Attic numerals Totally Explained

Everything about Attic Numerals totally explained

Attic numerals were used by the 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 the symbols derive from the first letters of the words that the symbols represent: one, five, ten, hundred, thousand and ten thousand. See Greek numerals and acrophony.

Decimal	Symbol	Greek numeral
1	Ι	ἴος (ios)
5	Π	πέντε (pente)
10	Δ	δέκα (deka)
100	Η	hεκατόν (hekaton)
1000	Χ	χίλιοι (khilioi)
10000	Μ	μύριοι (myrioi)

The use of Ι for 1 has been hypothesised to be motivated by the word form ἴος, attested as an archaic variant of εἵς 'one' in Homer. The use of Η for 100 reflects the early date of this numbering system: Η (Eta) in the early Attic alphabet represented the sound /h/. In later, "classical" Greek, with the adoption of the Ionic alphabet throughout the majority of Greece, the letter eta had come to represent the long e sound while the rough aspiration was no longer marked. It wasn't until Aristophanes of Byzantium introduced the various accent markings during the Hellenistic period that the spiritus asper began to represent /h/. Thus the word for a hundred would originally have been written ΗEΚΑΤΟΝ, as compared to the now more familiar 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.
The numerals representing 50, 500, and 5,000 were composites of pi (often in an old form, with a short right leg) and a tiny version of the applicable power of ten. Thus, delta under pi combined into one symbol represented 50, eta under pi represented 500 and khi under pi represented 5000.

I	> \|	Δ	> Δ \|	Η	> Η \|	X	> X \|	M
1	5	10	5 × 10	100	5 × 100	1000	5 × 1000	10000
1	5	10	50	100	500	1000	1000 × 5	1000 × 10
I	V	X	L	C	D	M	V	X

ť : Example: 1982 = X | Η | HHHH . | Δ | ΔΔΔII = MCM . LXXXII.

Further Information

Get more info on 'Attic Numerals'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://attic_numerals.totallyexplained.com">Attic numerals Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.