The Hindu-Arabic Numerals c9.114

c9.114

¹ The title page of Calandri (1491), for example, represents Pythagoras with these numerals before him. [Smith, *Rara Arithmetica*, p. 46.] Isaacus Vossius, *Observationes ad Pomponium Melam de situ orbis*, 1658, maintained that the Arabs derived these numerals from the west. A learned dissertation to this effect, but deriving them from the Romans instead of the Greeks, was written by Ginanni in 1753 (*Dissertatio mathematica critica de numeralium notarum minuscularum origine*, Venice, 1753). See also Mannert, *De numerorum quos arabicos vocant vera origine Pythagorica*, Nürnberg, 1801. Even as late as 1827 Romagnosi (in his supplement to *Ricerche storiche sull' India* etc., by Robertson, Vol. II, p. 580, 1827) asserted that Pythagoras originated them. [R. Bombelli, *L'antica numerazione italica*, Rome, 1876, p. 59.] Gow (*Hist. of Greek Math.*, p. 98) thinks that Iamblichus must have known a similar system in order to have worked out certain of his theorems, but this is an unwarranted deduction from the passage given.