From the defective mode of notation among the Greeks... though there be much ingenuity in some of their methods, we need not be surprised at the great inferiority of their system. Dr. Wallis remarks, that the business of the second book of Pappus appears to be nearly equivalent to what is now considered as a very simple proposition, viz. that the multiplication of any numbers... The first book he with much probability conjectures to have been employed about the simple operations of the addition and subtraction of numbers.
quotes about pappus