Here comes another late arrival at the Latin ball. First let me say that I studied Latin from the age of about eight through to 23, and in all that time I scarcely encountered distributive, other thsan in Kennedy's Latin Primer (the Latin grammar book of the day). Outside that, and the sole example: bina castra. I can explain that this is because the word for 'camp', castra is plural. It is plural. The singulare, castrum, mean a fort. The Romans saw a camp as an accretion of small 'forts' (watchtowers). So duo castra for two camps would be ambiguous. Instead, to be clear, they used this distributive number. But it is difficult to find examples of it, outside the commentaries of Julius Caesar. (I have since encountered Plautus the writer of Roman comedy as a second source - see below)

The nearest is the Roman denarius nummus. The denarius is worth ten ases. And the first syllable is, of course, our old friend den-i - ten-(as)-sets. Otherwise, I have read quite a lot of Latin, prose and poetry, war and peace, but encountered scarcely any example. Consequently, clarity about its usage is extremely difficult.

There is a useful list of Latin numerals, including distributive numerals from the Later Latin Society: http://www.informalmusic.com/latinsoc/latnum.html. This includes a reasonable account of the meaning of distributive numbers, though the explanations leave at least me with the question "what the heck were they for?".

Such a list of numerals makes it look as if they are very widely used indeed. In fact, as far as I can tell, the binary numbers are constructed in accordance with a formative rule that allows us all the way to sets of infinity, which does not make them useful, and most can never have been used, possibly including undeni. The mathematics of bases might have given an opening, but too late, I fear!

I found a helpful explanation of distributive numbers from Allen and Greenough's Latin Grammar, cited by Dickinson College: http://dcc.dickinson.edu/grammar/latin/distributives. It provides a few other examples.

However, I have found an article in the Classical Review [Volume 21 Issue 7 Nov 1907 by J.P.Postgate - https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/25116/what-follows-next-in-the-sequence-unary-binary-ternary], which challenges the standard name and interpretation of the so-called distributives as a misnoma. They should be called, he argues, Collectives, giving useful citations: for example, Julius Caesar's account of the Britons he encountered in which groups of ten or twelve men (deni duodenique) shared wives.

Here comes another late arrival at the Latin ball. First let me say that I studied Latin from the age of about eight through to 23, and in all that time I scarcely encountered the word distributive, other than in Kennedy's Latin Primer (my Latin grammar book of back then). Outside that, was the sole example: bina castra (two camps). I can explain that this is because the Latin word for the single camp, castra is plural. The singular, castrum, means a fort. The Romans saw a camp as an accretion of small 'forts' (watchtowers). So duo castra for two camps would be ambiguous. Instead, to be clear, they used this distributive number. But it is difficult to find examples of it, outside the commentaries of Julius Caesar. (I have since encountered Plautus the writer of Roman comedy as a second source.

The nearest is the Roman denarius nummus. The denarius is worth ten ases. And the first syllable is, of course, our old friend den-i - ten-(as)-sets. Otherwise, I have read quite a lot of Latin, prose and poetry, war and peace, but encountered scarcely any example. Consequently, clarity about its usage is extremely difficult.

There is a useful list of Latin numerals, including distributive numerals from the Later Latin Society: http://www.informalmusic.com/latinsoc/latnum.html. This includes a reasonable account of the meaning of distributive numbers, though the explanations leave at least me with the question "what the heck were they for?".

Such a list of numerals makes it look as if they are very widely used indeed. In fact, as far as I can tell, the binary numbers are constructed in accordance with a formative rule that allows us all the way to sets of infinity, which does not make them useful, and most can never have been used, possibly including undeni. The mathematics of bases might have given an opening, but too late, I fear!

I found a helpful explanation of distributive numbers from Allen and Greenough's Latin Grammar, cited by Dickinson College: http://dcc.dickinson.edu/grammar/latin/distributives. It provides a few other examples.

However, I have found an article in the Classical Review [Volume 21 Issue 7 Nov 1907 by J.P.Postgate - https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/25116/what-follows-next-in-the-sequence-unary-binary-ternary], which challenges the standard name and interpretation of the so-called distributives as a misnoma. They should be called, he argues, Collectives, giving useful citations: for example, Julius Caesar's account of the Britons he encountered in which groups of ten or twelve men (deni duodenique) shared wives.