The Lower Case B in Eastern Roman Coins: Or How to Fall Down the Numismatic Rabbit Hole in just a Few Short Tweets…

It all started so innocently.

I was just showing the latest addition to my coin collection to Twitter followers that had arrived in the post that morning. As inquisitive types, we were both struck by what appeared to be the peculiarities of sixth century legend engravers…

Six hours later, I was stuck trying to find the Unicodes for a capital "U" with a tail, a backwards capital "U" with a tail, and what looks like a Graeco-Latin version of what would later become the Cyrillic letter Ч (che)…

Just how the hell did I get here?!?

This is a the coin I had just received and was showing off - an issue of the sixth century emperor, Mauricius. In the right light, I was able to identify DN MA[VRI?] TIbER PP A and match it to a few similar types with a brief internet search. However, the various legends and seeming lack of consistency raised a query about how the Latin legends on 'Byzantine' coins often seemed to involve mistakes. Was this because the coin-makers - celators - were Greek speakers?

The sheer number of legends attributed to the likes of Justinian and Mauricius due to their long reigns might also have contributed to the number of mistakes. And for a specific mistakes, one follower, Kenneth Cook (‏@lightspeedkwc), presented his own (much more impressive) coin of Mauricius...

If you cannot quite make it out, the legend is DN MAVR* TIb PP AV... And then the rabbit hole opening questions came out… Why the lower case 'b' in TIbER? Greek engravers would have had upper case beta to use in place of B... were there any lower case betas in Greek provincial Roman coins?

"This will just take a quick search on the Internet," I thought. It will probably be a choice from a single mint or even engraver and of course, the letter 'B' is not that frequently used in the Latin language, if the "B" section in my Latin dictionary is anything to go by.

What a fool I was…

After visiting my usual online numismatic sources of information: http://cointranslator.com/, http://www.jhecoins.com/obverselegends.htm (both now sadly defunct) and http://www.wildwinds.com, I found out to my horror that 'B' is used far more on Roman imperial coinage than you might expect…

Upwards of two dozen emperors, empresses and usurpers have made use of 'B' in their coinage - Tiberius, Galba, Sabina, wife of Hadrian, Zenobia, Probus, Bonosus to name but six. And that is before you start looking at another twenty abstract concepts like Abundantia, Libertas, or Reipublicae, places like Britain, Orbis or Urbs, or even in a preposition like ob…

Fortunately for my sanity, virtually none of these fell into the category of using the lower case 'b.'

Starting with Mauricius, a cursory search showed that my new coin is not some kind of anomaly. The lower case "b" was used quite frequently on those issues using Mauricius Tiberius' full name. Furthermore, from the examples below, you can see that this lower case "b" was issued from more than one mint, somewhat undermining the idea that it might have been the work of a specific workshop or engraver.

Mauricius Tiberius, Solidus. Thessalonica. DN MAVRC (or MAVRIC) TIb PP AVG,

SB 502; MIB 21; www.wildwinds.com/coins/byz/maurice/i.html

Mauricius Tiberius, Solidus, Constantinople, D N MAVRC TIb P P AVC

DOC I 2c; SB 474; www.wildwinds.com/coins/byz/maurice/i.html

Given that Mauricius got his Tiberian name from his imperial father-in-law, it was then appropriate to see if Tiberius II used the lower case. And again we find "TIb" appearing on issues from various mints - Constantinople, Nicomedia, Cyzicus, Antioch, Carthage, Ravenna. Clearly this lower case "b" was an established practice for Tiberius II's reign in 578-582.

Tiberius II Constantine, Solidus, Constantinople, VICTOR TI-bERI AVG

Berk 75; DO 2; MIB 2; Sear 420; www.wildwinds.com/coins/byz/tiberius_II/i.html

Tiberius II Constantine, AE Three-quarter follis, Cyzicus, DM TIb CONSTANT PP AVI

SB 445; DOC 37; www.wildwinds.com/coins/byz/tiberius_II/i.html

But what about before Tiberius II?

Unfortunately, there had been no emperor with a 'b' in their name for a century before Tiberius II, the imperial throne having been held by Justins, Justinians, Anastasiuses and Zenos. To find another imperial 'B' you have to look back to the brief reign of the usurper Basiliscus in 475-476. And low and behold, his coinage frequently used the lower case "b" even as the initial letter of his name from more than one mint.

Basiliscus, Solidus, Thessalonica, D N bASILIS-CVS P F AVG

RIC X 1012; Sear 21478; www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/basiliscus/i.html

Basiliscus, Solidus, Constantinople, D N bASILIS-CVS P P AVG

RIC X 1003; Sear 21477; www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/basiliscus/i.html

Finally, resorting to the Roman Imperial Coinage (which I should probably have gone to much… much sooner…), I learned that "the miniscule b is first found on solidi of Theodosius II (Feliciter Nubtiis of Theodosius II (RIC X.61, 260 n.267, a marriage issue, celebrating the wedding of Valentinian III and Licinia Eudoxia in 437).

The continuing problem though is why were engravers suddenly resort to a lower case? Was it the creeping influence of Greek in the hierarchies of the Eastern Roman Empire? Was it a conscious choice made by imperial officials or the individual workshop or engraver? Or was it that "the exact forms of letters often depended on the skill of the engraver"? (RIC X.61)

Such "mindless compliance… with little understanding of what was intended" (RIC X.114) could also lead to the rather spectacular mixture of 'b' and 'B' in RIC X.304 n.1027 which contains the legend bASILISCI ET MABS P AVG and the mint mark CONOB.

And it was with the name of Basiliscus that I ended up in the world of unicodes and Cyrillic-looking letters. Distracting me from the lower case 'b' was the various forms of the Roman 'u' and 'V' used in imperial legends. The aforementioned capital 'U' with a tail, backwards capital 'U' with a tail, and the somewhat Cyrillic looking Ч being used to signify various things within the name itself so the 'Ч' in bASILISCЧS might signify both 'U' and Virtus i.e. virtue, valour, manliness etc. (RIC X.62).

Help.

This "wild-goose chase through the internet" uncovered plenty of other strange occurrences such as more lower case letters being used seemingly at random but I am going to leave those to the side before I go anymore cross-eyed…