CAPITAL, SCRIPT. —
I. IN EPIGRAPHY
When applied to script, the term “capital” means “larger,” “more conspicuous,” such as are the letters used in the *capita* of pages and treatises. It is not a word used in ancient Latin. In technical language, however, it is not synonymous with “majuscule,” but designates that form of script which appears on the most ancient monuments in stone and which is still essentially reproduced in the majuscule of modern printing. In this sense it stands in contrast to both cursive and minuscule, and also to uncial.It seems that in antiquity only one type of script was in use among each people, whether Greek or Italic, with an alphabet which the Greeks derived from the Semites and the Italic peoples from their Greek neighbors in the Chalcidian colonies (Cumae, Naples, etc.). Certainly all the earliest written texts show the same type of letters, which are essentially those referred to above as capital.
Greek capital script shows little evolution in its forms, and almost only the rounded variants in comparison with the square ones from the 3rd–2nd centuries B.C. onward; these forms might be called uncial.
Latin capital, from its most ancient form (archaic capital), gradually refined its strokes, so that by the time of Augustus it presents a noble, severe, and elegant type at once, in which the forms of the letters are perfectly stabilized. This type has two fundamental variants: the *square* or *monumental* and the *actuarial* or *rustic* capital.
Square script has very broad letters, with the uprights perfectly horizontal or vertical, so that each can be inscribed in a perfect square or rectangle. It was commonly used on monuments and marble inscriptions, in mosaics, seals and stamps, in book titles, and wherever the script had to present a special monumental character. It was especially suited to engraving with a chisel.
Actuarial or rustic capital, by contrast, is characterized by narrower and more slender forms, by the tendency of the horizontal strokes to rise upward, by the depression and partial deformation of all curved strokes, and by the frequent abandonment of the vertical for the slanted. As such it was especially suited to writing with pen and brush, and was probably produced chiefly by the use of these instruments. It is therefore obvious that it was customarily used in the recording of public and private acts, whence its name *actuarial*. And the force of usage was so strong that even when these acts had to be engraved on hard material, such as bronze or marble (emperors’ rescripts, acts of the Arval Brethren, etc.), they were written in rustic script.
Moreover, the two forms were not always totally distinct. In less carefully executed marble inscriptions, rustic forms often occur among the square ones; in the 3rd–4th centuries, and particularly in Christian epigraphy, square and rustic letters are continually mixed, indeed with the progressive decline of calligraphy, the entire inscription takes on an increasingly rustic appearance.
Pope Damasus, with his calligraphic reform, attempted a decisive return to the purest forms of square capital, even exaggerating its characters of breadth and severity, but his action had little effect around him and after him.
Latin capital in its formal style has remained almost unchanged on monuments down to our own day.
The cursive form (*cursim ducta*, i.e., rapid) must always have been used, from the time writing began outside of monuments, for the commonest uses of life. It therefore seems to have had its own independent development apart from that of capital. In fact, when it begins to appear, it carries with it signs of archaism and of popular usage.
It would be the continuation of the lapidary capital. But certain elements (the absence of the median line in the A of the rustic capital, the vertical strokes of some letters rising above the line, certain characteristic forms not found in the epigraphic field, and the continuous nature of the writing at a time when inscriptions show a division between words) reasonably suggest a parallel process rather than one of dependence, although reciprocal influence cannot be excluded in specific cases. Indeed, for certain forms of actuary capital, the contrast between thick and thin strokes, the undulating ductus, etc., lead one to recognize a conscious imitation of book script by the lapidary, and not vice versa.
