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12
Numbers and Numerals
The Greeks had several ways of writing their numbers, but we
shall consider only two of them. In one method they simply used
the initial letters of the number names, but their letters were quite
different from ours. For example, the following early letters and
names were used:
Number Name Letter
t000 kilo or chilo X, our ch
too hekto H, early form
to deka A, our d
5 penta II, or r, our p
These were often combined as shown below, the number being
2977
XX11-1HHHPAAro
e
2000 500 400 50 27
The later Greeks, about two thousand years ago, generally used
the first ten letters of their alphabet to represent the first ten
numbers. For larger numbers they used other letters: K' for 2Q,
A' for 30, and so on. They often placed a mark (/ or ') by each
letter to show that it stood for a number. The letters, representing
numerals from t to 9, were then as follows:
A' B' I" A' E' F' Zs 111 0'
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
The tens were the next nine letters:
I' K' A' M' N' .:7,' 0' II' Q'
10 20 30 40 50 6o 7o 8o go
The hundreds were the next nine letters:
P' Z' T' T' 4' X' *1 f' Zs
100 200 300 400 500 600 700 Boo 900
(Q and Z are here used in place of two ancient Greek letters
not in our alphabet.)