🚀 go-pugleaf

igp@torch.co.uk (Ian Phillipps) writes:

>Genuine Roman use didn't have ANY subtractive method: thus 1990 would be
>MDCCCCLXXXX. Later (mediaeval?) abbreviations allowed <n><10n> to mean 9n,
>and <n><5n> to mean 4n. No other contractions are possible, so TeX is right.

Not completely true, the "subtractive" method was used in the
republican period of the Roman Empire, but not in official documents
and inscriptions.

A very nice source for almost all number systems used almost everywhere
is:

	"From One To Zero", by Georges Ifrah, Penguin.

This book has a reproduction of an inscription where the subtractive
principle is used. It uses an upside-down T for the value 50, and an
infinity-sign for the value 1000. The system as we know it developed at
the end of the republican period, and was common during the imperial
period; use of the subtractive principle was very rare, but it is not
true that the Romans didn't known the principle.

Greetings, Otto
--
Otto Moerbeek
Email:	moerbeek@fwi.uva.nl	UUCP: ...!uunet!mcvax!hp4nl!uva!moerbeek
or      moerbeek%fwi.uva.nl@hp4nl.nluug.nl (only for dumb mailers)