Gabb, Thomas: Finis pyramidis or Disquisitions concerning the antiquity and scientific end of the great pyramid of Giza, or ancient Memphis, in Egypt, and of the first standard of linear measure (Retford, 1806)

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itîshing a foot measure so foreign and dissimilar to thé
foot of man, and to the hundredth part of the real hex«
astyle hecatompedon.

From the above causes, however, it might easily
happen, that all distinction, of the old and new Parthe-
non, might sink into oblivion, though a confused tradition
of the name parthenon hecatompedon might be preserved
to a late posterity ; who in a servile condition, under the
Roman conquerors, found leisure and encouragement to
apply themselves to the arts and sciences, whichj in
their more turbulent ages, had been suspended: and thus
finding a want of a proper foot measure, were led into
error, by a tradition of the Parthenon being hecatompe-
don; and took the octastyle for the line of an hundred feet :
and this tradition perpetuated to these times, also misled
Mr. Stuart who industriously set about to ascertain the
Attic foot, by comparing the front line with the side,
and finding between them a commensüräbility, was well
pleased with his erroneous assumption of an hundreth
part of the octastyle front line for the Attic foot, with-
out reflecting that he had in reality discovered nothing:
for supposing all the columns and inter columns had
been of any other size whatever, the front and side line
would have been equally commensurate, provided the
exisona, as Vitruvius calls it, obtained in the side.

This much may suffice to account for thè adoption
and prevalence, in these latter âgés, of the erroneous
Greek foot, which is something more than ours, and
much more than the monumental foot at Rome.* I now
proceed to account for the adoption of the smaller

foot

* It is a very questional decision that has been drawn from
these monuments at Rome, concerning the size of the Roman
foot : this will be discussed in the sequel of this tract.