The stadion (plural stadia, grc-gre, ;
latinized as
stadium), also
anglicized
Anglicisation is the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by English culture or British culture, or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-English becomes English. It can also refer to the influenc ...
as stade,
was
Was or WAS may refer to:
* ''Was'', a past-tense form of the English copular verb ''to be''
People
* David Was (born c. 1952), the stage name of multi-instrumentalist and songwriter David Weiss
* Don Was (born 1952), the stage name of bass guita ...
an
ancient Greek unit of
length, consisting of 600 Ancient Greek feet (''podes'').
Calculations
According to
Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer
A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...
, one stadium was equal to 600
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 ...
(''podes''). However, the length of the foot varied in different parts of the Greek world, and the length of the stadion has been the subject of argument and hypothesis for hundreds of years.
An
empirical determination of the length of the stadion was made by Lev Vasilevich Firsov, who compared 81 distances given by
Eratosthenes and
Strabo with the straight-line distances measured by modern methods, and
average
In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7 ...
d the results. He obtained a result of about . Various equivalent lengths have been proposed, and some have been named. Among them are:
Which measure of the stadion is used can affect the interpretation of ancient texts. For example, the error in the calculation of Earth's circumference by
Eratosthenes or
Posidonius
Posidonius (; grc-gre, Ποσειδώνιος , "of Poseidon") "of Apameia" (ὁ Ἀπαμεύς) or "of Rhodes" (ὁ Ῥόδιος) (), was a Greek politician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, historian, mathematician, and teacher nativ ...
is dependent on which stadion is chosen to be appropriate.
Other uses
From the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
on, the word ''stadium'' has been used as a synonym for the
furlong
A furlong is a measure of distance in imperial units and United States customary units equal to one eighth of a mile, equivalent to 660 feet, 220 yards, 40 rods, 10 chains or approximately 201 metres. It is now mostly confined to use in hor ...
(which is 220 yards, equal to one eighth of a
mile), which is of
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
origin.
See also
*
Ancient Egyptian units of measurement
Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cov ...
*
Ancient Greek units of measurement#Length
*
Earth's circumference
Earth's circumference is the distance around Earth. Measured around the Equator, it is . Measured around the poles, the circumference is .
Measurement of Earth's circumference has been important to navigation since ancient times. The first kno ...
References
{{Reflist, refs=
[C.F. Lehmann-Haupt (1929) "Stadion"; in August Friedrich von Pauly (ed.), ''Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft''. Stuttgart: Metzler; cited in: Edward Gulbekian (1987)]
The Origin and Value of the Stadion Unit used by Eratosthenes in the Third Century BC
''Archive for History of Exact Sciences'' 37 (4): 359–363. {{doi, 10.1007/BF00417008. {{subscription required.
[Otto Cuntz (1923)]
''Die Geographie des Ptolemaeus: Galliae, Germania, Raetia, Noricum, Pannoniae, Illyricum, Italia''
(in German). Berlin: Weidmann. Cited by: Edward Gulbekian (1987)
The Origin and Value of the Stadion Unit used by Eratosthenes in the Third Century BC
''Archive for History of Exact Sciences'' 37 (4): 359–363. {{doi, 10.1007/BF00417008. {{subscription required.
[D.R. Dicks (1960). ''The Geographical Fragments of Hipparchus. Edited with an Introduction and Commentary''. London: Athlone Press. Cited in: J. L. Berggren, Alexander Jones (2000)]
Ptolemy's Geography: An Annotated Translation of the Theoretical Chapters
Princeton: Princeton University Press. {{ISBN, 9780691010427.
[Donald Engels (1985)]
The Length of Eratosthenes' Stade
''American Journal of Philology'' 106 (3): 298–311. {{doi, 10.2307/295030 {{subscription required.
[Edward Gulbekian (1987)]
The Origin and Value of the Stadion Unit used by Eratosthenes in the Third Century BC
''Archive for History of Exact Sciences'' 37 (4): 359–363. {{doi, 10.1007/BF00417008. {{subscription required.
[J. L. Berggren, Alexander Jones (2000)]
Ptolemy's Geography: An Annotated Translation of the Theoretical Chapters
Princeton: Princeton University Press. {{ISBN, 9780691010427.
Obsolete units of measurement
Ancient Greek units of measurement
Units of length
Units of measurement in surveying