Roman Numerals
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In the original system the letter position had no meaning.
Roman Numerals use letters
as symbols.
Each letter has a fixed value.
I = 1 V = 5 X = 10 L = 50 C = 100 D = 500 M = 1000
In principal, XXIII represents 23 but so does XIIXI.
A later development introduced special cases where position mattered.
A smaller value is subtracted from the larger value to its right.
IV = 4, IX = 9, XL = 40, XC = 90, CD = 400, CM = 900.
Some numbers can have a choice of representation in Roman Numerals.
For example, the year 1999 can be represented as any of these:
MDCCCCLXXXXVIIII (1000+500+100+100+100+100+5+1+1+1+1) MCMXCIX (1000+(-100+1000)+(-10+100)+(-1+10)) MIM (1000+(-1+1000)) 