THE ROMAN MILE

The Roman mile was 1000 paces (mille passum) as measured by every other step; i.e. the total distance of the left foot hitting the ground 1000 times. The Roman consul Agrippa created a standardised mile in 29BC by declaring that one ‘foot’ should be based on the exact length of his own foot, which in our money was 296mm or 0.97 feet. But modern feet are slightly longer, so although a Roman mile was 5000 feet, the average modern foot can cover the same distance in just 4850 alternate steps. Then along came the English Parliament, which in 1592 decided to re-standardise a mile as eight furlongs. A furlong is 660 feet, and thus a modern mile is 5280 modern feet. So we’ve drifted quite a long way from the Roman mile – but they still came up with the basis for #walk1000miles. Or as they might have had it, #miliapassuumambula.