"Woepcke points out that the Arabs on entering Spain (711 A.D.) would naturally have followed their custom of adopting for the computation of taxes the numerical systems of the countries they conquered... The theory is that the Hindu system, without the zero, early reached Alexandria (say 450 a.d.), and that the Neo-Pythagorean love for the mysterious and... the Oriental led to its use... that it was then passed along the Mediterranean, reaching Boethius in Athens or in Rome, and to the schools of Spain, being discovered in Africa and Spain by the Arabs even before they themselves knew the improved system with the place value."