Roman Numerals Long before the adoption of the Hindu-Arabic decimal system we use today, the Roman Empire developed a numeric language that would dominate Europe for nearly 1,800 years. Even after its replacement in daily commerce, the Roman numeral system remains a fixture in modern culture, appearing on everything from grandfather clocks to Super Bowl logos. The Seven Essential Symbols
The system is built around seven uppercase Latin letters, each representing a fixed positive integer. Unlike modern decimals, these symbols do not have “place value”; their meaning remains constant regardless of where they sit in a sequence, though their order dictates how they are calculated. I V X L C D M How the System Works
Reading Roman numerals is a process of mental addition and subtraction based on three primary rules: