A useless thought: in FORTH, they'd be using the /mod operator. That's a division operator that returns both the (integer) quotient, and the remainder. Just look at the pattern:
Roman
Factor
Exponent
I
1
0
V
5
0
X
1
1
L
5
1
C
1
2
D
5
2
M
1
3
The factor clearly has a repetitive pattern, with a period of 2, the exponent increments once for every period.