They weren't meant to. The purpose of Roman numerals was to be a convenient nota... | Hacker News

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		btilly on Dec 3, 2010 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: MIT Entrance exam (1869) They weren't meant to. The purpose of Roman numerals was to be a convenient notation that you would read on and off of an abacus. All actual calculations were done on an abacus.

makmanalp on Dec 3, 2010 [–]

Right. That's why "for a Roman, mental multiplication was exceedingly difficult". The representation didn't lend itself to mental calculation.

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