Comment on Kid gave a reasonable answer without all the math bullshit
edwardbear@lemmy.world 3 days agoHoly shit this is dope!
But how did historians come up with the conclusion that, in the case of XIIX, the Romans substracted from the second X, and didn’t just write 12+10?
Not arguing, just extremely curious
TaTTe@lemmy.world 3 days ago
The general rule is that the larger symbols come first in Roman numerals, so 12+10 (22) would be written as 10+10+1+1 or XXII.
If you literally meant the arithmetic 12+10, I’d assume they used some symbol for addition, so it would be written as XII+X, but I can’t say for sure.