# Who Picked the Roman Numerals? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 29, 2003, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-picked-the-roman-numerals/165081 "2003-03-29T21:37:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-picked-the-roman-numerals/165081/1 "2003-03-29T21:37:25Z")
It’s always bugged me that the Roman numerals didn’t try to follow the alphabet. Also, what is the next denomination after “M”? - Jinx ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-picked-the-roman-numerals/165081/2 "2003-03-29T21:51:09Z")
I represents the finger. The most primitive way to count, right? All God’s chillun gots fingers. V represents the hand, a shortcut way to suggest five fingers at once. X is just two hands added together. Two V-shapes placed end to end. L — I don’t know how L came to represent 50. You got me there. C — abbreviation for _centum_. D — again, beats me. M — abbreviation for _mille_. The numbers higher than 1,000 are shown by writing a horizontal bar over the figure, which means ‘multiply by 1,000’. So M with a bar over it = 1,000,000. ---
**Author:** ![FatBaldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecd19e/32.png) [@FatBaldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FatBaldGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-picked-the-roman-numerals/165081/3 "2003-03-29T23:12:51Z")
> [@](#): > > Who Picked the Roman Numerals? The Romans ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-picked-the-roman-numerals/165081/4 "2003-03-29T23:30:23Z")
D comes from an alternate way the Romans wrote numbers over 100. 1000 was represented by a symbol that was a vertical line with loops to each side, sort of like this (|) only the straight line extended past the loops. 500 was half that symbol. That is, they left off one of the loops, which resulted in something that looked like a D. This system could go higher. 5000 was |)) and 10,000 was ((|)). I don’t think it went over 100,000 though. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-picked-the-roman-numerals/165081/5 "2003-03-30T03:40:31Z")
Note that the real Romans reputedly used their Roman Numerals differently than we do. For example, they often used “IIII” to indicate “4”, and using the variant “IV” was a shorthand that developed later on (my source says Middle Ages). ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-picked-the-roman-numerals/165081/6 "2003-03-30T03:48:51Z")
Cecil talks about the whole IIII vs. IV mystery in [this column](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_153.html). ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-picked-the-roman-numerals/165081/7 "2003-03-30T03:49:35Z")
I read in an encyclopedia that the Romans didn’t use IV for 4 as they normally would, because that spelled the beginning of the god-name IVPITER. So as not to be blasphemous, they substituted IIII. Similarly, in Hebrew numeration the number 15 would normally be written yod-heh (yod=10 and heh=5), but because that spelled the divine name Jah it would be sacrilegious to use it profanely, so the Hebrews substituted teth-vav (teth=9 and vav=6) for 15. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-picked-the-roman-numerals/165081/8 "2003-03-30T04:59:11Z")
L is half of C – graphically as well as numerically. This is hard to represent with HTML-specific symbols, but look at it this way, remembering that we’re talking archaic Latin alphabet, not modern Italic or Gothic letters, here: \_ | |\_ is 100; |\_ is 50. The other way to write numbers over 3,999 besides the (I) style was with macrons – a long bar over the top of a letter. \_ V would be 5,000 \_ X would be 10,000 and so on.