What are some cool roman numeral facts?

Answer 1

The idea of Roman numerals were not conceived by the Romans but by the Etruscans who wrote out these numerals from right to left. So for example IIIVXXX would represent 38 but when the Romans gained power they reversed this way of counting.

The Etruscans once conquered and ruled the Romans centuries before the beginning of the Roman Empire.

Not much in history is known about the Etruscans who were a strange and mysterious people whose secretive way of life, language and where they came from is largely unrecorded. In ancient times they were simply known as the people of the sea, could it be that they were descendants from the lost city of Atlantis?

The way we write out Roman numerals today is different to the way the Romans actually did themselves. For instance today we write out 99 as XCIX but the Romans themselves would have wrote out 99 as LXXXXVIIII which can be simplified to IC (-1+100 = 99) in fact the Latin word for 99 is undecentum which literally means one from a hundred.

The rules governing today's Roman numeral system were introduced during the Middle Ages and that was centuries after the decline of the Roman Empire.