The legend of the cursive script

Abstract

Our epigraphic terminology usually applies the name of cursive script to every kind of scratched inscriptions, although they were written in significantly different styles. Apart from the strange terminology, the major problems in the palaeography of Roman scratches are those of datation, and of the question: whom are those inscriptions to be connected with? The writing manner which might be called really cursive appears mostly on bricks and the tabulae ceratae; partially cursive texts occur 1) in the handwriting of more skilled writers, 2) in the writing of some special letters, most of all ‖, 3) when copying cursive scripts. It is the reason why functionally illiterate stone-cutters produce ununderstandable inscriptions, misinterpretating the cursive models. With some care, such misinterpretations can be explained and thus the meaningless texts reconstructed.