I'm so old I've forgotten what I used to know...........

[LovelyLadyLux]

Ok - I can't figure it out. As a teenager I studied Latin for 4 yrs. Had it as a third language during my High School years. It was an okay subject, I could memorize so I got decent grades in the class and what I learned then has severd me know in deciphering words.......BUT........I've found out that I can't remember how to count and I can't figure out the date.



What is the date on this Statue? I know that M = thousand, C = 100, L = 50 and I know the I, II, III, IV, V, VIII. IX, X and vaguely know that if a number goes to the right of the bigger letter it adds to it and if it is on the left it takes away but I'm not confident I've got the date right on this one.....What does D stand for? 500?

Is the date 1894?

[Winged Isis]

1904.

M = 1000
D = 500
C = 100
IV = 4
IX = 9

[Grandad]

And I believe 'L' is 50

I DO wonder about the order of the numeric characters. I know that they descend in value from left to right except where a lesser value is to be deducted from the next. However, which of these is correct for 1946?

MDCCCCXXXXVI or MDCCCCIVL ?

I too did some latin at grammar school but soon realised that accademics were not for me and, being of a practical nature, changed to Technical College at 13 yoa.

Now what have you started LLL

[Horus]

Wow this will turn into a whole can of worms, although I did not study Latin, I can usually get my head around Roman numerals. It does have some strange rules and also variations of how something may be written, for example I think that Grandads 1946 is actually written as MCMXLVI = 1946.
The rule here being that you take the first numeral M = 1000 and then instead of adding lots of C’s or a D, it is quicker to represent 900 as being 1000 minus 100 or CM, so we arrive at MCM or 1900. We use the same rule of X deducted from L, or 10 from 50 to give us the number 40 or in this case XL, this takes us to MCMXL or 1940, add to this V or 5, plus I which is 1 to give us MCMXLVI or 1946

Using this method the date on LLL’s memorial should read as MCMIV, but can also be written as M = 1000 + D = 500 + C = 100 (4 times) = 1900 then the last two digits are V = 5, but because the I or 1 precedes it, we have to take it away, leaving the number 4 which could also have been written as IIII, so the date is indeed 1904.

In my own observations of these numerals it would seem that later more modern uses were inscribed to be more decorative rather than using the more correct abbreviated version that the Romans would have used in everyday life, I think that the general rule is that if a larger number is preceded by a smaller number, that the smaller number is always deducted. So for example if M precedes a D you add them together because the first number is higher than the next number, as is the combination VI or 5 + 1, or high number preceding low number. Whereas IV = 4, low number preceding high number, therefore it becomes a minus of the second number.

Here is a good example of the decorative use of Romam numerals, it is inscribed on a stone built into an Aqueduct that carries the Macclefield canal over the Trent & Mersey canal so as to link them together upstream of this lock.



Poole Lock Aqueduct inscription (close up)


The inscription reads POOL LOCK AQUEDUCT MDCCCXXVIIII, this translates as 1829 being the year it was built, it could have been written as MDCCCXXIX as a shortened and more correct version.