1907 - 8 .] 
A Note on the Roman Numerals. 
161 
VIII. — A Note on the Roman Numerals. By James A. S. Barrett, 
M.A. ( Communicated by J. Sutherland Black, M.A., LL.D.) 
(MS. received October 2, 1907. Read November 4, 1907.) 
CONTENTS. 
PAGE 
Introduction .... 
. 161 
Three Hypotheses — 
The alphabetic form 
. 164 
The decussating principle 
. 167 
The pictographic method 
. 170 
Mathematics accepts the Roman numerals as symbols for definite numerical 
values, without regard to the question of their origin and early history; 
but this paper is concerned primarily with the form and origin of these 
symbols, and only incidentally with their numerical values. Yet, though 
our subject is only indirectly related to mathematics, a survey of some of 
the hypotheses that have been put forward to account for the forms of 
these symbols cannot but prove interesting to mathematicians, as the 
symbols were in general use until the sixteenth century and are still 
current everywhere, on the dials of clocks, the title-pages of books, and in 
printed references to authorities. 
Our problem may be regarded as a single item of that vast subject,, 
palaeography or the science of ancient writing, which is concerned with the 
decipherment and history of the signs that man has employed to denote 
and record his thoughts and experiences. It may justly be termed a vast 
subject, for it embraces a study of languages and histories, customs and 
countries — ancient peoples with all their diverse modes of thought and 
expression. 
As a result of the zeal and success with which archaeological research 
has been prosecuted during recent years, this branch of science has under- 
gone great extension and development. Curtain after curtain has been 
lifted, disclosing new departments to be studied, other and more remote 
periods to be investigated. Traces of an early civilisation have been dis- 
covered in Crete and the iEgean ; and the Egyptian characters are now 
no longer regarded as the parent-alphabet. The spade of the expert has 
been busy in many lands, here removing the dust of centuries from some 
engraved tablet, there uncovering a scroll that was folded when the world 
VOL. xxviii. 11 
