When you are designing a coin die and want to include a lot of legend, you have two choices. You can write very small or you can get really creative. The top coin (both are from Nicopolis ad Istrum) used the smallest letters commonly seen on these. The lower coin started getting creative near the right end of the reverse legend were they made ligate pairs out of the omega nu and pi rho. Then they put in an omicron that touches the groundline. In the left field we see ICTPOV written vertically. I suspect about that time the cutter noticed that he omitted the C that should have followed the O ('proc' is Green for ad or 'on the'). He put the smallest possible C in exergue. Philip II at Marcianopolis approached the matter a bit differently: After running out of room at the right side halfway through the city name MAPKIANO the cutter paired the letters to finish the word but still made a ligate pair out of omega nu at the end. All of these legends were made overly long by the inclusion at the left side of the name of the provincial governor then in charge (following upsilon pi or 'under') VΠ CΑΒ ΜΟΔECTOV Sab(inius?) Modestus This last coin is a favorite rarity of mine since it shows Aesculapius, god of the splitting headache. Philip, being a copy cat type of kid, has a smaller headache on the obverse. Serapis either was too big to play or was protected by his funny hat. His governor was listed as VΠ ΠPACT MECCAΛΛEINOV Prast(ina) Messallinus. Both cities had long enough names to fill the space without adding these names but leaving them off would have lessened my enjoyment of these coins considerably. More commonly, these coins just placed the letters that would fit and stopped without using such creative measures. Some dies are just more interesting than others.
i think someone was getting paid by the letter. this is my most :charactered" ancient... carcalla and julia domna pentassaria, also from marcianoplois this one i saw on vcoins has some of the obverse legend stuck in the field above their head but below the main legend, kind of interesting. http://www.vcoins.com/en/stores/for...entassarion_tycheforutuna/501703/Default.aspx on mine, the legend goes all the way around, on the vcoins example, some of the letters on the "rim" are lost to make room for caracalla .
I agree => those are very cool ... Umm, my examples are not quite the same as your examples, but I still thought it was kinda interesting the way the craftsman decided to lay-out his lettering ... both coins show somewhat random styles regarding the layouts of these two busy coins ...
