Grammasin eusemois: norme sulla realizzazione dei caratteri nelle iscrizioni greche

Ancient Greek decrees and other official documents written in the same language hardly ever include any disposition about the characteristics of the letters that should be employed in publishing them. The very few exceptions are all examined here together for the first time. According to the detail they focus on, these dispositions fall into three different groups : depth of the engraving, letter size, and generic readability. While letter size is taken into account in a few very detailed documents from the Hellenistic period (for which some new readings are proposed), a preference for deep-engraved letters is attested only in Kalchedon and one of its sub-colonies. On the the other hand, explicit attention for letter readability is not uncommon in Roman times. Local magistrates and Roman governors at times call for the use of grammata eusema, i.e. « clear letters ». However, in the Antonine period this expression came to be perceived as ‘cheap’ and was supplanted by similar ones.