The Greeks, it is evident, departed, in all the acceptations taken notice of by the learned Stephanus, from the original meaning of the word uilenn, we; but the Romans, though they equally clearly as the Greeks preserved the ori ginal word, departed still farther from its original meaning; with them it signified not only a cubit, but the length or space between the tips of the fingers of two arms stretched out; and it was also used to signify a man's arm, as in these lines of Catullus, xvii. 13.

"Est homo

"Insulsissimus, nec sapit pueri instar,

"Bimuli tremula patris dormientis in ulna."

It is understood that the Romans borrowed their measures of length from the Greeks. As these measures were taken from the human body, it is to be presumed that the specific lengths of the different measures were determined by what was found to be the longitudinal extent of the members of a human body, the most perfect or most admired for size, symmetry, and strength. If it be true, as is supposed by the generality of authors,* that the Grecian foot exceeded the Roman by a Roman half inch, then it may be inferred, that when the Grecian measure of a foot was fixed, the bodies of men in Greece were

* ARBUTHNOT's Tables of Ancient Coins, &c. ch. 8.

larger than were those in Italy when the Roman measure of a foot was determined.

Aristotle describes a man to be ovo div steaжxv, a two footed animal four cubits high.

A cubit was understood universally to be a measure of one foot and a half. The Roman cubit was a fraction of an inch less than eigh teen English inches; the Grecian cubit was a fraction of an inch greater than the Roman cubit; so that Aristotle's man may be supposed to amount to the measure of six feet English in height; his cubit being the fourth part of his height, was of consequence a measure of eighteen English inches. If, however, Aristotle's description of a man can be understood to have been taken from the medium size of men in his days, these men of six feet high were as common in his time in Greece, as men of five feet eight inches are at present in Great Britain; this last measure being understood to be the medium size of men in this island.

A cubit is that part of the arm which is often used to support the body in a leaning posture, and seems to be derived from the verb cubo. The Latins said cubitus or cubitum, the Greeks had the word virov. The word cubo was used, it is probable, by the Greeks, in the same sense with that of the Latins, as we meet with unos to signify an inclined posture of the body. The root of both words is Gaelic; cub signifies a bending of the body; cubam, I bend or stoop; and

cubachuil, a bed-chamber, and is the same with the Latin cubiculum, a compound of cub and cuil; which latter is in common use, and signifies a recess or private apartment of a house. Claon and cluain are now in current use for to bend or recline; which are the same with the Greek naww, and the Latin clino, though in the latter language the word became obsolete without the prepositions, in, re, ad, de.

The members of the human body having been naturally used as affording various standards for different measures of length, the appellations of those members were also, by a metonymy natural to the human mind, applied to the measures themselves; the standards having been once fixed by the common consent and usage of any people. So, among the Romans, digitus, palma, pes, cubitus, a finger, a palm, a foot, a cubit, were well known parts of the body; but ulna, as a measure, was variously understood. It is evident, however, that Servius's opinion was just, that it was originally and properly the same measure with a cubit. The word ulna, as already mentioned, denoted simply the tip of the elbow, to which, in the act of measurement, it was necessary to apply the instrument of mensuration, which being extended along the arm to the tip of the fingers, the whole measure got the name of that part of the arm which figured most in the imagination, whence the measure

1

ment took its commencement.

In confirmation of this idea it may be observed, that the Greek wλsm was not understood to be a greater measure than their xes, which was certainly the Roman cubitus.

πηχυς,

66

MULTA. PŒNA.

AULUS GELLIUS writes,*" Timæus in histo"riis, quas oratione Græca de rebus populi Ro"mani composuit, et M. Varro in antiquitatibus "rerum humanarum terram Italiam de Græco "vocabulo appellatam scripserunt; quoniam boves Græca vetere lingua Ira vocitati sunt, quorum in Italia magna copia fuerit, buceraq. "in ea terra gigni pasciq. solita sint complurima. Conjectare autem possumus ob eandem cau"sam, quod Italia tunc esset armentosissima, mul"tam quæ appellatur, suprema, institutam in singuļos duarum ovium, boum triginta, pro copia scilicet boum, proq. ovium penuria. Sed "cum ejusmodi multa pecoris armentiq. a magis"tratibus dicta erat; addicebantur boves ovesq. "alias precii parvi alias majoris; eaq. res facie"bat inæqualem multæ pœnitionem. Idcirco pos

* Lib. xi. cap. 1. Noct. Attic.

"tea lege Ateria constituti sunt in oves singu "las æris deni, in boves æris centeni, Minima autem multa est ovis unius. Suprema multa est ejus numeri, cujus diximus, ultra quem "multa dicere in singulos jus non est, et prop"terea suprema appellatur, id est, summa et "maxima. Quando igitur nunc quoq. a magis"tratibus populi Romani more majorum multa "dicitur vel minima vel suprema; observari "solet ut oves genere virili appellentur; atq. ita "M. Varro verba hæc legitima, quibus minima "multa diceretur, concepit. M. Terentius quan"do citatus neq. respondet neq. excusatus est, ego ei "unum ovem multam dico. Ac nisi eo genere "diceretur negaverunt justam videri multam. "Vocabulum autem ipsum multæ idem M. Varro 66 uno et vicesimo rerum humanarum non Latinum sed Sabinum esse dicit; idq. ad suam me"moriam mansisse ait in lingua Samnitium, qui "sunt a Sabinis orti."

We learn from the history of mankind, in different periods of their social existence, that even after the notion of the right of appropriation had obtained in the human mind, those subjects which administer to the sustenance and comfort of the human species were enjoyed, not by individuals exclusively, but by societies or tribes of men, women and children, in common. Mankind existing in this state of society were not unacquainted with atonements and compensations for injuries, by payment or delivery of a certain num