To the extent that Roman numbers have a direction, it is the same as for Arabic numbers. The current year is MMXXIIII (or MMXXIV in the more familiar notation g

To the extent that Roman numbers have a direction, it is the same as for Arabic numbers. The current year is MMXXIIII (or MMXXIV in the more familiar notation generally taught in modern schools). You can't write this as IIIIXXMM. There is only one exception that I know of: the 22nd Legion wrote their number as IIXX, but this caused confusion at the time.