

Red porphyry 1-talent weight, from Knossos (Alison Frantz

Photographic Collection, American School of Classical Studies at Athens)

weights and measures: Greece 1179

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