Roman Numerals Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
99 free Roman Numerals trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Roman numerals look like a relic, yet they are everywhere: on clock faces, at the end of film credits, in the Super Bowl's name and after the names of kings and popes. Reading them is a small skill that pays off constantly. This quiz mixes conversions you can work out with facts you probably cannot guess: why the NFL skipped one game's numeral, why clock dials break their own rules, how the Romans managed without a zero, and what the odd spellings on old buildings really say. It suits anyone who has ever squinted at a film's closing credits, plus teachers and pub-quiz setters who want a reason behind every answer.
30 of 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Why was the NFL's 2016 title game branded Super Bowl 50 rather than Super Bowl L?
An L-only logo looked bad
An L-only logo looked bad: the NFL's head of brand said the letter 'isn't as pleasing to the eye', a worry her designers had carried ever since drawing the logo for Super Bowl XL.
Q 02Which famous clock, its dials designed in 1852, writes four as IV rather than the IIII most clock faces use?
Big Ben
Big Ben, whose dial was designed in 1852, runs I to XII with a subtractive IV, while most Roman-numeral clock faces keep the older IIII for four yet still write nine as IX.
Q 03Roman fractions were counted in unciae, twelfths whose Latin name gave English which pair of units?
Inch and ounce
Inch and ounce both descend from uncia, the Roman twelfth: the Roman inch was a twelfth of a foot, and the Roman ounce a twelfth of a pound.
Q 04Which number does the Roman numeral MIX stand for, a numeral that happens to spell an English word?
1,009
1,009 is M plus IX with nothing written for the empty hundreds and tens: the Roman system has no zero symbol, so a missing place is simply left out, as in 207 written CCVII.
Q 05Roman numerals descend directly from the number symbols of which people, Rome's early neighbours and rivals?
Etruscans
Etruscans supplied the signs for 1, 5, 10, 50 and 100, which were not letters at first: the sign for 50 only settled into an L around the time of Augustus.
Q 06Which subtitle number did the original 1977 Star Wars gain on its 1981 re-release?
Episode IV
Episode IV was added in 1981 because the 1980 sequel had opened as Episode V, revealing George Lucas's plan for a longer saga in which the first film released sat in the middle.
Q 07Why did a film's title-screen year matter so much in Hollywood before 1989?
A wrong numeral could void copyright
A wrong numeral could void copyright under US law until the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988 took effect, and even a smaller slip could change the date the copyright ran out.
Q 08Why is 49 written XLIX in standard Roman numerals, and never the two-letter IL?
I precedes only V or X
I precedes only V or X, so the six standard subtractive pairs are IV, IX, XL, XC, CD and CM; 49 therefore has to be 40 plus 9, and 99 is XCIX rather than IC.
Q 09When a formal document dates itself 10.XI.1988, what does the Roman numeral XI stand for?
November
November is XI, the eleventh of the twelve: the mixed style writes that part of the date in Roman numerals and the day in Arabic ones, so 4.VI.1789 and VI.4.1789 both unambiguously mean 4 June 1789.
Q 10The Statue of Liberty's tablet reads JULY IV followed by which Roman numeral for the year 1776?
MDCCLXXVI
MDCCLXXVI is M + DCC + LXX + VI; the sculptor Bartholdi chose the date of the Declaration of Independence for the tablet to tie that day to the idea of liberty.
Q 11After the one-off Super Bowl 50, which Roman numeral did the NFL use for the next season's championship game?
LI
LI, for 51, brought the numerals straight back, and the game earned its place in the record books: New England erased a 28-3 deficit to win the first Super Bowl decided in overtime.
Q 12On a Lithuanian shop's opening-hours sign written in Roman numerals, which day of the week does VII stand for?
Sunday
Sunday is VII because such signs, also seen in railway and bus timetables, take Monday as the first day of the week and number it I.
Q 13Which Roman numeral spells 1066 in standard form, with the empty hundreds place simply omitted?
MLXVI
MLXVI is M + LX + VI: with no zero to mark it, the empty hundreds place goes unwritten, and swapping two letters gives 1046 (MXLVI) or 1064 (MLXIV) instead.
Q 21What does a vinculum, the bar drawn above a Roman numeral, do to the value written beneath it?
Multiplies it by 1,000
Multiplies it by 1,000: the bar came into use in the late Republic and was the common way to write thousands in the Imperial era, since M for 1,000 only arrived in the medieval period.
