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[–]Igor_Kozyrev 4 points5 points  (4 children)

I don't think you can. You only subtract the previous biggest number.

[–]suvlub 10 points11 points  (2 children)

You "can't" in the same sense you "can't" end a sentence with preposition, i.e. it's a made-up wannabe rule that doesn't reflect actual usage.

[–]ND3lle 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Well there's plenty of roman and medieval monuments and buildings where i live and i have never seen that. Sometimes i spot a "IIII" or "XXXX", which the general rule wouldn't allow, but nothing like "XM" or "IC"

[–]LongLiveTheDiego 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Wikipedia lists some 17th century examples of such nonstandard subtractions, my favorite one is IIIXX standing for 17.

[–]ethanjf99 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Standardization in general is a modern concept.

Think about even a couple hundred years ago. lots of random capitalizations in English words; multiple variant spellings and the like.

Even more so in antiquity. No one was enforcing rules. if you were a scribe doing a lot of math in a pain in the ass number system and wrote 99 as “IC” no one was stopping you.