Page:Arrian's Voyage Round the Euxine Sea Translated.djvu/177

176 Greek meaures in their own time, too well to repreent a man as a giant, who was only four feet and a quarter in height.

It mut indeed be owned that the later Greek writers (incorrectly, I think) are apt to confound the pithame and the palete. Thus Aetius, peaking of the viper, decribes it as being in general of a cubit's length; and the longet. This lat meaure would amount but to 12 digits; or only three-quarters of a cubit, uppoing the cubit to be of a foot length only. But if we undertand that he meant three pithames, or thrice three-fourths of a Greek foot, uch a meaure exceeds a cubit in a proper prportion, or as three to two, or as 27 to 18. And this appears to be the real ize of thee animals.

Mr. Pennant ays, that "they are eldom of a greater length than two feet; though once he aw a female viper almot: three feet long." This proves Aetius meant a foot and a half, and not a foot only, by the cubit. Many more intances of the confounding the two meaures may be found in Contantine's Lexicon.

Mr. Barré next produces an argument from the ize of the pygmies,