Ancient Roman units of measurement

The ancient Roman units of measurement were built on the Greek system with Egyptian influences. The Roman units were generally accurate and well documented.

Length

The Roman foot is defined to be of the Nippur cubit.

Roman unit	Latin name	Feet	Equivalence
one digit	digitus		18.5 mm
one palm	palmus		74 mm
one foot	pes	1	296 mm
one cubit	cubitus		444 mm
one step	gradus		0.74 m
one pace	passus	5	1.48 m
one perch	pertica	10	2.96 m
one arpent	actus	120	35.5 m
one stadion	stadium	625	185 m
one mile	milliarium	5000	1.48 km
one league	leuga	7500	2.22 km

Notes

#Since late Antiquity the Roman foot was sometimes divided into unciae, 12 equal parts.
Although, the ancient digit measure largely dominated before beginning of Middle Ages.#The value of the historical Roman foot scientifically obtained by modern statistical methods is 296.2 mm Â± 0.5 mm (about 296.2 mm Â±0.17%) (cf. Rottländer, Tübingen, Germany). The table above is based on this value, however rounded to the millimetre precision for the foot.# The widely accepted ratio between the Roman foot and the English foot is 36:35. The latter one is 16/28 Mesopotamian cubit and the ratio between this one and the Roman cubit is 20:24. If the present English foot is taken as for reference, the Roman foot should be 296 1/3 mm. That is within the margin obtained by R.C.A. Rottländer (see references).#A Roman foot can be visualised as being approximately equal to the height of an A4 sheet of paper. This comparison, whilst descriptive is +0.27% out of the range given above.

Area

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