Roman abacus

The Romans developed the so-called Roman abacus, or rather a portable counting board, based on previous Greek counting boards. It was the first portable calculating device for engineers, merchants and presumably tax collectors. It greatly reduced the time needed to perform the basic operations of Roman arithmetic using Roman numerals.

Related Topics:
Romans - Counting - Roman arithmetic - Roman numerals

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When using a counting board or abacus the rows or columns often represent nothing, or zero. Since the Romans used Roman numerals to record results, and since Roman numerals were all positive, there was no need for a zero notation. But the Romans clearly knew the concept of zero occurring in any place value, row or column.

Related Topics:
Counting board - Zero - The Romans clearly knew the concept of zero

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It may be also possible to infer that they were familiar with the concept of a negative number as Roman merchants needed to understand and manipulate liabilities against assets and loans versus investments.

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