Buzz
The Greeks were exceptional mathematicians, yet they seldom relied on numbers in their work. Their main focus, geometry, delves into abstract relationships and logic rather than specific quantities. Even Pythagoras, famous for his right-angle triangle theorem, was more concerned with visual diagrams than with actual numerical examples, like the familiar '3, 4, 5' or '5, 12, 13' triangles.
Despite this, the ancient Greeks certainly had their own system of numbers, which in some respects was more refined than the cumbersome Roman numerals like I, II, III that we still see today. Similar to Roman numerals, their system utilized letters, but like our modern Arabic numerals, each symbol represented a specific decimal place.
Around the 6th century BCE, the Greek alphabet comprised 24 letters. To represent numbers, the Greeks introduced three additional symbols—sources vary on whether these were older characters or newly created ones—and assigned them in groups of nine to correspond to the ones, tens, and hundreds columns.
1–9: Α, Β, Γ, Δ, Ε, [digamma], Ζ, Η, Θ
10–90: Ι, Κ, Λ, Μ, Ν, Ξ, Ο, Π, [qoppa]
100–900: Ρ, Σ, Τ, Υ, Φ, Χ, Ψ, Ω, [sampi]
These letters were combined to form numbers. For instance, MA represented 41, and PNE stood for 155. Once they exhausted the alphabet, a small comma-like mark at the lower left of a letter between Α and Θ was used to indicate thousands, so ,BTKZ meant 2327. An M with a smaller letter or group of letters above it was used to denote tens of thousands and larger values. (Interestingly, the M here symbolized the Greek word for 'myriad,' not the number 40.)
With this system, the Greeks could represent numbers as large as 99,999,999—a size that was far beyond what they typically needed, whether for everyday tasks or complex math. They also had ways to handle fractions: A tick mark placed at the top right of a number indicated division by that number, and they created distinct symbols for common fractions like 1/2.
Like any numerical system, the Greek alphabetic system had its advantages and drawbacks. Its use of different symbols for different magnitudes solved the problem of the absence of a zero symbol. While we use 0 as a placeholder in numbers of varying magnitudes (such as 1 versus 10), the Greeks used entirely different symbols, which meant they required more characters. In cases like abbreviated inscriptions, distinguishing whether a character was a number or a letter could sometimes be tricky, though numerology provided a deeper significance to the letters and words [PDF].
This system of alphabetic numerals emerged in the 6th century BCE on Greek islands in the Aegean, likely influenced by Egyptian trade. Around the same time, Pythagoras was transforming mathematics with his theorem just a few islands away in Samos (although there’s no direct evidence he used alphabetic numerals). It was one of many regional numeral systems that existed across the Greek-speaking world, paving the way for the Roman system which emphasized repeating ones and fives.
Even within Greece, the alphabetic numeral system saw a decline in use for about 150 years, only to resurge in the late 4th century BCE, coinciding with Archimedes' breakthroughs in applied mathematics and Ptolemy's geographic calculations of thousands of locations.
This resurgence wasn’t by chance: the system gained popularity thanks to Alexander the Great's empire-building. With Greek-speaking regions more politically unified than ever, the need for a standardized system across vast territories became clear. The alphabetic system, being more consistent, reduced the potential for miscommunication, helping it gain dominance over other systems. Its geographic spread gave it long-lasting power, and it remained in use throughout Greek texts and regions—even as Roman numerals were developing—until the 15th century CE when Arabic numerals eventually took over.
While Arabic numerals are here to stay, if you’re tired of seeing twos, sevens, and fives while balancing your checkbook or tracking your fantasy baseball stats, take a moment to imagine using Bs and Zs in the ancient Greek way.
