system of division employed in the as as a unit of weight has been transferred to measure. This however is contrary to all experience, for, as we have had occasion constantly before to notice, weight units are derived from measures, e.g. the bushel from the measure of that name, and so on. In the next place as the as is not the unit of Roman weight, if even the measure unit was borrowed from the weight, we ought to expect the foot to be called a libra rather than an as. It is far more likely that a unit originally employed for measure would in time give its name to a weight-unit corresponding in mass to the original measure-unit. There are besides certain pieces of evidence afforded by the nomenclature of the submultiples which point directly to the original as being a measure rather than a weight-unit. The 24th part of the uncia is called the scriptulum, little scratch, or line (scribo), which is exactly translated by the Greeks as gramme ([Greek: grammê], scratch or line)[1]. Now whilst 24 strokes make an excellent method of dividing the uncia in its capacity of inch, they of course have no significance as submultiples of uncia, meaning ounce. Moreover, the forms of several of the best known divisions of the as, such as triens, quadrans, sextans, which are not easy to explain on the hypothesis that the terminology was primarily applied to weight, on the other hand admit of a ready solution when we take the as as originally a unit of measure. For sextans means not a sixth, but that which makes a sixth, triens not a third, but that which divides in three parts, and quadrans not a fourth, but that which makes fourfold, i.e. divides into four, for quadra means not a fourth part, but that which has four parts (hence usually a square). If we regard these words as referring to certain lines drawn across a bar of metal, their meaning is obvious. Whilst sextans uncia, the ounce which makes a sixth, is nonsense, sextans linea, the line which makes a sixth, gives excellent sense, so likewise triens linea fits in admirably with the required meaning, whilst quadrans linea seems to mean the line which divides the whole into four parts.
- ↑ The forms scripulum, scrupulum, scrupulus are all due to its simply being regarded in later times as a weight, and thus falsely identified with scrupulus, a small pebble.
