Spithame
σπιθαμή
Spithame (σπιθαμή), a span, a Greek measure equal to 3-4ths of the foot. There was no proper Roman measure corresponding to it, but the later writers used palmus in this sense; the early writers express the Greek span properly by dodrans. [MENSURA p. 161 b; PALMUS]
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.