followed by M. de Wailly, who published the whole of the fragments (Mém. de l’Institut (1842), xv. 399). Later, Mommsen and Jaffé have dealt with the text of the documents (Jahrbuch des. gem. deut. Rechts (1863), vi. 398), and compared in a table the forms of the letters with those of the Dacian tablets.
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| Fig. 27.—Deed of the Imperial Chancery, 5th century. |
| (portionem ipsi debitam resarcire nec ullum precatorem ex instrumento) |
The characters are large, the line of writing being about three-fourths of an inch deep, and the heads and tails of the long letters are flourished; but the even slope of the strokes imparts to the writing a certain uniform and graceful appearance. As to the actual shape of the letters, as will be seen from the reduced facsimile here given, there may be recognized in many of them only a more current form of those which have been described above. The A and R may be distinguished by noticing the different angle at which the top strokes are applied; the B, to suit the requirements of the more current style, is no longer the closed d-shaped letter of the tablets, but is open at the bow and more nearly resembles a reversed b; the tall letters f, h, l, and long s have developed loops; O and v-shaped U are very small, and written high in the line. The letters which seem to differ essentially from those of the tablets are E, M, N. The first of these is probably explained correctly by Jaffé as a development of the earlier || quickly written and looped, and may be compared with the tick-shaped letter noticed above. The M and N have been compared with the minuscule forms of the Greek mu and nu, as though the latter had been adopted; but they may with better reason be explained as merely cursive forms of the Latin capitals M and N. That this hand should have retained so much of the older formation of the Roman cursive is no doubt to be attributed to the fact of its being an official style of writing which would conform to tradition.
To continue the development which we saw attained in the letter of the 4th century above (fig. 26) we turn to the documents on papyrus from Ravenna, Naples, and other places in Italy, which date from the 5th century and are written in a looser and more straggling hand (fig. 28). Examples of this hand will be found in largest numbers in Marini’s work specially treating of these documents (I papiri diplomatici), and also in the publications of Mabillon (De re diplomatica) Champollion-Figeac (Chartes et MSS. sur papyrus), Massmann (Urkunden in Neapel und Arezzo), Gloria (Paleografia), as well as in Facs. of Ancient Charters in the British Museum, pt. iv., 1878, Nos. 45, 46, and in the Facsimiles of the Palaeographical Society.
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| Fig. 28.—Deed of Sale (Ravenna), A.D. 572. |
| (huius splendedissimae urbis) |
The letter a has now lost all trace of the capital; it is the open
u-shaped minuscule, developed from the looped uncial (
);
the b, throwing off the loop or curve on the left which gave it
the appearance of d, has at length developed one on the right,
and appears in the form familiar in modern writing; minuscule
m, n, and u are fully formed (the last never joining a following
letter, and thus always distinguishable from a); p, q, and r
approach to the long minuscules, and s, having acquired an
incipient tag, has taken the form γ which it keeps long after.
This form of writing was widely used, and was not confined to legal documents. It is found in grammatical works, as in the second hand of the palimpsest MS. of Licinianus (Cat. Anc. MSS., pt. ii., pls. 1, 2) of the 6th century, and in such volumes as the Josephus of the Ambrosian Library of the 7th century (Pal. Soc. pl. 59), and in the St Avitus of the 6th century and other MSS. written in France. It is indeed only natural to suppose that this, the most convenient, because cursive, hand, should have been employed for ordinary working MSS. which were in daily use. That so few of such MSS. should have survived is no doubt owing to the destruction of the greater number by the wear and tear to which they were subjected.
Latin Writing. II.—Literary Hands
We have now to return to the 1st century, the date from which we started in the investigation of the Roman cursive writing, and take up the thread of the history of the book-hand of literature, a few rare examples of which have survived from the ruins of Herculaneum. That a Roman book-hand existed at a still earlier period is quite certain. The analogy of the survival of very ancient examples of a Greek literary hand is a sufficient proof; and it is a mere truism to say that as soon as there was a literature, there was likewise a book-hand for its vehicle. No work could be submitted for sale in the market that was not written in a style legible to all. Neatly written copies were essential, and the creation of a formal kind of writing fitted for the purpose naturally resulted. Such formal script must, however, be always more or less artificial as compared with the natural current hand of the time, and there must always be an antagonism between the two styles of script; and, as we have seen in Greek palaeography, the book-hand is always subject to the invading influence of the natural hand.
Capital Writing.—Among the Herculaneum fragmentary papyri, then, we find our earliest examples of the Roman literary hand, which must be earlier than A.D. 79, the year of the destruction of the city; and those examples prove to us that the usual literary hand was written in capital letters. Of these letters there are two kinds—the square and the rustic. Square capitals may be defined as those which have their horizontal lines at right angles with the vertical strokes; rustic letters are not less accurately formed, nor, as their title would seem to imply, are they rough in character, but, being without the exact finish of the square letters, and being more readily written, they have the appearance of greater simplicity. In capital writing the letters are not all of equal height; F and L, and in the rustic sometimes others, as B and R, overtop the rest. In the rustic alphabet the forms are generally lighter and more slender, with short horizontal strokes more or less oblique and wavy. Both styles of capital writing were obviously borrowed from the lapidary alphabets employed under the empire. Both styles were used for public notices inscribed on the walls of Pompeii and other places. But it has been observed that scribes with a natural conservatism would perpetuate a style some time longer in books than it might be used in inscriptions. We should therefore be prepared to allow for this in ascribing a date to a capital written MS., which might resemble an inscription older by a century or more. Rustic capitals, on account of their more convenient shape, came into more general use; and the greater number of the early MSS. in capitals which have survived are consequently found to be in this character. In the Exempla codium latinorum of Zangemeister and Wattenbach are collected specimens of capital writing.
The literary fragments of papyrus from Herculaneum are written generally in rustic capitals, either of the firm, solid character used in inscriptions, or of the lighter style employed in the fragments of a poem on the battle of Actium (fig. 29). As this poem is the earliest literary work in Latin, of any extent, written in the book-hand, a specimen of the writing is here given. Its period must necessarily lie between the year 31 B.C. the date of the battle and A.D. 79; and therefore we may place it at least early in the 1st century.
That the rustic capital hand was generally adopted for finely written literary MSS. from the period of our earliest examples onwards through the centuries immediately following may be
