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Square capitals were used to write inscriptions, and less often to supplement everyday handwriting as Latin book hand. For everyday writing, the Romans used a current cursive hand known as Latin cursive. Notable examples of square capitals used for inscriptions are found on the Roman Pantheon, Trajan's Column, and the Arch of Titus, all in Rome.
Roman capitals were used along with lower case, Arabic numerals, italics and calligraphy in a complementary style. [21] The style has been used for lettering where a feeling of timelessness was wanted, for example on First World War memorials and government buildings, but also on shopfronts, posters, maps, and other general uses.
A more formal style of writing was based on Roman square capitals, but cursive was used for quicker, informal writing. Most inscriptions at Pompeii, conserved due to being buried in a volcanic eruption in AD 79, are written in this script.
Square capitals were employed for more-formal texts based on stone inscriptional letters, while rustic capitals freer, compressed, and efficient. [8] Uncials were rounded capitals that originally were developed by the Greeks in the third century BC, but became popular in Latin manuscripts by the fourth century AD.
This is perhaps the most famous example of Roman square capitals, a script often used for stone monuments and, less often, for manuscript writing. As it was meant to be read from below, the bottom letters are slightly smaller than the top letters, to give proper perspective.
Despite the recent decline, in several countries cursive scripts are still taught in schools today [example needed], often modified to be more similar to roman type letters (tailless z, w-like instead of a 90° CW turned s for w, capitals without "belly" or swashes, forward-facing capital F etc.).
Rustic capitals (Latin: littera capitalis rustica) is an ancient Roman calligraphic script. Because the term is negatively connoted supposing an opposition to the more 'civilized' form of the Roman square capitals , Bernhard Bischoff prefers to call the script canonized capitals .
In Classical times there was no modern-like distinction between upper case and lower case. Inscriptions typically use square capitals, in letterforms largely corresponding to modern upper-case, and handwritten text was generally in the form of cursive, which includes letterforms corresponding to modern lowercase.