Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-9q27g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-18T06:26:43.039Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Greek Acrophonic Numerals1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Extract

In 1913 an essay of mine appeared in the JHS (XXXIII 27 ff.) entitled ‘Three Greek Numeral Systems.’ Shortly afterwards I published in this Annual (XVIII 98 ff.) an article on ‘The Greek Numeral Notation,’ in which I collected and summarised the available evidence for all the numeral systems of the acrophonic type used among the Greeks and set forth the main conclusions to which that evidence pointed. In a later volume (XXVIII 141 ff.) I added some ‘Further Notes on the Greek Acrophonic Numerals,’ recording the examples which had accumulated since the publication of my previous article and giving a new and fuller edition of an important text from a site near Andania in Messenia (IG V 1. 1532). No further discussion of the subject has appeared and scholars have repeatedly cited my articles as giving the fullest and most recent treatment of it.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1937

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 239 note 1 G. Oliverio, e.g., in Documenti Antichi dell' Africa Italiana, I. 2, cites p. 43 five times (142 n. 1, 153 n. 7, 154 nn. 4, 9, 12) as if it contained von Hiller's final judgement.

page 242 note 1 I do not understand in 117. 8, nor the value of the sign >, which occurs for the first and last time in 117. 13.

page 242 note 2 To an error of engraver or editor I attribute the of i 75, the =l:. C of 110 B 38 and the ει: of 112. 16. In 110 B 11, must, in the light of the context, stand for 17 dr. 3 ob.

page 244 note 1 Cf. A. Plassart, op. cit. 342. The opening portion of this inscription is republished in DGE 485 and in Solmsen-Fraenkel, Inscr. graec. ad inlustr. dial. sel. 18, but these editions are without value for our present purpose.

page 244 note 2 On Feyel's work C. Picard passes a highly laudatory judgement in CRAcInscr 1936, 116 ff.

page 246 note 1 IG XIV 423–30; cf. SIG 954, V. Arangio-Ruiz e A. Olivieri, Inscr. Graecae Siciliae et infimae Italiae ad ius pertinentes, 71 ff.

page 248 note 1 Cf. Wahrmann, P., Glotta XIX 162 f.Google Scholar, R[einach], S., RA XXX 337Google Scholar, D[e] S[anctis], G., Riv Fil LVII 570Google Scholar, Roussel, P., BCH LIII 18.Google Scholar

page 248 note 2 Cf. AA 1934, 502 f.

page 249 note 1 In another Olynthian inscription, first published by Wilhelm, A., SBWien CLXVI 1.42 ff.Google Scholar (cf. BCH XLVI 39, LIII 18), the price of a house is recorded as clearly a multiple of ten.

page 249 note 2 Cf. Excavations at Olynthus, VIII 353. I confess to some misgivings. Does Η really represent rather than or or (cf. Hesych. s.v.)? Is ΠΕ abbreviated for and not for (cf. TAPA LXII 55 f.) or But these and other questions cannot be answered without a knowledge of the actual weights of the inscribed objects.

page 250 note 1 Even if it is rightly interpreted in this sense by Bizard, L. and Roussel, P., BCH XXXI 465f.Google Scholar, the numerals may belong to the alphabetic system.

page 252 note 1 Cf. Robert, L., BCH LVII 509, n. 4. In 11. 9, 11Google Scholar, where Evangelides restores [μετὰ] we should, I think, write [και] (cf. BCH LVII 508), or, more probably, [καὶ] (cf. BCH LVII 506, Rev Phil XI (1937) 321 f.

page 254 note 1 Some further corrections will be found in ÖJh XXX, Beibl. 26, No. 26.

page 254 note 2 In CIG 4017. 19 transcribed should be or rather (OGI 547), and CIG 4032. 9 f. should read

page 255 note 1 So artificial and so far removed from the Greek acrophonic systems does it seem to me to be that I do not attempt, as does Oliverio (op. cit. 153 ff.), to determine the external influences operative in its invention.

page 256 note 1 The has no numerical value, but is prefixed to large sums (11–18, 24, 34), apparently to warn the reader that he must begin on the ‘upper scale’. It may be an abbreviation of the word

page 256 note 2 Cf. Hiller von Gaertringen's note on IG IV2 1. 106. 65 ‘cum vero omnes fere Epidauriorum calculi claudicent’, and G. Glotz's remark on the Delian records in REG XXIII 281.

page 257 note 1 In 14 we may note that 1. 15 must be restored [ἐξιὸν Μ] since must be the first sign of the value-complex inasmuch as, if were restored, the expenditure would exceed the revenue and there would be no credit balance. Further, in 1. 16 we must (if we assume that here the accounts are correct) restore unless in 1. 14 we substitute [X] for , in which case 1. 16 must be restored [λοιπὸν

page 257 note 2 Oliverio, however, wrongly gives 1 mina. as tal. and. 20 dr. as tal.; according to his own reckoning the fractions should be and respectively.