Three Greek Numeral Systems

Author(s): Marcus Niebuhr Tod

Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 33 (1913), pp. 27-34
Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/624082 .
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 THREE GREEK NUMERAL SYSTEMS.

A STUDY of the Greek numeral systems as illustrated by extant

inscriptions has convinced me that there are many misconceptions still
current which require correction, and that there is an urgent need for the
collection and tabulation of the evidencoe for the acrophonic systems of
Greece, those, that is, of which the numerals employed in Attica down to
Roman times form the best known example. This.task I hope to essay in
the forthcoming volume of the British School Annual, but meantime I may
briefly discuss three instances which have not hitherto met with the attention
they deserve. If the results attained are not in all cases certain, I hope that
I shall at least succeed in calling attention to the problems and in stimulating
someone else to seek and to discover their true solution.

I.
CHALCEDON.

An inscription of the second century B.C.,found at Chalcedon, contains

regulations regarding the tenure of a certain priesthood and the record of its
purchase. It was first published and discussed by B. Latyschev in the
Russian Journal of the Ministry of Public Instruction,' June 1885, and
was subsequently republished by F. Bechtel in S.G.D.L 3052 a, by C. Michel
in his Recueil 733 and by Dittenberger in the Sylloge2 596. We are here
concerned only with the numerals used in this document, and Latyschev's
explanation of them has been adopted without question by the three
later editors. Bechtel calls it 'sicher gegltickt,' Dittenberger says 'sigla
pecuniaruni L. recte interpretatur' and Michel has signified his acceptance
by turning the Chalcedonian into Attic numerals upon the basis of it.
My ignorance of Russian unfortunately prevents me from following
Latyschev's argument, but in one or two points his conclusions seem to me
to stand in need of correction. There can be no doubt, I think, that his
interpretation is fully warranted so far as it relates to the majority of the
signs. The values of M i X H and n are hardly open to question: these are
the ordinary signs for 10000, 5000, 1000, 100 and 5 respectively, and the

1 Zurnal Ministerstva Naroduago Prosvi.,senia.

27
28 MARCUS NIEBUHR TOD
absence of the sign for 500 p- is purely accidental. Again, we must at once
grant that C represents the drachma, as at Troezen (I.G. iv. 823) and
Chersonesus Taurica (see below), and that I stands for the obol. In 1. 7 we
have CCTI, which proves that T is intermediate in value between the
drachma and the obol and cannot here represent the I obol
(TeTapT'qfpPtov),
as it does in Attica, Epidaurus (I.G. iv. 1484, etc.), Hermione (I.G. iv. 742),
Tegea, Delphi and elsewhere. It is best interpreted as TptLecoXov,i.e.
1
drachma, a value which it also bears in Naxos (L.G. xii. 5. 99). In 1. 5,
again, we find CII::,showing that the four dots represent a smaller sum than
an obol. F. Bechtel takes them to denote four xaXKcotor ? obol, and this is
the accepted explanation, though I cannot adopt it unquestioningly. For in
each of the acrophonic systems known to me in which there are signs repre-
-
senting values less than an obol, there is a special sign for the obol, C in
Attica, Epidaurus, Delphi, etc.,-at Hermione and Corcyra, E at Tegea, and
so on: so that here also we might expect to find a sign different from that of
four XaXcot.2 Moreover, we have no proof, so far as I am aware, that the
obol consisted of eight xaXK~ot at Chalcedon; at Delos and Tegea it contained
12, at Epidaurus 18, etc.3 My own view is that the Chalcedonian obol was
made up of 12 XaXcoi, and I would support it on this ground. The sum
CIi:: is to be paid out of each mina of the purchase price: if, with the editors,
we interpret :: as I obol, the proportion payable on each mina is r-g-i, while
if we interpret it as 1 obol, the proportion is -.-, which is antecedently far more
probable and is borne out by the mention of of the purchase price
in 1. 21.
We must now turn to the one sign used in this inscription which has
not yet been mentioned, viz. t, which is found only in 1. 21 and has been
interpreted as 10 dr. I reproduce for the sake of clearness the whole passage,
as restored by Latyschev (11.19-22).
[evrpta]To hv
TepooTreia Mev•i[axov]
20 - -- Xov 8paxa&v WPX[HHH']
[rptaxo]o-7T' HHH* Kat]
voKatE/eSo/fl8[Koa7Ta
7pE ---
[Hvaxa7]tao-rat Hlnc[CCT
Starting from the number 210 as one-thirtieth of the total sum paid for
the priesthood, we find that sum to be 6300 dr. and therefore restore that
number in 1. 20. We then take - of this sum, in accordance with
the data of 11.21, 22: x must here represent some multiple of 100 or of 1000,
as we see from the first extant letters of 1. 22, and the sum total must be
such that its first three signs are HflC, i.e. it must lie between 106 and
110 dr. Now 4 + of 6300 dr. = 108- dr., a sum which Latyschev
•.
consequently restored in 1. 22. But while admitting the possibility of this
solution, we cannot overlook its difficulties.
3 See B. Keil's comment on Insch;riften von
2 In the
semi-alphabetic system of Halicar-
nassus (Ditt. Syll.2 11) -, =, E are used to P iene, 174.
represent ?, ? and I obol respectively.
 THREE GREEK NUMERAL SYSTEMS 29