Q 22Which principle underlies Roman numerals such as XXVII, unlike the place-value system of Arabic digits?
Additive
Additive is the principle: XXVII is just 10 + 10 + 5 + 1 + 1, with no place value, which made written sums so awkward that accounts kept in Roman numerals were worked on an abacus.
Q 23The NFL first put a Roman numeral on its championship game in January 1971; which edition was that?
V
Q 14In IUPAC names for inorganic compounds, a Roman numeral in parentheses after a metal tells a chemist what?
Its oxidation number
Its oxidation number is what the numeral states, used for cations that can carry several different positive charges; chemists once numbered periodic-table groups the same way, a habit now officially deprecated.
Q 15On a graph that includes negative numbers, which Roman-numeral region has negative values on both axes?
Quadrant III
Quadrant III is where both coordinates are negative: the four are numbered anticlockwise from the top right, so II has only a negative x and IV only a negative y.
Q 16A film made in 2026 would show which Roman numeral for its production year, with MM standing for 2000?
MMXXVI
MMXXVI is MM + XX + VI: every year of this century opens with MM, which keeps the numerals shorter than in the 1900s, when each one had to begin MCM.
Q 17Which year is written MCMXCIX in Roman numerals?
1999
1999 is M + CM + XC + IX, three subtractive pairs in a row; MCM alone signifies 1000 + 1000 − 100 = 1900, so every year of the 1900s opens with those same three letters.
Q 18Spanish writes 'siglo XVIII' and French 'XVIIIe siècle' to name which century?
The 18th
The 18th century is XVIII, 10 + 5 + 3; Romance languages favour Roman numerals for centuries, as do Russian and Polish, while German and Turkish write '18.' with a full stop instead.
Q 19In a printed book, which part is conventionally page-numbered in lowercase Roman numerals such as iv and xii?
The preface
The preface and the rest of the front matter take lowercase numerals so that the main text can still begin on page 1; plays use them too, as in Act iii, Scene 2.
Q 20In the United States, what kind of suffix is the IV in a name such as William Howard Taft IV?
Generational
Generational suffixes follow a custom: Jr. is for a son who shares his father's full name, while II, read 'the second', usually marks a boy named after a grandfather or an uncle.
V was the first to carry a numeral, and the four earlier games were numbered in hindsight; a number suits a game that is played in the calendar year after its season.
Q 24Which English cathedral's late-1300s clock already showed IIII for four, as most Roman-numeral dials still do?
Wells
Wells Cathedral's clock still sends a set of jousting knights charging round every quarter of an hour, and its medieval dial pairs IIII with a subtractive IX.
Q 25How did the builders of Rome's Colosseum label entrance 44, shunning IV while using XL for forty?
XLIIII
XLIIII is carved over gate 44 because the Colosseum's masons wrote XL but avoided IV; the numbers matched those on spectators' pottery tickets and steered each to the right arch.
Q 26Which Latin word did Dionysius Exiguus write for zero alongside Roman numerals in a 525 manuscript?
nulla
Nulla stood in for zero in a 525 table by Dionysius Exiguus; around 725 Bede or a colleague wrote just the letter N instead, a habit apothecaries kept up on prescriptions into the 20th century.
Q 27The Roman symbol for 1,000 drifted from a circled X to the letter M under the influence of which Latin word?
mille
Mille, Latin for 'thousand', pulled the symbol toward M; before that the 1,000 sign was partly identified with the Greek letter phi and passed through shapes resembling Ψ and ∞.
Q 28France's Sun King, the fourteenth Louis, seems to have preferred which form of his number on coins?
XIIII
XIIII is how the Sun King's gold coins number him, in the legend LVD XIIII; William IV of Great Britain and Charles IV of Spain likewise had IIII struck on their coinage.
Q 29Roman numerals on the stern of the clipper Cutty Sark, rising from 13 to 22, mark what in feet?
Draught
Draught marks show how deep the hull sits, which changes with the load, so a glance told the crew how heavily laden she was; the Cutty Sark's climb the stern from 13 feet to 22.
Q 30A Renaissance chronogram hid what inside a phrase by counting the letters I, V, X, L, C, D and M?
A year
A year was the usual payload, since chronograms marked tombstones and foundation stones: 'My Day Closed Is In Immortality' hides MDCIII, 1603, the year Elizabeth I died.