Page:Arrian's Voyage Round the Euxine Sea Translated.djvu/173

172 What Polybius calls, lib. iii. feet. 101. Livy renders by duo ferme a Geronio millia, lib. xxii. ect. 24. What Polybius calls, lib. viii. ect. 28. Livy calls quindecim millia, lib.xxv. ect. 9. The words of Polybius, lib. xiv. ect. 4., are rendered by Livy, eptem enim millia itineris erant, lib.xxx. ect. 4. where, as Sigonius oberves, the whole paage is cited by Livy from Polybius. Again,, Polyb. lib. xiv. ect. 8. is rendered by Livy, 'quatuor ferme milia. lib. xxx. ect 8.

Mr. Barre next attempts to prove that the Roman foot was equal to the, or cubit, of the Greeks. Let us ee how he upports this extraordinary poition.

His firt argument is drawn from the decription of the plant called dracunculus; or, by Diocorides,, which the lat mentioned writer ays is two cubits high, and which Pliny decribesas "bipedali fere altitudine." Taking it then for granted that Pliny copied Diocorides, he would infer, from the lat-mentioned paage, that the foot of Pliny, was equal to the cubit of Diocorides. But Pliny himelf is doubtful if the plant he calls dracunculus be in reality the of the Greeks. The height of the plant (as Mr. Barré would reconcile the accounts) is the only circumtance in which they agree. Diocorides mentions only two kinds, Pliny pecifies three; and the decription of their qualities in the repective authors by no means coincides.

Bodæus a Stapel, the learned editor of Theophraitus, thinks the account