A quinaria (plural: quinariae) is a
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
* Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...
unit
Unit may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* UNIT, a fictional military organization in the science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''
* Unit of action, a discrete piece of action (or beat) in a theatrical presentation
Music
* ''Unit'' (a ...
of
area
Area is the quantity that expresses the extent of a region on the plane or on a curved surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while '' surface area'' refers to the area of an op ...
, roughly equal to
.
Its primary use was to measure the cross-sectional area of pipes in Roman water distribution systems. A "one quinaria" pipe is in diameter.
In Roman times, there was considerable ambiguity regarding the origin of the name, and the actual value of a quinaria. According to
Frontinus
Sextus Julius Frontinus (c. 40 – 103 AD) was a prominent Roman civil engineer, author, soldier and senator of the late 1st century AD. He was a successful general under Domitian, commanding forces in Roman Britain, and on the Rhine and Danube ...
:
...Those who refer (the quinaria) to Vitruvius and the plumbers, declare that it was so named from the fact that a flat sheet of lead 5 digits wide, made up into a round pipe, forms this ajutage. But this is indefinite, because the plate, when made up into a round shape, will be extended on the exterior surface and contracted on the interior surface. The most probable explanation is that the quinaria received its name from having a diameter of 5/4 of a digit...
In other words,
Vitruvius
Vitruvius (; c. 80–70 BC – after c. 15 BC) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work entitled '' De architectura''. He originated the idea that all buildings should have three attribut ...
claimed that the name was derived from a pipe created from a flat sheet of lead "5
digits wide", roughly , but Frontinus contested the definitiveness of this because the exterior circumference of the resulting pipe would be larger than the interior circumference. According to Frontinus, the name and value is derived from a pipe having a diameter of "5/4 of a digit". Using Vitruvius' standard, the value of a quinaria is , and the resulting pipe would have a diameter of .
The importance of this measure was that water taxes in ancient Rome were based on the size of the supply pipe.
[Robert Graves]
See also
*
Ancient Roman weights and measures
The ancient Roman units of measurement were primarily founded on the Hellenic system, which in turn was influenced by the Egyptian system and the Mesopotamian system. The Roman units were comparatively consistent and well documented.
Length
T ...
*
Water theft#Roman period
Notes and references
External links
''The Quinaria'', part of the Encyclopædia Romana
Units of area
Human-based units of measurement
Ancient Roman units of measurement
{{AncientRome-stub