My wife grew up on the metric system, and she says the mile is the most ridiculous unit ever invented. For years, she had me. But history claps back.... The word comes from Latin, mille passus, a thousand paces. A Roman pace was two steps, counted each time the same foot hit the ground. A thousand of those made a mile. Along the Appian Way, built in 312 BC, stone markers stood at every thousand paces, counted outward from a gate in Rome's old wall. A traveler read the distance off the road itself. The strange number came much later. In 1593, Parliament under Elizabeth I set the mile at 5,280 feet so it would divide evenly into furlongs, the length of an English farmer's furrow. So the odd number is a Roman soldier's stride, adjusted to fit an English field. I love that. Every time you say "mile," you are still counting the steps of a legionary marching south out of Rome..... ...on the Appian Way that you can still walk today, counting the old mile markers as you go The poet Statius called that road the queen of long roads.