Usage in ancient Rome varied greatly and became thoroughly chaotic in medieval times. In fact, there has never been an officially binding, or universally accepted standard for Roman numerals. This structure allows for significant flexibility in notation, and many variant forms are attested. Tally-like combinations of these fixed symbols correspond to the (placed) digits of Arabic numerals. Roman numerals are essentially a decimal or "base ten" number system, but instead of place value notation (in which place-keeping zeros enable a digit to represent different powers of ten) the system uses a set of symbols with fixed values, including "built in" powers of ten.
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