Fours and nines and Roman numerals

At primary school, I took the leading part in a play written by one of the teachers. It was a pastiche of the then-current and popular TV series Up Pompeii, of which I (being around 10 years of age) was entirely ignorant (it being rather risqué) — but the parents would definitely have appreciated the homage.

The show was titled Up Wumpeii, after the nearby housing estate built by developer George Wimpey Limited.

A few lines stick in my mind, across the gulf of fifty years. I opened the show, striding confidently down the aisle in the assembly hall, and as I headed for the stage, I intoned the immortal phrase, “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears”, to which the chorus responded with “’ere, ’ere!”

At one point, a squad of ten Roman soldiers marched on and performed a gag about a roll call, which prompted a litany of baked products, including “baps, softies, MacKechnies” — a reference to the nearby bakery run by the firm of MacKechnie’s, where some of the parents may have been employed. The legionaries then proceeded to number off, Roman-style, to the amusement of the audience: “Aye, Aye-Aye, Aye-Aye-Aye, Aye-Vee, ...”, and so on, finishing with “Aye-Ecks, Ecks”.

How Roman numerals work

As school children the world over will tell you, the Romans did indeed form numbers by repeating symbols — thus, III (“Aye-Aye-Aye”) = 1 + 1 + 1 = 3 — though, in practice, only the symbols I (one), X (ten), C (one hundred), and M (one thousand) could be repeated — not V (five), L (fifty), or D (five hundred).

Some numerals can be seen on this graffito from Pompeii (CIL IV, 5380), which is probably someone’s expenses, scratched on the wall.

Lines 1, 5, and 12 are consecutive dates in an unknown month: VIII Idus (“the eighth day before the Ides”) — the S has a flamboyant tail that trails diagonally down the wall to the next day’s entry: VII Idus. And there is a fine selection of numerals on display (presumably the cost of each item in asses, the smallest commonly available Roman coin).

Fours and nines

It is widely believed that, when writing numbers, rather than repeating a given symbol thrice (e.g. IIII), an alternative method was employed, whereby the symbol was placed to the left of the next-greater symbol. Since, in the case of I, the next greater symbol is V, rather than writing IIII, the alternative form IV was preferred. We can certainly see this on the graffito. In line 13 (third from bottom in the picture), the entry reads puero pane IV (“bread for the boy, 4”, presumably referring to a slave). (Notice that the character E is frequently represented in Roman handwriting by two vertical lines, so pane — also on lines 2, 6, and 12 — looks like PAN||.)

As with IIII and IV, rather than writing VIIII, the alternative “subtractive” form IX was preferred. Hence, the ninth Roman soldier in Up Wumpeii chanted “Aye-Ecks” (IX, geddit?). Unfortunately, the graffiti artist didn’t purchase anything that cost 9 asses, so we cannot say for sure that he would have used this form.

Convention or preference?

I was reminded of all this by a remark made in one of the reviews of my book The Fate of the Ninth (I don’t recall which one). The author had suggested that the Romans preferred to write the number 9 as VIIII, and not IX. This is definitely something crying out to be fact-checked.

It is easy to find monumental inscriptions with numerals. Every Roman emperor advertised how many times he had held the consulship, or had been acclaimed as imperator (“conquering general”), or — more importantly — had held the tribunicia potestas (“tribunician power”, which made the holder sacrosanct, and was thus fastidiously renewed every year).

On the left is Septimius Severus, who held the tribunician power for the ninth time in AD 201 (CIL VIII, 10992). He was reigning jointly with his elder son, Caracalla, who appears here as TR P IIII. (The numerals are highlighted in red.)

It is interesting that the “subtractive” method is used for 9, but the “additive” method for 4. This may have been down to the stonemason’s personal preference. It’s true that there wouldn’t really have been space to write TR P VIIII while keeping Severus’s titulature within the first two lines. But equally, the stonemason could have saved a little space on line 4 by writing TR P IV there.

Here is Septimius Severus again, in the same year, with the same co-regent. It’s even from the same site — Bu-Njem in Tripolitania! Each inscription sat above one of the fort gateways.

