The stadion (plural stadia, grc-gre, ; latinized as

stadium A stadium ( : stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand o ...

), 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 an ancient Greek unit of

length Length is a measure of distance. In the International System of Quantities, length is a quantity with dimension distance. In most systems of measurement a base unit for length is chosen, from which all other units are derived. In the Inte ...

, consisting of 600 Ancient Greek feet (''podes'').

Calculations

According to

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria (Italy). He is known fo ...

, one stadium was equal to 600 Greek feet (''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 Empirical evidence for a proposition is evidence, i.e. what supports or counters this proposition, that is constituted by or accessible to sense experience or experimental procedure. Empirical evidence is of central importance to the sciences and ...

determination of the length of the stadion was made by Lev Vasilevich Firsov, who compared 81 distances given by

Eratosthenes Eratosthenes of Cyrene (; grc-gre, Ἐρατοσθένης ; – ) was a Greek polymath: a mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist. He was a man of learning, becoming the chief librarian at the Library of Alexandr ...

and

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called " Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could s ...

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

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 The mile, sometimes the international mile or statute mile to distinguish it from other miles, is a British imperial unit and United States customary unit of distance; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 Engli ...

), 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 ...

origin.

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

Calculations

Other uses

See also

References