Episode Eighty-One - Development of the Arts - The End of Book Five

    Here's something completely irrelevant; when the Romans got hold of the word ἀγρός, they used it in one of the two principal words they had for "land-surveyor". The Gromatici were those skilled in the use of the groma, a tool for laying out roads, camps and new settlements, in the classic Roman way of straight lines and right angles. But the Finitors, or Agrimensores, were responsible for settling boundary disputes between parties, replacing lost boundary stones, and the like. Other types of unofficial mensores or 'measurers' were employed in the various tasks of laying out orchards, vineyards, grain fields and such.