Greek meaſures in their own time, too well to repreſent a man as a giant, who was only four feet and a quarter in height.
It muſt indeed be owned that the later Greek writers (incorrectly, I think) are apt to confound the ſpithame[1] and the paleſte. Thus Aetius, ſpeaking of the viper, deſcribes it as being in general of a cubit's length; and the longeſt παλαιϛῶν τριῶν. This laſt meaſure would amount but to 12 digits; or only three-quarters of a cubit, ſuppoſing the cubit to be of a foot length only. But if we underſtand that he meant three ſpithames, or thrice three-fourths of a Greek foot, ſuch a meaſure exceeds a cubit in a proper prportion, or as three to two, or as 27 to 18. And this appears to be the real ſize of theſe animals.
Mr. Pennant ſays[2], that "they are ſeldom of a greater length than two feet; though once he ſaw a female viper almoſt: three feet long." This proves Aetius meant a foot and a half, and not a foot only, by the cubit. Many more inſtances of the confounding the two meaſures may be found in Conſtantine's Lexicon.[3]
Mr. Barré next produces an argument from the ſize of the
- ↑ Illud vero etiam dignum quod admoneatur, Græcos alterum pro altero uſurpare. Conſt. Lexic. Vox παλαιϛή.
Sometimes the true or larger ſpithame was diſtinguiſhed by the name of σπιθαμὴ βασιλεκή. Thus Hero ſays, "the ὀργυιὰ, or fathom, contained eight royal ſpithames, (of 12 digits each,) or ſix feet and one common ſpithame." By the latter he undoubtedly meant a meaſure of four digits, or the palette; which ſhews that the orguia, which the Greek writers reckon as argument from the ſize of ſix feet, was by the Romans counted as fix and ¼ of their feet, which makes the proportion of the Roman foot to the Greek to be as 24 to 25.
- ↑ Britiſh Zoology.
- ↑ Vox παλαιϛή.
