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in reply to Re: At the risk of saying something stupid-but-obvious about Roman Numerals
in thread At the risk of saying something stupid-but-obvious about Roman Numerals

Or even, MDCCCLXXIIII. Romans probably treated the numbers like a bag of coins. To add two numbers, just lump them together. Substractive forms (IV, IX, XL, XC, CD, CM), and even double substractives (such as CCM) would also occur, according to wikipedia.