Stadium, stadij, n. g. Cic.A place where cunning is excercised, as well of men as of horses.Currere stadium.Cic.To run a rate.Conficere stadia, Vide CONFICIO.Stadium. Plin. A measure of grounde whereof were three forts. One of Italie, conteining 625. feete, that is 125 paces. The secoud Olympicum of 600 seere, that is 120 paces. The thied Pythicum, containing 1000. feete, that is 200 paces, whereof happily may cise the difference betweene Plin. and Diodorus Siculus, in describing Sicily. Of these Stadia, 8. do make an Italian myle, contayning a thousand paces, euery pace being flue foote: we may call it ryght furlongs.
Lewis and Short: Latin dictionary
Stadĭos, i, m., a Greek painter, Plin. 35, 11, 42, 146.
stădĭum, ii, n. (masc. collat. form, acc. plur. stadios, Macr. Somn. Scip. 1, 15med.; gen. plur. usu. stadium; but stadiorum, Plin. 2, 108, 112, 247; 4, 1, 2, 5; 4, 12, 24, 75), = sta/dion. I. In gen., a stade, stadium, a distance of 125 paces, or 625 Roman feet, equal to 606 feet 9 inches English; it was an eighth part of a milliarium, or somewhat less than an eighth of an English mile, Plin. 2, 23, 21, 85; Col. 5, 1, 6; Censor. de Die Nat. 13; Cic. Fin. 5, 1, 1; id. Ac. 2, 31, 100; id. Fam. 16, 2; Sall. Fragm. ap. Non. 496, 1; Plin. 2, 21, 19, 83; 2, 108, 112, 247.—II. In partic., a racecourse for foot - racing, of a stadium in length (among the Greeks): qui stadium currit, Cic. Off. 3, 10, 42: ut in stadio cursores exclamant, id. Tusc. 2, 23, 56; cf. Suet. Dom. 5; Eutr. 7, 15.—B.Trop., a contest, = contentio (perh. only in the foll. passages): in stadium artis rhetoricae prodire, Auct. Her. 4, 3, 4: in stadio laudis versari, Rutil. Lup. 2, p. 77 (p. 139 Frotscher; but in Cic. Brut. 64, 230, the correct read. is in studio laudis).