Plethron ( grc-gre, , plural ''plethra'') is an ancient unit of Greek measurement equal to 97 to 100

Greek feet The pous ( podes; grc-gre, ποῦς, ''poûs'') or Greek foot ( feet) was a Greek unit of length. It had various subdivisions whose lengths varied by place and over time. 100 podes made up one plethron, 600 podes made up a stade (the ...

(ποῦς, ''pous''; c. 30 meters), although the measures for plethra may have varied from

polis ''Polis'' (, ; grc-gre, πόλις, ), plural ''poleis'' (, , ), literally means "city" in Greek. In Ancient Greece, it originally referred to an administrative and religious city center, as distinct from the rest of the city. Later, it also ...

to polis. This was roughly the width of a typical ancient Greek athletic running-track. A plethron could also be used as a unit of measured area, and reference to the unit in defining the size of a wrestling area is made by

Libanius Libanius ( grc-gre, Λιβάνιος, Libanios; ) was a teacher of rhetoric of the Sophist school in the Eastern Roman Empire. His prolific writings make him one of the best documented teachers of higher education in the ancient world and a criti ...

, '' Orationes'', Chapter 10. A square plethron of c. 30 by 30 meters was used as the standard dimensions of a Greek

wrestling square Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat sports ...

, since such competitions were held within the racing track in ancient Greece. In other connotations, it functioned as the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

acre, and varied in size to accommodate the amount of land a team of oxen could plow in a day. The plethron continued to be used in the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

, where its variant uses were ultimately codified to refer to an area defined by sides of 100 feet or 40 paces (βῆμα, bema). See also Schilbach, Erich (date not provided) ''Byzantinische Metrologie''. Ultimately, the unit came to be known as the "

stremma The stremma ( stremmata; el, στρέμμα, ''strémma'') is a Greek unit of land area equal to 1,000 square metres. Historically, stremmata were not standardized, and may have been anywhere from . History The ancient Greek equivalent was the s ...

", which continues as a metric unit in modern Greece.

See also

References

Further reading