THE ROMANS.
83
there is an Encyclopædia written by Cassiodorius (died about 570) in which both the arithmetic and geometry of Boethius are mentioned. There appears to be no good reason for doubting the trustworthiness of this passage in the Encyclopædia. A third theory (Woepcke's) is that the Alexandrians either directly or indirectly obtained the nine numerals from the Hindoos, about the second century A.D., and gave them to the Romans on the one hand, and to the Western Arabs on the other. This explanation is the most plausible.
