The length of the area of the Panatheæan ſtadium is yet diſtinguiſhable. It was accurately meaſured by Mr. Vernon, who accompanied Sir George Wheeler to that place, A. D. 1676, and was determined by him to be 630 Engliſh feet; and with this account both Dr. Chandler and Mr. Stuart agree. If we conſider that the racers in the Radium, in the courſe called Δίαυλος, returned in the ſame direction in which they ſet out, we may allow 25 feet for the turn at the end round the meta; and if ſo, the length of the courſe will be 600 Greek feet, or 605 Engliſh feet; which, from this meaſurement, I think more than probable.
Opinion of Mr. Barré conſidered. In the nineteenth volume of the French Memoirs of Literature, including from the year 1744 to 1746, there are ſome diſſertations on the length of the ſtadium, by Mr. De la Barré[1]. That gentleman had conceived a notion, that the Radium of Herodotus was only ⅜ of the length of the one employed by Pliny; and this poſition, which abridges the length of the Radium more than any which, I have ſeen, is ſupported by him with much learning and ingenuity, though not altogether with candour and impartial repreſentation.
He founds his argument on the length of the Pythic ſtadium, which, Cenſorinus tells us, conſtited of 1000 feet; whilſt the Italic contained only 025, and the Olympic but 600 feet.
Mr. Barré thinks, that the Romans adopted the Pythic ſtadium from the intercourſe which they had with Greece, when they feat, as they often did in early times, to conſult, the Pythian of Delphic
- ↑ Sur les Meſures Géographiques des Anciens
