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The rules governing the ancient Roman numeral system were changed in the Middle Ages presumably to make the system more compatible with the Hindu-Arabic numeral system that was being introduced into Western Europe at the time.

For example: XC = 90 and IX = 9 so it follows that if 90+9 = 99 then XC+IX must = XCIX

But in fact the ancient Romans would have calculated the equivalent of 99 on an abacus counting device as LXXXXVIIII and by placing I to each side of these numerals would have systematically reduced them to IC (100-1=99) in written format.

In fact the Latin word for IC is 'undecentum meaning one from a hundred

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11y ago

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