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