32
GREEK NUMERICAL NOTATION
(e.g. l A\LKapi'a r r[ecov] = AXiKapvaiitccv) and Teos ([0]aXaTj?y ;
cf. QaXaiiav in another place) seems to be derived from some
form of Ssade; this T, after its disappearance from the
literary alphabet, remained as*a numeral, passing through
the forms A, m, F 1 , <n, and <p to the fifteenth century form \
to which in the second half of the seventeenth century the
name Sampi was applied (whether as being the San which
followed Pi or from its resemblance to the cursive form of tt).
The original Greek alphabet also retained the Phoenician Van (F)
in its proper place between E and Z and the Koppa = Qoph (9)
immediately before P. The Phoenician alphabet ended with
T; the Greeks first added T, derived from Yau apparently
(notwithstanding the retention of F), then the letters d>, X, 9
and, still later, i2. The 27 letters used for numerals are
divided into three sets of nine each; the first nine denote
the units, 1, 2, 3, &c., up to 9; the second nine the tens, from
10 to 90; and the third nine the hundreds, from 100 to 900.
The following is the
A 1= 1
scheme:
1 = 10
0
0
t—H
II
Q-
B
— 2
0
11
Z = 200
r
= 3
A = 30
T = 300
A
= 4
M = 40
Y = 400
E
= 5
N = 60
9 = 500
c M = 6
Z = 60
X = 600
Z
= 7
O = 70
Y = 700
H
= 8
TT = 80
n 800
e
= 9
9 = 90
Tp>]= 900
The sixth sign in
the first column
(C) is a form
digamma F F. It came, in the seventh and eighth centuries
A. d., to be written in the form and then, from its similarity
to the cursive <5- (= err), was called Stigma.
This use of the letters of the alphabet as numerals was
original with the Greeks; they did not derive it from the
Phoenicians, who never used their alphabet for numerical
purposes but had separate signs for numbers. The earliest
occurrence of numerals written in this way appears to be in
a Halicarnassian inscription of date not long after 450 b.c.
Two caskets from the ruins of a famous mausoleum built at
Halicarnassus in 351 B.C., which are attributed to the time
of Mausolus, about 350 Ac., are inscribed with the letters
TH
YNA = '
at Halica
fourth ct
century,
reproduc*
several p
stone ins
the midd
of colunn
system, t
There i
of the a
numerals,
have beer
* a little la
as the en(
Miletus,
invention
F and 9
Ssade (T
last-name
C (= 6) a
they too
place of o
which th(
order of
<D, X, t 1
alphabets,
and one oi
the Vau (
with the
latest of a
Naucratis
extant Mi
events on<
<nXeFo (M;
of Fine Ai
the middl
establishec
(about 7 0 c
1S2S