Page:Smith - Number Stories of Long ago (1919).djvu/50

OF LONG AGO The teacher showed the boys the way in which the ancient Romans wrote their numbers and also taught them the numerals that were then used in the shops of Rome.

I V X L X D CIↃ ∞ LATE ROMAN NUMERALS Number forms for 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000, and 1000 used by the Romans about the beginning of the Christian era. Notice the two ways of writing 1000

If Titus had wished to write a number greater than a million he would have been very much puzzled, for in those days people rarely had any need for numbers above a few hundreds or a few thousands. Titus would probably have written such a large number in words.

$\overline{CIↃCIↃDCCL}$CIↃCIↃDCCCLXXXXVIIII ROMAN NUMBER One of several ways of writing 2,752,899 at the time when Titus lived. The Romans themselves were not uniform in writing such large numbers

When we see the Roman numerals on a watch or a clock we should know that Europe used them commonly until after America was 29