Roman equivalent of tons?

[Gromit]

I have been writing a story set in first century AD Rome, and I had one of my characters talking about her escape from Pompeii: "...they were gone, all of them, buried with the city under tons of ash." After I wrote that, I realized that a Roman would not have said "tons," but I can't seem to find any other commonly-used name from that period for a large unit of weight. I can simply reword the line to express the idea differently, but I wonder if anyone knows of any such term? The largest I can think of is a talent, but that doesn't convey the idea of massive weight.

[caldrail]

I've had a quick check but I can't find anything heavier than pounds and ounces. If the Romans had no term for such weights, it's because they had no way to measure them, and thus anything of this magnitude might have been described as 'very heavy'. Not a very scientific conclusion I know, and if anyone knows better, please correct me by all means.

[GhostOfClayton]

On what little information you've given there would seem to be a parallel with the very, very excellent "Pompeii" by Robert Harris. Just making sure that you're aware of this work and that there's no uncomfortable overlap. Best of luck with it.

 

If there's no Roman equivalent, how about "...they were gone, all of them, buried with the city under an ocean of ash." ?

[Gromit]

On what little information you've given there would seem to be a parallel with the very, very excellent "Pompeii" by Robert Harris. Just making sure that you're aware of this work and that there's no uncomfortable overlap. Best of luck with it.

 

If there's no Roman equivalent, how about "...they were gone, all of them, buried with the city under an ocean of ash." ?

 

I suspect that even if there was some large measure of weight, it wasn't something people used in common conversation or we'd find it more easily. I was leaning toward "... they were gone, all of them, the whole city entombed forever under a mountain of ash by the hand of Vulcan" or something like that instead. That thought is actually interesting because it fits nicely with Roman superstition, and the Pompeiians did have regular sacrifices to the god Vulcan.

 

And yes, I've read Robert Harris's Pompeii, and there are no overlaps between it and what I'm writing other than the historical facts they have in common. My story only uses the destruction of Pompeii as background, where the events began that lead into what follows. But honestly, you could write a thousand stories, all of them set in Pompeii, without overlapping with Harris's work.

[GhostOfClayton]

"... they were gone, all of them, the whole city entombed forever under a mountain of ash by the hand of Vulcan"

 

Blaming the Gods sounds nicely Roman. Only the sceptical few could perhaps concieve of such a momentous disaster having a cause other than the Gods.

Edited October 11, 2010 by GhostOfClayton

[Melvadius]

"... they were gone, all of them, the whole city entombed forever under a mountain of ash by the hand of Vulcan"

 

Blaming the Gods sounds nicely Roman. Only the sceptical few could perhaps concieve of such a momentous disaster having a cause other than the Gods.

I also like your solution just on a point of reference my copy of 'Greek and Roman Technology' by Humphries et al makes the point that most Greek and Roman measurements were based on readily available units on whihc measurements could be based. In the case of a 'talent' this was 'considered the load that a grown man could carry'.

 

As Caldrail has already indicated anything above that could not easily be measured or multiplied from known measurements therefore they probably didn't have a specific word for it - we only started, sometime in the Medieval period, using tons as a weight which was originally based on the weight of liquid which could be contained within a specific tub size called a tun.

[Trethiwr]

I have to agree about the possibilities of different stories using Vesuvius as a backdrop. The eruption of Vesuvius must have affected tens of thousands of people and every one of them would have had a story to tell, from the many who were killed ending all their plans and dreams at a stroke, to the survivors who escaped at every level from being microns from death, to those who left the day before the eruption, for whatever reason, and thought "there but for the grace of the Gods go I" losing everything from their homes and possessions to entire families, friends, patrons, and clients.