Roman Numerals

[Chadonis]

How did the Romans Add, Subtract, Multiply etc using Roman Numerals?

[Quizmonster]

Clicking here and on any other links within that site might help.

[New Judge]

Or easier still, convertt the constituents to ordinary numbers, do the sums, then convert the answer back.

After all, you never heard Roman golfers shouting "IV" as they were about to tee off!

[anette]

I think they used a counting board, a bit like an abacus, to get into units of 10s, 100s etc.

[taichiperson]

An interesting question - assuming many traders to be illiterate, and/or writing materials being expensive or scarce, most calculations were probably carried out in memory, or as anette says, on an abacus. But then I can also speculate that the Roman Army probably kept records of soldiers' wages, supplies etc - again, calculations done on an abacus and the results written either on paper(?) or wax tablets.