Liters to Sextarii (L to sextarius)

1 liter equals 1.832061069 sextarii (rounded).

1 liter = 1.832061069 sextarii

How to convert liters to sextarii

To convert liters to sextarii, multiply the number of liters by 1.832061069. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply sextarii by 0.5458333333 (rounded).

sextarii = liters × 1.832061069

Example: 10 liters = 18.32061069 sextarii.

Pints, quarts, gallons and fluid ounces differ between the US and the UK. Units are labeled 'US' or 'imperial' to avoid confusion.

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

About these units

Liter (L)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One cubic decimeter (1,000 cm³). The everyday metric unit of volume for drinks, fuel and cooking.

The liter was born in revolutionary France. In 1795 it was introduced as a republican unit and defined as one cubic decimeter, while the gram was tied to a cubic centimeter of water. The name comes from the older French litron, itself descended from a Byzantine Greek unit of weight, not volume. A small revision of the decimeter in 1798 left the first liter about 1.000974 of today's cubic decimeter, and in 1879 the international metric authorities adopted the liter with the symbol l.

The liter then took a strange detour. In 1901 it was redefined as the space taken up by one kilogram of pure water at its densest, which made it about 1.000028 cubic decimeters, and that muddled definition lasted until 1964, when it was restored to exactly one cubic decimeter. A capital L was added as an alternative symbol in 1979 because a lowercase l is easy to mistake for the digit 1, and NIST says L is the symbol to use in the United States. A liter of water is close to a kilogram, which is why a one-liter bottle feels like a kilo in the hand.

The liter is the reference unit for volume on this site.

Sources: Wikipedia: Litre; NIST Guide to the SI, Chapter 5: units outside the SI

Sextarius (sextarius)

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

One 48th of an amphora, about 0.55 L. The standard Roman liquid measure, a little under an imperial pint.

Literally a sixth, the sextarius was one sixth of a congius and one forty-eighth of an amphora quadrantal, which means one forty-eighth of a cubic Roman foot. It was the working core of Roman capacity measure, since both the liquid and the dry tables were built on it.

Its size is more contested than most. Wikipedia's text calculates about 540.3 mL from the cubic foot, its table gives 546 mL, which is the figure used here, and archaeological vessels fall between 500 and 580 mL, with no two surviving examples exactly alike. Wikipedia compares it to about 95 percent of an imperial pint, which is why it is often called a Roman pint. Smaller units were fractions of it, such as the cyathus at one twelfth, while the modius was 16 sextarii.

1 sextarius = 0.5458333333 liters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Ancient Roman units of measurement

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