Quote Originally Posted by fallen851
This is a stupid topic, but I've always wanted to be able to identify a long Roman numeral very easily, so I was wondering if it would be possible to change the numbers (lets say someones age or the date) to Roman numerals?

I figure that would be something the EB team would consider, because of the focus on realism, although I have no idea if the Roman numeral system was in use across the world... or if the arabic numeral system had been invented...
Okay, a more serious response here:
If I recall correctly the most widespread numerical system would be Greek. (Because the Greeks were so widespread themselves.) But to apply such a system to stats will be just impossible. One thing for example is that the same name for the same sort of 'money' doesn't equal the same amount of money. Thus one talent in say Seleukeia, is not the same as one talent in Athens. That sort of stuff. Not to mention the respective value of each 'non Greek' currency around.

Apart from that: you'll be barely able to read Roman Numerals, that is if you don't want to spend lot's of time on what date your in, so what do you think that would happen with Greek & Celtic? And then we're actually lucky to find that the Greek numerical system shows considerable similarity to the later Arabic system - something that the Roman system lacks which makes advanced mathematics in the Roman numerical system nearly impossible. (The Romans don't really have the 0, you see, so all of our decimal world needs to be readjusted - not just translated.)

So to sum up:
a) To get more 'realistic figures' is not possible through applying ancient numerical systems
b) It involves really much excruciating calculations, and is by no means userfriendly - not even if that user is a professor in ancient mathematics.