(i)The sum 6300 dr. is in itself curious.

(ii)The fraction ~ is suspicious: why was it not written T'- ?
(iii)The length of 1. 21, as restored, rouses misgiving.
(iv) A financial record of about 200 B.C. from Chersonesus Taurica,
published by Latyschev in Inscr. Ant. Orae Sept. Ponti Euxini
iv (1901) No. 80, shows a system of numeration which, in spite of
certain discrepancies, is strikingly similar to that of Chalcedon.
The editor rightly reminds us that Heraclea Pontica, the metro-
polis of Chersonesus Taurica was, like Chalcedon, a Megarian
foundation. Now at Chersonesus C = 1 dr., p = 5 dr., A = 10 dr.,
t = 50 dr.
I therefore believe that in the Chalcedonian text also t is the sign for 50 dr.,4
and that the sign for 10 dr. (probably A) is, like that for 500, accidentally
absent. If this is so, we are forced to alter our restoration of 11.20-22. The
I retain: for the extant figures of 1. 20 show that the purchase
['ptato]Oa'rd
was above 6000 but below 10000 dr. and therefore 250 dr. cannot be
money
either one-twentieth or one-fortieth. If, then, 250 dr. are one-thirtieth of
the total cost, that cost must be 7500 dr. and we must restore
PFX[X?u]
in 1. 20. Again, (A + _73 6) of 7500 dr. = 106 dr. 21 ob., a sum which, if
my hypothesis is correct, we should restore at the close of 1. 22: with this the
existing figures are in perfect agreement. My restoration, then, is as follows.
(11. 20-22):
- - - Xov i, X[X
8paXpw Pr
[TptLaco]o-ra" HHt" 8votateflopLq[KOOr-cT]
[Kal HncC[1
Ix- - -
p•vp]tao-ra~5 7pet'"
where x stands for the unknown sign for the half-obol.
To sum up the conclusions I have sought to establish:
M = 10000 dr. [A = 10 dr.]
P = 5000 ,, P = 5 ,,
X = 1000 ,, C = 1
[[R = 500 ,, ] T = 3obols.
H = 100 ,, I = obol.
= 550 ,, * = 1 XaXtoi~ (A obol).

II.
NESUS.
The little island of Nesus (Moschonesi) lies close to the Asia Minor
coast in the Gulf of Adramyttium, between Lesbos and the mainland: to

4 Mr. G. F. Hill has called my attention Coins. of the Rom. Rep. in the Brit. Mus. i.
to the use on certain Roman coins, dating p. cv). On Etruscan coins I denotes 50,
from the middle of the third century B.c. to (Head, H.N.2 p. 12).
the close of the Republic, of the sign 4q, with YVan Herwerden quotes the form
tuvptaoa-rdv
its modificationsJ.band I, to denote 50 from Pap..Lips. 13 II 20, III 7
(for IupLoo0rT4v)
(Mommsen, Hist. mon. rom. ii. 190; Grueber, (Lex. Suppl., s.v.).
30 MARCUS NIEBUHR TOD

