The Roman Chemistry System
Parliamentarian - Charlie Moser
The other night as I was doing my chemistry homework I remembered something that we learned in class. The Romans (mostly) diluted their wine with water. Knowing well that you couldn’t properly dilute things without some sort of measurement system, I started researching the subject more. To my surprise, I found that typically at conviva or banquet parties, Romans typically dilute their wine (whether it be Falernian or Alban) with a measurement known as a Sextarius. Which is equivalent to about 0.54 L today. Typically Romans used about 1 Sextarius of water to about 2 Sextarii of wine. It must have been pretty strong stuff. Ironically, the Greeks drank wine
straight. They must have had a rough time realizing their empire was on the path toward ruination. When I thought about it more I figured with all the giant architecture the Romans had, there must have been some sort of Linear measurement system in order to better design their buildings. The most common measurement was the pes from where our measurement of the foot was derived from. It was around 12 inches, but it depended on the size of that person's foot for the variation. Other similar measurements used were the digitus which is 1/16 of a pes, the Uncia which was 1/12 of a pes, and the palmus which was about ¼ of a pes.
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