Roman Numeral Line Segments
C, 148 129 chars

d,x,n[]={1000,900,500,400,100,90,50,40,10,9,5,4,1,4,5,2,3,1,3,2,4,2,3,2,3,1};f(c){while(d+=(c/n[x])*n[x+13],c%=n[x++]);return d;}


My first code-golf :^). Since the question states I can use a function, I have changed main to a function to trim some chars (most importantly: pass c as parameter rather scanf)

unpacked

d,x,n[]={1000,900,500,400,100,90,50,40,10,9,5,4,1,4,5,2,3,1,3,2,4,2,3,2,3,1};
f(c){
  while(d+=(c/n[x])*n[x+13],
        c%=n[x++]);
  return d;
}