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The Digamma, Koppa, and Sampi as Numerals in Greek
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
It is universally held and in all classical Greek Grammars taught that in their numeral system, the ancient Greeks denoted the figure for 6 by the digamma or vau, that for 90 by the koppa, and that for 900 by the sampi or sanpi. On a closer examination, however, this doctrine proves erroneous and requires correction.
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 1907
References
page 38 note 1 Compare Quint. 1. 4. 9 : koppa apud Graecos nunc tantum in numero manet.
page 39 note 1 The above curious facts—the formation of 
from I and Ο, and of ⊏ or ⌈⌉ from ⌈⌈—makes me sceptical about the view generally held that, in their palmiest days, the Athenians, being incapable of inventing a special phonetic symbol for the letter eta (B or H), or to evolve B out of El, decided, in their despair, to have recourse to the revival of the then obsolete or rather long extinct H, and that they transformed it from a previous rough breathing (H = h) into a future letter (H = η). Compare on this subject my Hist. Greek Grammar, p. 531.