The elegant capital is the paleographic counterpart of the square capital in inscriptions: today it is recognized as more likely influenced by the epigraphic forms of the Damasian revival than by the lapidary of the 1st century. The very few surviving examples (some mutilated Virgil manuscripts: the Augustan codex, partly in the Vatican [Vat. lat. 3256; 4 leaves] and partly in the State Library of Berlin [20, 416; 3 leaves]; the St. Gall codex [1394; 11 leaves]; the Oxyrhynchus papyrus [Oxyr. Pap. 1098], and perhaps the Verona palimpsest [XL, 38; 51 leaves]) do not date beyond the 4th century (it should be noted that the scarce fragments of Herculaneum papyri, which seem to offer a sample, are so mutilated that one cannot even confidently classify the type of script). However, it is thought to have been in use even earlier. The ratio of width to height for the letters of its alphabet is such that wide letters (B, C, D, G, M, O, Q, etc.) fit perfectly into a square; the thickening of rounded strokes is drawn along an axis perpendicular to the line (cf. pl. I). It is a solemn, distinctly calligraphic script of rather limited use: in the Middle Ages, having fallen out of spontaneous use, it continued to be employed as an imitative script in titles, rubrics, and glossary headings.
The rustic capital corresponds, in the book script field, to the actuary capital of inscriptions. Compared to the elegant capital, its letters have a greater vertical development and thus fit into a rectangle, with the shorter sides aligned with the line; the thickenings follow an axis that slopes obliquely across the line, forming the smaller angle to the left (cf. pl. II). It has freer movements than the elegant capital, with horizontal strokes often undulating or even forming flourishes (F, L, more rarely T). The name simply indicates a distinction from the elegant capital, with which it is less solemn, but it does not imply roughness of form or execution, since the rustic capital is also meticulously written and used in luxury codices. Already in use in the 1st century of the common era (its earliest examples are found in Herculaneum papyri), it was the standard book script until the 4th century and remained the preeminent book script until the end of the 5th century, when uncial and semi-uncial began to prevail. However, it survived for another century as a spontaneous form, after which it continued to evolve into other derived forms. Rather than being a distinct type, the majuscule cursive represents a transitional form that foreshadows minuscule cursive, its characteristics determined by a dual tendency: toward minusculization and greater cursiveness. Cursive is attested in Herculaneum and Egyptian papyri and in certain wooden tablets from Pompeii and Dacia. Although the formation of the letters is the same in both, the overall appearance of the script differs greatly due to the difference in material and writing tool (cf. pl. III). More pliable, more rounded, and richer in ligatures in papyri, it is irregular, harsh, and detached in wooden tablets, assuming in each case its own peculiar forms.
As with any script, the distinction between the calligraphic and cursive forms of capital admits intermediate studies, to which Schiaparelli gives the name "semicursive," citing as an example the famous Herculaneum papyrus 817, which contains fragments of the anonymous poem De bello Attico. But in the case of capital, intermediate forms must also be distinguished in another sense, namely with respect to the epigraphic and paleographic fields. The characteristic brush and graffito scripts, while they may relate to epigraphy in terms of material, pertain to paleography with respect to the writing tool. For brush scripts, apart from very few isolated examples that clumsily replicate the alphabet of the square capital, the documentation comes solely from the electoral inscriptions painted on the walls of Pompeii. The letters exhibit a particular aspect closely tied to the peculiarities of the writing tool, which allows for very free strokes and emphasizes bars and undulating uprights (cf. pl. IV): it cannot be ruled out—though not proposed in treatises—that this script may have suggested the formation of the rustic capital (cf. especially the "Roman" and "Palatine" Virgil codices). Graffito scripts, executed with a pointed tool on plaster, instead display the same characteristics as the cursive of wax tablets.
As for the criteria for dating the square capital, it can be said that to date these are entirely lacking: the various attempts that have been made rely solely on external elements to the script itself and have often proved unreliable. The scarcity of documentation, the mutilated state of the surviving codices, and the absence of elements that would allow identification of their place of origin have prevented the formulation of chronological principles in the book script field. Even for cursive capital, there is insufficient in-depth study of its evolution, but since documentary texts are almost all datable with a high degree of approximation, reliable criteria may be established once such a study is undertaken.