judge from its inscriptions, the Aeolic dialect was spoken there. I.G. xii. 2.
646 preserves for us a financial document, apparently containing accounts of
the curators of the temple of Asclepius; the stele, which is inscribed upon
the front and upon the two sides, is unfortunately seriously damaged and in
many places hard to decipher. It is clear that the unit throughout is the
gold stater, for every number is preceded by Xpdo- o0'T7rl , -raT?7p
or aTrdrpes, variously abbreviated, except in a 1.40 (?apiav r1), XyPVO',
a 1. 41 (D[I])
and b 1. (42- I-); the same unit, it may be noted, appears in use during the
third century in the neighbouring state of Mytilene (I.G. xii. 2. 81, 82).
The editor, W. R. Paton, gives the following account of the numerals here
employed. 'De numerorum siglis haec notanda sunt: 100 per E redditur
(a vs. 22), 50 per P (ibid.), 10 per A (passim), 1 per -i (a vs. 13), 1 per L
(a vs. 6); O (b6 passim) credo 5-CoT significare. Difficultatem faciunt 0o
(a vs. 35), 1i(a vss. 40, 41), quos non esse staterum numeros apparet. Moneo
aliud esse, ni fallor, o (a vs. 35), aliud O (c vss. 15 sqq.).'
In this explanation, however, two difficulties are at once evident. The
use in an acrophonic system of a special sign for eight is unparalleled in the
Greek world, and the distinction drawn between 0 and O assumes a difference
in value between signs so similar in appearance that constant difficulty and
ambiguity must have arisen. For the clue we turn to the numerals used in
Mytilene, the powerful neighbour of whose influence the little island could
hardly remain independent. We there find E used for 100, P for 50, A for
10, p for 5, O for a single stater (I.G. locc. citt.). What more natural than
that 0 should have the same value at Nesus ? I would therefore write
O instead of o-rd(T-pas) 0 in c 11. 15, 18, 21, etc., and would
interpret in the same way the o of a 1. 35.
o-d(Tqpa)
We must now deal with the b of a 35, the of a 40 and the of
a 41. Paton apparently sees in them numerals of lithe [L']
alphabetic system, in
which b has the value 500 and I 10. But this interpretation seems to me
inadmissible on several grounds: (i) there are no other traces in this text of
alphabetic numerals; (ii) the signs ob cannot well represent 570, for that
would be written b o; (iii) if we have rightly interpreted the o as the sign
for the stater, the b must represent a sum of less value; (iv) the sums bI
in 11.40, 41 represent fines inflicted by the Generals upon a fisherman and a
fuller, and are therefore probably quite small in amount. I cannot but
conclude, though I admit that I do so without analogy, that 4 is really
a differentiated form of o, accidentally resembling the letter 4. In value
it must, as we have seen, be less than a gold stater, and in view of the origin
of the sign and the fact that lI represents a small sum I may hazard the
conjecture that it stands for the didrachm or silver stater. If this is so, the I
may represent the drachma, so that 4l = 3 dr.,; in b 42, however, the
drachma apparently has the form -, common through the greater part of the
Greek'world, and is now represented by HF. We may therefore interpret
?
the [or]d. P I of a 26 as 5 gold staters 1 dr., which on the whole seems to me
to be preferable to giving the value of 6 staters.
6 Read c.
 THREE GREEK NUMERAL SYSTEMS 31

Finally, I turn to a 22, where we have E ip5. Paton makes

Ec = 100, but this is unparalleled and the distancerErd.
of the letters from each
other tells against such a view. I take E to indicate 100, as in Mytilene and
Chios ('AO7;va" xx. 200 ff. No. 7), and think that 1 may be an abbreviation for
cal. P is probably 51 staters, 5 or Z being the commonest sign for rTarv4p
among the Greek states. It is true that we should thus have, not only upon
the same stone, but upon its same face, three different signs for the stater,
So and -i, but that is not to my mind a fatal objection,7 since the editor
expressly states that 'in latere a tres, si non plures manus distinguendae
sunt,' and makes it clear that 1. 22 was not engraved by the same hand as
11. 1-15, 25 and 26.
To sum up, the signs of value used in this inscription seem to me to be
the following:
E = 100 5 -j 0 = 1 gold stater
p = 50 L = ,,,,
A= 10 =1 didrachm (?)
p = 5 I = 1 drachma.

III.

THESPIAE.

Amongst the most interesting of all the local numeral systems of Greece
is that which is represented to us by a number of inscriptions discovered at
Thespiae in Boeotia. Yet so little has it been noticed or understood that
the eminent French epigraphist, who in 1897 published the last of the series,
was wholly at fault in his interpretation of the numerals it contains and
Larfeld's admirable Handbuch der griech. Epigraphilc passes over the
system in silence.8
We may first examine separately the three chief inscriptions which
supply us with our evidence, beginning with G. Colin, B.C.H. xxi. 553 ff.
No. 2, a document which records the renewal of the leases of pastures
belonging to the Thespian state at some time during the last quarter of the
third century B.c.9 This text, couched in the local dialect, though not
without traces of the influence of the iotv', contains numerals in twenty-two
of its fifty lines; the following will serve as illustrations, including as they
do all the different signs employed:

