For that, the number system of India (invented around 600 AD) was much better – the system we use today is based on that. For larger numbers people drew a line over or under or next to the alpha to mean a thousand, or whatever, or over the beta to mean 2000.īut none of these systems was any good for adding or multiplying long strings of numbers, like if you wanted to keep accounts in a store. After 100 the next letter stood for 200 and so forth. They did this for the first ten letters, and then the 11th letter stood for 20, the 12th letter stood for 30, the 13th letter stood for 40, and so on. (The letters in the Greek alphabet were not in exactly the same order as in English). The Greeks also used another system where the letters of the Greek alphabet each stood for a number, so 1 was alpha (A), 2 was beta (B), 3 was gamma (G) and so forth.
To make it a little easier, Greek writers also combined these symbols to make special symbols for 50, 500, 5000, and 50,000. They used P for Pente (five), D for deka (ten), H for Hekaton (100), X for Xhilioi (1000), and M for Murioi (10,000).
In this system though,1 was just written with a vertical line, like our 1 today. (A delta, actually, in the Greek alphabet). Like in Greek you say Ten “Deka”, so they would draw a D to mean 10. Some Greeks used a system based on writing the first letter of the word for that number. (And of course different Greek city-states used somewhat different systems, too). People in ancient Greece had a variety of different ways of writing down numbers, but none of them was very efficient.
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