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Please note that Mommsen uses the AUC chronology (Ab Urbe Condita), i.e. from the founding of the City of Rome. You can use this reference table to have the B.C. dates

THE HISTORY OF OLD ROME

I. The Period Anterior to the Abolition of the Monarchy

From: The History of Rome, by Theodor Mommsen
Translated with the sanction of the author by William Purdie Dickson

CHAPTER XIV - Measuring and Writing

» Contents of this Chapter

Italian Measures ||| Decimal System ||| The Duodecimal System ||| Greek Measures in Italy ||| The Italian Calendar before the Period of Greek Influence in Italy ||| The Oldest Italo-Greek Calendar ||| Introduction of Greek Alphabets into Italy ||| Development of Alphabets in Italy ||| Results ||| Corruption of Language and Writing

The art of measuring brings the world into subjection to man; the art of writing prevents his knowledge from perishing along with himself; together they make man--what nature has not made him--all-powerful and eternal. It is the privilege and duty of history to trace the course of national progress along these paths also.

Italian Measures

Measurement necessarily presupposes the development of the several ideas of units of time, of space, and of weight, and of a whole consisting of equal parts, or in other words of number and of a numeral system. The most obvious bases presented by nature for this purpose are, in reference to time, the periodic returns of the sun and moon, or the day and the month; in reference to space, the length of the human foot, which is more easily applied in measuring than the arm; in reference to gravity, the burden which a man is able to poise (-librare-) on his hand while he holds his arm stretched out, or the "weight" (-libra-).

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