DCCCLXXXVIII = 888 (The Origin of Roman Numerals)
Marian Learns the Shocking Origin Story of Roman Numerals
“Marian, I’m going to tell you another true story. It’s about Roman numerals.”
“Roamin’ numerals? Where are they roamin’?”
“Huh? Oh, do you mean . . . No, Roman, as in from Rome—the city in Italy.”
“Oh. I was wondering why numerals would be roaming around—numerals are numbers, right?”
“Right; pretty much, anyway. Now here’s the deal—”
“The deal? Are we going to play cards? Let’s play Uno! Or Skip-Bo!”
“Maybe tomorrow. What I meant was, here’s the thing: One day, the leading politicians, chief priests, and business moguls met in Rome in 888 (a year that they referred to as DCCCLXXXVIII after this conclave).”
“What!?! Why would they call it that?!?”
“I’m getting to that; they decided to start using the letters C, D, I, L, M, V, and X to designate quantity, or numbers, or years.”
“Why? What’s wrong with 1, 2, 3—”
“Be patient, Marian, I’m getting to that. Just listen. The leaders of corrupt politics, hypocritical religion, and greedy commerce got together in Rome and chose those particular letters because they are the first letters of the words Crazy, Deranged, Insane, Looney, Mad, Vicious, and Xenophobic.”
Marian crossed her arms and looked cross herself. She didn’t ask another question yet—this was either because she knew her dad wanted her to just listen or because she was starting to lose patience with these doofuses who would contrive such an asinine numbering system.
Her dad continued with the history lesson:
“These guys (all the leaders back then and over there were men) deliberately chose an arcane system of designating quantities because—”
“R. Cane? Who’s R. Cane?” Marian asked now; she couldn’t help herself; she was naturally curious.
“Not who—what. Arcane means something kind of mysterious, or confusing.”
“That is confusing.”
“True, but there was a method to their madness; that is, there was a reason they wanted numbers to be difficult for people to understand.”
“They made it hard on purpose?!?”
“Yes; you see, there was a crisis to avert. The people were revolting; the masses had had it.”
“Had what?”
“They were fed up with the lies all these guys were telling them, and how they were taking advantage of them, always asking for more and more money, but providing them with less and less.”
“Hey! You said this was in 888. It sounds more like 2022!”
“Very perceptive of you, Marian. Note what these scoundrels and charlatans did, though: Rather than sticking with the easily learned and efficient symbols—such as the 1,2, and 3 and so forth that you mentioned and alluded to, they wanted to confuse and mystify the masses with an illogical and cumbersome system of counting.”
“But why?”
“As I said: they wanted to purposely confuse people, so they wouldn’t know when they got their tax bill or property tax assessment or tithe dunning letter just how much they were being bilked for. They were counting (no pun intended) on the people not knowing that DCCCLXXXVIII meant 888, for instance. For example, they might get a bill like the following:
...and since it said they owed “D” they wouldn’t know they were being pressured to fork over 500 clams. What sensible person would think that “D” meant 500?
“I didn’t understand that, papa. What does that ‘Come late and Guam and bee bum panda each is larger’ on the bill mean?
“Don’t worry about it, Marian; it’s Latin; it’s a dead language. Or will be soon.”