FOOT. - Unit of measurement among the Romans, corresponding to 0.2959 m.
It is sometimes also found represented in Christian inscriptions, as in that of an Ianuarius in the cemetery « inter duas lauros », or engraved on sarcophagi, as on the one known as that of the architect in Pretestato (M. Gütschow, Das Museum der Prätextat Katahombe, in Atti della Pont. accad. rom.
di arch., 3ª series, 4 [1938, II], p. 101 ff.). A Greek inscription, perhaps Justinianic, found among the ruins of the aqueduct of Jerusalem, recalls the edict of a Flavio Enea, silentarius of the Eastern Empire, which forbids the sowing and cultivation of the land lying within a space of 15 feet from the aqueduct; it reproduces a foot according to the measure understood by him. The model, in the modern metric system, is 0.308-0.309 m, that is, almost equal to the Attic foot (F. M. Abel, Inscription grecque de l'aqueduc de Jérusalem avec la figure du pied byzantin, in Rev. bibl., 35 [1926], pp. 284-88).
PIEDIMONTE D'ALIFE, DIOCESI of: ALIFE, DIOCESI of.