Forms of Greek Numerals

---

	NB: The Greek numeral pages use Teknia Software's "mounce" Greek font (Mac and PC), which is free. You'll need to download and install it on your machine before you can correctly view the Greek. You'll also have to use a browser that supports HTML 3.2 (i.e., Netscape Navigator 3.0 or above or Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 or above). Some characters not in the mounce font are represented with small GIF images (sorry)!

---

Digamma

". . . occurs frequently [on Attic inscriptions] in the forms shown in fig. 1 . . . It is noteworthy that the early form of the letter (F)does not appear as a numeral in Attica and very rarely elsewhere, and that the Athenians did not use [forms 11 or 12], very common elsewhere, except in IG I² 760, though forms [5, 6, 7 and 8] are cursive developments of it. Form 9 occurs at the foot of a Latin milestone inscription of AD 395-408, but is almost certainly a Greek numeral, while form 10 is found only in an inscription of uncertain date, consisting of the letters [alpha] to [theta] inclusive of digamma, on which Kirchner comments 'C exhibet numerorum 1-9 exercitium ludendi causa insculptum'; the form . . . is unparalleled elsewhere, and, though Kirchner gives it without question, the first editor, E. Hula, saw only . . . (ÖTh I, 30)" (Tod, 135).

 

Elliott, Thomas R. "Diocletianic Census Inscriptions from the Aegean Islands and Asia Minor." Master's Thesis. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1997.

Tod, Marcus N. "The Alphabetic Numeral System in Attica." BSA 45 (1950), 126-139. Reprinted in Ancient Greek Numerical Systems: Six Studies. Chicago: Ares Publishers, 1979.