But this time, the stonemason has used the “additive” method for Severus’ tribunician power: TR POT VIIII. Was it simply down to choice?

I have a nagging suspicion that, where monumental inscriptions are concerned, the stonemason could use his own discretion to lay out a nicely balanced panel. Sometimes VIIII would work, and sometimes it had to be IX.

Official Roman documentation

But there is one genre that, we know, was governed by the imperial chancellery at Rome: namely, military diplomas. These were strictly legal documents, produced under the emperor’s auspices in Rome and conferring certain legal privileges upon the bearer. Their wording would have been carefully controlled. Can we see a pattern governing the representation of the number 9 here?

This is a diploma (CIL XVI, 95) issued by the emperor Antoninus Pius on 29 February AD 148 to the men “who served in my praetorium in the ten cohorts” — in other words, the Praetorian Guard.

In the list of ten numerals denoting the ten cohorts (the long list of numbers highlighted here), it can clearly be seen that the forms IV (for four) and IX (for nine) have been used.

Interestingly, on line 5, at the end of Antoninus Pius’ titulature, he is COS IIII (“having been consul four times”)! The scribe has used the “additive” method, although the “subtractive” method was used in the numbering of the Praetorian cohorts.

For comparison, here (below) is a section of a badly bent and twisted diploma, issued (again, to men of the ten Praetorian cohorts) by the emperors Valerian and Gallienus on 7 January AD 254 (CIL XVI, 155). It is, incidentally, one of the last known diplomas.

The ten cohorts are numbered on the third line, and it can clearly be seen that, by contrast with the Antonine scribe above, Valerian and Gallienus’ scribe has employed the “additive” method for both IIII and VIIII.

(It even seems that the scribe preparing the outer text of the diploma may often have had different ideas from the scribe responsible for the inner text, as RMD III, 185 shows.)

Method in the madness?

Perhaps a more detailed critique would uncover a hidden method, but it certainly looks as if VIIII and IX were used interchangeably throughout Roman imperial history. Neither one was preferred over the other.

The whole question arose, I suppose, in connection with my book The Fate of the Ninth, and the original comment was presumably based on the supposition that the Ninth Legion called itself legio VIIII Hispana, by preference. So, is this true? Can this be demonstrated?

Probably the most famous inscription of the Ninth Legion is the building slab that presumably graced one of the fortress gateways at York (RIB 665). (There’s a better image on p. 21 of my book.)

Here, on the bottom line, the legion calls itself LEG(io) VIIII HI[SP(ana).

It appears with the same style of numbering (but without Hispana) on the tombstone of Lucius Duccius the signifer (RIB 673, on p. 18 of my book), and also on the career inscription of Titus Aninius Sextius Florentinus (CIL III, 14148¹⁰), the memorial to Lucius Aemilius Karus (CIL VI, 1333), and the dedication to Lucius Novius Crispinus Martialis Saturninus at Lambaesis (CIL VIII, 2747). A couple of early tombstones also use this form.

By contrast, it appears as LEG(io) IX Hisp(ana) on the career inscription of Lucius Burbuleius Optatus Ligarianus (CIL X, 6006), the career inscription of Lucius Roscius Celer (CIL XIV, 3612), and one or two early tombstones.

Perhaps (it might be objected) those men chose their own way of representing the legion’s title. Surely the legion’s own gateway inscription should decide the issue?

However, we should be wary of such an argument, remembering the gateway inscriptions from Bu-Njem (above). I wonder — if we found the inscription from a different gateway of the York fortress, would the numeral necessarily take the same form?

Finally, we may consider the legion’s own tile-stamps, produced at their own tile-works. Shouldn’t they carry the official form of the legion’s numeral? The tile from Nijmegen (illustrated on p. 122 of my book) certainly reads LEG VIIII. But the tiles from northern England (two of them are illustrated here) use the “subtractive” method.

In any case, the Roman soldiers’ gag doesn’t seem quite so funny with “Vee-Aye-Aye-Aye, Vee-Aye-Aye-Aye-Aye, Ecks”.