§135. Declension of Cardinals and Ordinals
Cardinals and Ordinals have the following uses:—
a. In numbers below 100, if units precede tens, et is generally inserted: duo et vīgintī; otherwise et is omitted: vīgintī duo.
b. In numbers above 100 the highest denomination generally stands first, the next second, etc., as in English. Et is either omitted entirely, or stands between the two highest denominations: mīlle ( et) septingentī sexāgintā quattuor, 1764.
- ūnus et vīgintī mīlitēs, or vīgintī mīlitēs ( et) ūnus, 21 soldiers.
- duo mīlia quīngentī mīlitēs, or duo mīlia mīlitum et quīngentī, 2500 soldiers.
- mīlitēs mīlle ducentī trīgintā ūnus, 1231 soldiers.
c. After mīlia the name of the objects enumerated is in the genitive:
- duo mīlia hominum, two thousand men. 1
- cum tribus mīlibus mīlitum, with three thousand soldiers.
- mīlia passuum tria, three thousand paces (three miles).
d. For million, billion, trillion, etc., the Romans had no special words, out these numbers were expressed by multiplication (cf. § 138. a).
e. Fractions are expressed, as in English, by cardinals in the numerator and ordinals in the denominator. The feminine gender is used to agree with pars expressed or understood:—two-sevenths, duae septimae (sc. partēs); three-eighths, trēs octāvae (sc. partēs).
One-half is dīmidia pars or dīmidium.
J. H. Allen and J. B. Greenough, New Latin Grammar (Boston: Ginn, 1903). Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.