Lucae Paeti ... de mensuris, et ponderibus Romanis, et Graecis

Columella in the same book, chapter 5: "If it is done before the year that the vineyard is brought together, the trench dug in length and height is more than enough at three feet, but two feet in width." Regarding which, see also Book 4, chapter 1, and Pliny, Book 34, chapter 6, in these words: "It should not be omitted what the annals have noted: that statues of three feet were erected in the forum, this measure was clearly honored then." From the foot also (to turn now to those things that are above the foot) comes the palmipes five-palm/one-foot-one-palm measure, for that measure which is of five palms, i.e., of a foot and a palm, about which Vitruvius (Book 5, chapter 6) says: "The steps of the theaters, where the seats are arranged, should be no less high than a palm and a foot, and no more than a foot and six fingers." And Book 10, chapter 20, on preparing a testudo for the congestion of ditches: "In addition to this compaction, let the compactable posts be erected, beyond the hinges, of nine feet, with a thickness also of a pedal palm, having intervals between them of a foot and a half." Varro, on rustic affairs (Book 2, chapter 4): "In the sheds, there ought to be an opening, and a lower threshold, high by a palm and a foot, so that the pigs cannot jump across when the mother comes out." Likewise, from the foot comes the sesquipes one-and-a-half feet: concerning which Vitruvius, where I just mentioned, and Horace in his Ars Poetica:

He casts off his bombast and sesquipedalian words.

Columella (Book 5, chapter 9) on the olive: "Then let the cuttings of a foot and a half be cut off with iron."

The cubitus cubit is also formed from the foot, which is a foot and a half, that is, six palms, as I just said. For the cubit is the same as the foot and a half. Concerning which Vitruvius (Book 3, chapter 1): "And they observed that the cubit consists of six palms, and twenty-four fingers." From this, it also seems that the cities of the Greeks made it so that, just as the cubit is six palms, so they would use that number in the drachma Greek coin/weight as well. For they established the bronze coins, just as the asses units equally of six, which they call oboli, and the quadrants of oboli, which some call dichalca and others trichalca, in place of the 24 fingers in a drachma.

Again, from the foot come the passus pace, stadium, milliarium mile, actus minimus, clima, actus quadratus, iugerum, centuria, saltus, about which I must speak one by one. Meanwhile, however, I thought it should be noted that the first three names, passus, stadium, milliarium, demonstrate linear lengths, which geographers and writers mostly use to show the distance of places, while the other names encompass lengths and breadths, as will appear more widely from what is to be said below.

The passus, which the younger writers think is so named from the spread or outstretched arms, consists