Is it type, or just really bad chiseling, when there are three variations on A in the first sample?

Is it type, or just really bad chiseling, when there are three variations on A in the first sample?
bad chiseling. I think these samples have more than 2000 years...

António

Yeah. Trajan was modeled after the type on Roman monuments, but they must have only used the best stone cutters for that work. I'll be there was a lot of other stuff done by hacks who didn't finish their full apprenticeship.

"Why should I pay a stone cutter 100 drachmas to carve Grandpa's tombstone. I have a chisel. I'll do it myself for free."

Denarii, probably, rather than drachmas, unless he was a Greek stone cutter.

Or, to be more typographic, and also get my ancient languages right, solidi.

I have to admit that I prefer a lot of this sort of vernacular lettering to the imperial monumental inscriptions à la Trajan's column. The letters in the latter are magnificent but frankly the overall impact is massively dull: like most authoritarian design it lacks the human dimension. There's a liveliness in Antonio's far from perfect examples that the more famous monumental inscriptions lack.

And as a bonus, Don, you can set it solidi as well...