7 A similar inconsistency may be found in of a separate sign for 30.

Ditt. Syll.2 11 c, I.G. ix. 2, 1109, B. C.H. xxvi.
349 ff. No. 54, and elsewhere.
8 Larfeld does, it is true, refer to the
closely
cognate system in use at Orchomenus, which he
attributes to ' Boeotia' (op. cit. i. 417), but his
account of it is incorrect and misses the most
interesting feature of the system, the existence
9 This is Colin's
dating, accepted by R.
Meister, who has discussed afresh some words
and passages in the inscription, but has not
dealt with the numerals (Berichte d. k. sdchs.
aesellschaft d. Wissenschaften zu Leipzig: Phil.-
hist. Cl. LI No. 3).
32 MARCUS NIEBUHR TOD
L. 20 -EP-~5$5l <
L. 49 FE5 >
Two errors have slipped in, either to the original or to the published copy:
in 11.15, 30 the sign 7 (50) occurs twice in succession, which is inadmissible,
since F E would be replaced by -E (100). I propose to substitute -E or fE
for the first F in each case. Colin arranges the signs used in descending
order of value, p, P or D-,9,5, >, and hypothetically assigns to them the
values 50, 10, 5, 1 and 1Tdr. respectively (p. 565 note): I and < he does not
explain. But 5 must denote a stater, not a drachma, D-stands for 10 staters,
P for 50 staters; the intermediate sign, a compound of TP or TD-must in
either case (whether standing for TPtdKovra or for Tph D'Ka) represent 30
staters. The L>,which is never repeated and never precedes any of the
stater-signs, plainly denotes the drachma; finally, the I represents, as in most
of the Greek systems, the obol, and <, the sign for a half, the half-obol.
Rather more difficulty is caused by an inscription recording a grant of
land, made to Thespiae by Ptolemy-probably Ptolemy IV Philopator
(222-205 B.C.)-and his queen Arsinoe. It was discovered and published
(B.C.H. xix. 379 ff.) by P. Jamot, and the text has been carefully discussed
and restored (Rev. Et. Gr. x. 26 ff.) by M. Holleaux, who clearly has a firm
grasp of the numeral system used, though he does not give a systematic
exposition of it. It is on Holleaux's text that the following remarks
are based.
One difference between this record and the last at once attracts atten-
tion: the unit of reckoning is no longer the stater but the drachma. This
appears not only from the absence of the sign 5, so conspicuous in the
previous inscription, but also from the fact that twice the numerals are
preceded by the word 8paXluhov (11.12, 19). We may take as illustrations
four groups of numbers.
L. 12 MM'*' L. 23 i[-FEIE]IE[F]
L. 19 t'[n-E]FE L. 28 f-EFI-Ef I
, ,'
Here M = 10,000; * = 1000 (being the sign for X in the Boeotian local
alphabet); iE (a compound of P with the 100-sign) = 500; T-E(a compound
of T with the 100-sign) = 300; ?E= 100; rE = 50; A = 10 (1. 12); p = 5
(11.12, 19). The drachma is denoted by i-, the obol by I, as in Attica, but
where the numbers are not those of drachmas I is used to represent the unit,
e.g. in 1. 12 86pa AP&IIII= 19 dora. That there was a sign for 5000, as at
Orchomenus (IG. vii. 3171), we cannot doubt: it would be interesting to
know whether a single sign, perhaps f, was used for 3000, but on this
question no inscription throws any light. The absence from this text of a
sign for 30 is purely accidental.
A harder problem is presented by I.G. vii. 1737, a large fragment of the
public accounts of Thespiae dated by the editor late in the third century B.C.
The text is important and I therefore reproduce Lolling's copy of it, especially
as the lines are wrongly numbered in I.G. and several errors have crept into
 THREE GREEK NUMERAL SYSTEMS 33
the transcription, notably the total omission of 1. 18, which for our purpose
is of great importance.

