There are only seven basic Roman numerals, as seen in the following chart:
| Number |
Roman Numeral |
| 1 |
I |
| 5 |
V |
| 10 |
X |
| Number |
Roman Numeral |
| 50 |
L |
| 100 |
C |
| 500 |
D |
| 1000 |
M |
There are many rules, of course, to this method of writing numerals. For example, although the way to write large numbers like 8,000 would be “MMMMMMMM,” it is very cumbersome. In order to work with such large numbers, one rule was to write a bar over a numeral, meaning to multiply by 1,000. Thus, 8,000 would be VIII—equal to our Hindu-Arabic number 8—with a bar over the entire Roman numeral.
