Roman handwriting
Two Pompeian kids were practising the letters of the alphabet
on walls, the first one showing off his handwriting skills with an artistic
letter B, the second unhappy with the formation of A and so he wrote it again.
However, the second one seems younger; some of the letters are larger and less
well formed. He’s very insecure with F, G, K and L. To be fair, he’s less
pretentious with B than the first kid!
Note the formation of E i.e. two vertical strokes ││ as an
alternative in cursive handwriting. However, E written in the way we write it
can be seen in the second image of a cartoon drawn on the wall of the Villa of
the Mysteries in Pompeii: Rufus est; it’s Rufus, and Rufus was a cognÅmen since
the word means “red-haired”. That laurel wreath around his head is a symbol of
imperial power; maybe whoever drew it was making fun of this man Rufus, or it
was a self-portrait pretending that he had some sort of authority. Note too
another florid way of writing R in cursive script.
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