Yards to Roman Paces (yd to passus)

1 yard equals 0.6178378378 Roman paces (rounded).

1 yard = 0.6178378378 Roman paces

How to convert yards to Roman paces

To convert yards to Roman paces, multiply the number of yards by 0.6178378378. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply Roman paces by 1.618547682 (rounded).

Roman paces = yards × 0.6178378378

Example: 10 yards = 6.178378378 Roman paces.

Approximate value. Standards for the Roman pace varied by place and period, so this converter uses the most commonly cited value. Treat results as estimates, not exact figures.

About these units

Yard (yd)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

3 feet or 36 inches, exactly 0.9144 meters. Used for sports fields, fabric and short distances in the US and UK.

Yard descends from the Old English gerd or gyrd, meaning a branch, stave or measuring rod. It first appears in the late seventh-century laws of Ine of Wessex, though there it names a tax unit, the yardland. Around 959 to 963 King Edgar ordered that the measure held at Winchester be used throughout his realm, the earliest record of a prototype. A story that Henry I fixed the yard as the distance from his nose to his thumb is later folklore, and the true origin, whether pace, cubit or waist, remains speculative.

Britain defined the Imperial Standard Yard in 1824 as the distance between two marks on a brass rod at 62 degrees Fahrenheit. A fire in 1834 damaged the standard, a replacement was made in 1845, and the Weights and Measures Act 1855 recognized it. The 1959 international agreement then fixed the yard at exactly 0.9144 meter. Today it measures American and Canadian football fields, association football pitches and cricket pitches, appears on UK road signs for short distances, and is still used to sell fabric in the US and UK.

1 yard = 0.9144 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Yard; Wikipedia: Inch; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

Roman Pace (passus)

Ancient RomanHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)Approximate value

Five Roman feet, about 1.48 m. A passus was a full stride, from the lift of one foot to the same foot landing again.

Counting a pace by both feet is the key to the Roman passus. Unlike a single step, it ran from the point where one heel leaves the ground to where that same heel lands again, so it covered two steps, each called a gradus. Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa is credited with fixing it at five Roman feet, which comes to about 1.48 m, the figure used here. The exact size depends on the foot, whose surviving measures vary by a few millimeters.

A thousand paces, mille passus, formed the Roman mile of about 1.48 km, and the English word mile descends from that phrase. Milestones along roads such as the Appian Way marked distances in this unit,. The pace also sat in a chain of units: ten feet made a decempeda, and 120 feet made an actus. In imperial terms the passus is a little under five feet.

1 Roman pace = 1.48 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Pace (unit); Wikipedia: Ancient Roman units of measurement

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