ALIEA EYo
ONI ofL-oAAE.'" I A
xYP rEP T^A AM A AVA N H14

Ar'YrA ?
NIEEH H IATNA
ax NAM TnEPT A QA H
WofTAE NNEA0
1 Aa YTTI TH{
riNER rI NY IHIH
Ih
"IYTATATX P H MAT A A N E r PA*AToA
K AS/ ?T 'A E R EK 0111-E+ P-D T^ H /1' I Y A A 1%
1 Y*
-

TEWlyr~,lS~~~
A
~A N E r
I P I icK)*rK:Tf K E
P A
AHIoteI4Nis:
o Q TYA To0 A P oA .E

r" 14 EF N lo-I '

%
,X:T^ N roAE M A P X -a N r~ o -rTA7A~rj,&r O'YT
0 T,& AAI
NTo -n
KA HN A-r rEAE
N //
/ '~/ ~/P? // M/
i A
/
A r E A& MErE N1ENAro
AA
14 IP
I 1?-:O~ A F T rEE 0
0 Ar E A A P Xft N:'1 0 -'*,
A H~p T Y Y7 T I A
o r E. Ao m E N1 A r o
MIY Tnf /C B B? f I SC ,pN I I AA Nd L
p oiE TEfFI 8- r eo
AToMEJAA/// T^Ot Y M BOAAH///
I r ftTEIAA ME14AAobo
^ArEAOMEN~o~ o-r ^KE4
I A
00,6^? 6 1 fl E M + BF $TOTPIAKI* Hn W %
, rEA E A
E rPPA 'Y A ME~ N To Sr M
KLIMT ' VTP 1

E N,4 PA I A I A LI ETy
M I N 0
X1A I AI f x YAA^CA PAT
PAK
E
^:f T o i<K IAPE4oMEN
P
HrH F,
r1FOlAAAo Eto M I =AM E*
0
E4AAA

Plainly the stater is here the unit of reckoning.1' The signs for 1000, 500,
300, 100, 50, 30 (?- in 1. 18, 3- elsewhere), 10 and 1 st. will cause no
difficulty: in 1. 15 we have evidently the sign for 5000, but I am not sure of
its exact form, which will probably be the same here as at Orchomenus. The
absence of a sign for 5 st. is remarkable: it may, indeed, be due to a curious
freak of chance that no occasion for its use should arise in the extant
Thespian texts which reckon in staters, but it is at least noteworthy that in
1. 15 we seem to have a succession of five, if not six, $'s, since the C which
breaks the succession must be an error of engraver or copyist. Coming now
to the values below a stater, we find that, as in our first example, [> (D in
1. 7), without the horizontal stroke, represents the drachma: the T which
follows it in 11.7, 13, 18 (and occurs a second time in 1. 13) stands, I believe,
not for 1 obol (erTaprTL6pLptov) but for 3 obols (TrpLtloXov),as in Chaicedon
(see above). I represents the obol, H (1. 8) the half-obol, as at Orchomenus."
The sole difficulty centres round the conclusion of the second numeral-group
of 1. 18, 5> TtI>I. Someone has blundered, of that I am convinced: the [>

"oThis is not contradictedby the occurrence
in 1. 20 of a sum expressedin draclimas,for
(i) drachmasand staters are foundside by sitlde
in other Boeotian documents, e.g. I. G. vii.
2419, 3073; (ii) the numberof drachmnas is
writtenout in words,as if to indicatethat the
numeralswere reservedfor sums expressedin
H.S.-VOL.
staters; (iii) the word 8paXduas is prefixed to the
number in 1. 20, but never to the numeral
signs.
11 The ( at the end of the numeral group in
1. 9 I take to be part of a 5 rather than the sign
for I obol.
XXXIII. D
34 THREE GREEK NUMERAL SYSTEMS
cannot recur after the T, nor is it a mistake for I since we have five obols
apart from it.
The remaining texts may be briefly dismissed. I.G. vii. 1738 resembles
1737 in its numerals, save that + appears in 1. 2 for the drachma and the
form FE rather than FE represents 50. To the same group belong 1740 (in
1. 4 the ?- of the transcription should be >, as Lolling's copy shows), 1741
(in 1. 15 the true reading is probably I>,as in 1.9, rather than 4l>) and 1742;
1743, which contains the numbers I, A and FH may belong to the second
century, and 1744, a subscription list, in which the sum ;i is preserved four
times, is considerably later, to judge from the appearance in it of the cursive
form AM.
Omitting these last two inscriptions, we may tabulate our results thus
adding for purposes of comparison the very similar Orchomenian system:

THESPIAE ORCHOMENUS

VALUE
. . 1737 etc. . E.G.x. 26 I.G. vii. 3171
B.C.H. xxi. 553

10000 M
5000
1000 Y
.
I
500 [TE TFE f-
300 TE FE
100ooE hE -E
50 FEFEE FE FE
30 -p -P
10 A
5 ?
1 stater
1 dr.- I
3 ob. T
"''
1,, I I O
H < H
,, *'

MARCUS NIEBUHR TOD.

Oriel College, Oxford.