Hi MM, your link provided a fascinating discussion on the origin of certain scripts. It is possible that the move from upper case "B" to lower case "b" was the choice to use "new roman cursive" rather than the Capitalis Quadrata. I say it is possible, not that this is the definitive answer. More research is necessary. The text below is from wikipedia. New Roman cursive, also called minuscule cursive or later Roman cursive, developed from old Roman cursive. It was used from approximately the 3rd century to the 7th century, and uses letter forms that are more recognizable to modern readers; "a", "b", "d", and "e" have taken a more familiar shape, and the other letters are proportionate to each other rather than varying wildly in size and placement on a line Here is a quote from another source. I have no idea if this would apply to coins. What scripts did the ancient Romans use? In the absence of a printing press, everything was handwritten, but we can still identify distinct scripts that were used for different purposes. It was square capitals (capitalis quadrata) for inscriptions on public monuments since the early imperial age, old and new Roman cursive for daily writing (shopping lists, inventories, birthday notes etc), and rustic capitals for copying out literary works. The entire article is here https://sites.dartmouth.edu/ancient...ts-rustic-capitals-old-and-new-roman-cursive/
Wow! I have never noticed that! I was asked about 'lower case 'b' , but I wasn't sure where to look. Now that i know, does this mean that i have to examine all of my (Roman) coins to see if I can find an example of this? I was totally unaware of it and so I have 'missed' seeing it. Does anyone have examples of it on coins that are not 'solidus'?
Other than things that develop over time, lettering on 'Roman' coins changed with influence from cutters from across the Empire who brought Greek and other native styles to the mix. I always felt lucky that Roman coins avoided cursives to a great degree compared, for example, to Sasanian coins which really are hard to force into one set of rules. I suspect a thorough study of just about any period would turn up a few characteristic letter forms only some of which we notice. One is the first century AD T which tends to have the top formed from two wedges meeting in the middle with a small gap between them rather than one solid top bar. This Tiberius shows several. Around the time of Gallienus it became fashionable to make N out of three separate bars with the diagonal one in the center unconnected. At the same time many letters like A and V that should (by our standards) connect on one end, don't. I see this as nothing all that different than the handwriting gap that now makes it hard for school children to read cursive letters from their grandmothers. The first kids who were not taught cursive past elementary school are now old enough to be teaching in those grades. I knew one teacher whose name began with a Q but she did not use the 2 shaped cursive Q shown on the wall chart in her room. These are not matters of right and wrong but simply evidence that "The times, they are a changin". This change started a few thousand years before most of us will admit. I doubt many PhD candidates will be writing theses on coin lettering since studying texts on 'paper' is so much more 'important' but those legend letters are there for us to notice and enjoy.
Here is a Tiberius II Siliqua or Miliarense with the lowercase b. Not my coin sadly https://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=252912
