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Attic numerals
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Attic numerals were used by ancient Greeks, possibly from the 7th century BC. They were also known as Herodianic numerals because they were first described in a 2nd century manuscript by Herodian. They are also known as acrophonic numerals because all of the symbols used (except for 1) derive from the first letters of the words that the symbols represent: 'five', 'ten', 'hundred', 'thousand' and 'ten thousand'. See Greek numerals and acrophony.
| Decimal | Symbol | Greek numeral |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ι | -- |
| 5 | Π | πεντε ("pente") |
| 10 | Δ | δέκα ("deka") |
| 100 | Η | ἑκατόν ("hekaton") |
| 1000 | Χ | χίλιοι ("khilioi") |
| 10000 | Μ | μυριάς ("myrias") |
The use of Η for 100 reflects the early date of this numbering system: Η (Eta) in the early Attic alphabet represented ē, but there was no separate symbol for /h/. In later, "classical," Greek, the spiritus asper was invented to represent /h/. Thus the word for a hundred would originally have been written ΗΚΑΤΟΝ, as compared to the classical spelling ἑκατόν. In modern Greek, the /h/ phoneme has disappeared altogether, but this has had no effect on the basic spelling.
Unlike the more familiar Modern Roman numeral system, the Attic system contains only additive forms. Thus, the number 4 is written ΙΙΙΙ, like the ancient Roman system, rather than the medieval and modern Roman style IV.
In addition, numerals representing 50, 500, 5,000 and 50,000 were composites of the old pi (with a short right leg) and a tiny version of the applicable power of ten. Thus, pi and delta combined into one symbol represented 50, pi and eta represented 500, and so on.
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