The jugerum or juger ( la, iūgerum, ', ', or ') was a Roman unit of area, equivalent to a rectangle 240

Roman feet 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 ...

in length and 120 feet in width (about 71×35½m), i.e. 28,800 square Roman feet ( la, pedes quadratum) or about

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100- metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre i ...

(0.623

acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial and US customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one chain by one furlong (66 by 660 feet), which is exactly equal to 10 square chains, of a square mile, 4,840 square ...

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It was the double of the , and from this circumstance, according to some writers, it derived its name. It seems probable that, as the word was evidently originally the same as , a

yoke A yoke is a wooden beam sometimes used between a pair of oxen or other animals to enable them to pull together on a load when working in pairs, as oxen usually do; some yokes are fitted to individual animals. There are several types of yoke, u ...

, and as , in its original use, meant a path wide enough to drive a single beast along, that originally meant a path wide enough for a yoke of oxen, namely, the double of the in width; and that when was used for a square measure of surface, the , by a natural analogy, became the double of the ; and that this new meaning of it superseded its old use as the double of the single .

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...

states:

That portion of land used to be known as a "jugerum," which was capable of being ploughed by a single "jugum," or yoke of oxen, in one day; an "actus" being as much as the oxen could plough at a single spell, fairly estimated, without stopping. This last was one hundred and twenty feet in length; and two in length made a jugerum.

Pliny (Book VIII, Chapter 16) also used jugerum as a measure of length. The translator (Bostock) speculated that the jugerum length measurement was equivalent to the Greek plethron, about 30 meters or 100 feet. This was based on Pliny translating Aristotle's "plethron" to "jugerum". The uncial division ''as'' was applied to the , its smallest part being the of 100 sq ft or 9.2 m². Thus, the contained 288 (Varro, R. R. l.c.). The was the common measure of land among the Romans. Two formed an , a hundred heredia a

centuria ''Centuria'' (, plural ''centuriae'') is a Latin term (from the stem ''centum'' meaning one hundred) denoting military units originally consisting of 100 men. The size of the century changed over time, and from the first century BC through most ...

, and four a . These divisions were derived from the original assignment of landed property, in which two were given to each citizen as heritable property.

Columella Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (; Arabic: , 4 – ) was a prominent writer on agriculture in the Roman Empire. His ' in twelve volumes has been completely preserved and forms an important source on Roman agriculture, together with the wo ...

states:

The square actus is bounded by 120 feet each way: when doubled it forms a iugerum, and it has derived the name iugerum from the fact that it was formed by joining.Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella: ''On Agriculture'' (''De Re Rustica'', Book V). Translated by Forster and Heffner. Heinemann London MCMLIV.

Gaul Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during ...

, half of a ''jugerum'' was called an ''arepennis'', the origin of the later French unit of area, the '' arpent''.

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* ''

A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities ''A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities'' is an English language encyclopedia first published in 1842. The second, improved and enlarged, edition appeared in 1848, and there were many revised editions up to 1890. The encyclopedia covered la ...

'' (1842) Units of area Ancient Roman units of measurement

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General bibliography