Thursday, April 27 Roman Numerals

In class: Roman numeral review

When we read Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, several people asked about using Roman numerals. You probably had these in elementary school, but, even around Rochester, you will find buildings with Roman numerals, mostly to indicate when it was constructed.

 With a partner or two, translate the numbers. The first one is done for you.

You probably had these in elementary school, but, even around Rochester, you will find buildings with Roman numerals, mostly to indicate when it was constructed.

 With a partner or two, translate the numbers. The first one is done for you.

Key:

I	The easiest way to note down a number is to make that many marks - little I's. Thus I means 1, II means 2, III means 3. However, four strokes seemed like too many....
V	So the Romans moved on to the symbol for 5 - V. Placing I in front of the V — or placing any smaller number in front of any larger number — indicates subtraction. So IV means 4. After V comes a series of additions - VI means 6, VII means 7, VIII means 8.
X	X means 10. But wait — what about 9? Same deal. IX means to subtract I from X, leaving 9. Numbers in the teens, twenties and thirties follow the same form as the first set, only with X's indicating the number of tens. So XXXI is 31, and XXIV is 24.
L	L means 50. Based on what you've learned, I bet you can figure out what 40 is. If you guessed XL, you're right = 10 subtracted from 50. And thus 60, 70, and 80 are LX, LXX and LXXX.
C	C stands for centum, the Latin word for 100. A centurion led 100 men. We still use this in words like "century" and "cent." The subtraction rule means 90 is written as XC. Like the X's and L's, the C's are tacked on to the beginning of numbers to indicate how many hundreds there are: CCCLXIX is 369.
D	D stands for 500. As you can probably guess by this time, CD means 400. So CDXLVIII is 448. (See why we switched systems?)
M	M is 1,000. You see a lot of Ms because Roman numerals are used a lot to indicate dates. For instance, this page was written in the year of Nova Roma's founding, 1998 CE (Common Era; Christians use AD for Anno Domini, "year of our Lord"). That year is written as MCMXCVIII. But wait! Nova Roma counts years from the founding of Rome, ab urbe condita. By that reckoning Nova Roma was founded in 2751 a.u.c. or MMDCCLI.

1.  MMXLV = ____2045________	2.  MMCDL = ____________________	3.  685 = ____________________
4.  DCLIII = ____________________	5.  882 = ____________________	6.  MMDLXXVI = ____________________
7.  MCCCXVII = ____________________	8.  MMCDXXVI = ____________________	9.  one thousand, two hundred seventy-four = ____________________
10.  MDCXI = ____________________	11.  MMCXXXV = ____________________	12.  XXI = ____________________
13.  1698 = ____________________	14.  MMDCCCLXX = ____________________	15.  DCCCXLII = ____________________
16.  MMCCLXXXVII = ____________________	17.  nine hundred ninety-three = ____________________	18.  DCXVIII = ____________________
19.  CMLXIX = ____________________	20.  MDCXLVIII = ____________________	21.  62 = ____________________
22.  CMXCI = ____________________	23.  MDCCCXXIX = ____________________	24.  DXXXIV = ____________________
25.  MCDXL = ____________________	26.  918 = ____________________	27.  MMCLXXIV = ____________________
28.  MMCCCLXIII = ____________________	29.  MMCDLXXXIX = ____________________	30.  CCCLVI = ____________________