Some Latin Dry Measures: Visual Dictionary

I recently came across the modius and trimodius measures in Plautus, and became curious about what exactly I should imagine. They’re dry measures, typically of grain, but they are also roughly equivalent to a peck and a bushel (bzw.), so we can illustrate them with apple baskets, since it’s Fall—

 

photo credit: Wikimedia

Here’s a peck, a.k.a a modius.

photo credit: ipadenclosures.com

Here’s a bushel, which is four pecks (a little more than a trimodius).

Imagine what this basket would look like after the slave helped himself to a few…. that’s a trimodius.

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Whitaker’s WORDS for Macintosh Lion and Mountain Lion (OS X 10.7 and 10.8)

Hey All,

Here’s a quick link to Erik Mendoza’s Interpres, which works to bridge the gap between Whitaker’s WORDS and the latest editions of Macintosh OS X.

When I finally purchased a new laptop, I discovered that Whitaker’s WORDS was no longer compatible with Macintosh Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8). William Whitaker died recently so his version of the software remains static and incompatible with the latest versions of OS X. However, Erik Mendoza has been awesome enough to produce Interpres, which is a compatible (and I would argue more user-friendly) version of the WORDS program. Hopefully, Interpres will also jive well with Apple’s up-and-coming Mavericks (OS X 10.9), due out later this year.

If anyone wants to add a footnote about the latest version of WORDS for Windows 8, I’m sure it would be well received! For those of you suffering under the heel of Windows 8, I offer my sincere condolences.

Cheers,

Ryan