Cuomo, invoking Bruno Latour's notion of the "inscription" device, has argued for the the power of metrological texts to replace things with numbers in the Roman imaginary.  In this paper, I consider the consequences of such an approach to quantification throughout a broader sample of metrological texts and practices.  While confirming Cuomo's interpretation of the ambitions of her core texts, I suggest that there is reason to doubt their success in practice.