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

of five feet in length, as Columella says (Book 5, chapter 1): "A pace has five feet." The stadium was a measure of the Greeks, whose use and name, however, passed to the Romans, consisting of 125 paces. Columella, where above: "A stadium then has 125 paces, that is, 625 feet." Pliny (Book 2, chapter 23): "A stadium makes 125 of our paces, that is, 625 feet." From whose opinion, younger scholars have observed that the Greek foot was of a different length from the Latin one; for from the opinion of Herodotus and Suidas, a Greek stadium, which consists of 600 Greek feet, makes Roman feet, as Pliny declares, 625. For this reason, the Greek foot is longer than the Roman foot by half an inch of that same Roman foot. For 600 half-inches constitute those 25 feet that exceed the number of 600. I believe this is true, even if Plutarch in the life of C. Gracchus, to be referred to below concerning the mile, not observing this difference, thought that eight stadia do not make up a complete mile, counting himself a stadium of 600 Greek feet, which multiplied eight times constitute a sum of 4,800 feet; from which it happens that 200 are missing from the full 5,000; which 200 are constituted from that half-inch by which the Greek foot exceeds the Roman, as I have said before. For many similar things are found, which have distracted the minds even of the most learned men, as I have also noted below. The milliarium, or mile, consists, as the word itself sounds, of 1,000 paces, but eight stadia, and 5,000 feet, as Columella also declares in the place just cited. For which milliare and 1,000 paces are read. Varro, on the Latin language (Book 5): "For what sense is there, that what is 1,000 paces away, one could perceive? The sense of the eyes and sight reaches to the stars." The praetor grants to those summoned to court twenty of these miles for a day's journey, as the Jurisconsult Gaius says, in Law 1, if anyone has not complied with the bail bonds made for the sake of appearing in court, whose words are these: "He orders twenty thousand paces to be counted for each day, besides the day on which the bail is promised, and the one on which one ought to appear in court." Which Ulpian the Jurisconsult also declares more fully (Law in itinere, on the significance of words and things), saying thus: "In making a journey, twenty thousand paces to be covered on each single day are to be understood in such a way that, if after this counting