3rd century BC Greek Alphabet forms

**Teleklos Archelaou** · 06-25-2007, 23:13

https://img530.imageshack.us/img530/...ekfontsee0.gif

I needed an early third century BC alphabet for graphics stuff and just decided to make one. The letters are from an Athenian inscription from this time period. For many letters there are two examples for variety. It's stuck onto the right edge of this image of earlier Greek alphabet variations, and the zeta was not found in the inscription I was using so I had to make it (but it didn't turn out that well - then I realized you can just turn a nu on its side and voila). Anyway, the rest look pretty good. Feel free to use it as you like - might as well throw it out there and see if anyone else might need it. It's on a transparent .gif file, so it's really easy to just copy that layer and put it in a .psd document and then copy each letter as you need it for anything.

**Wolfman** · 06-26-2007, 01:46

Awesome! Thanks TA

**Shigawire** · 06-26-2007, 06:04

Wow thats weird! Didn't know they had different letters in each town!

**keravnos** · 06-26-2007, 08:29

Yeah, One cannot truly comprehend just how "different" each polis was to the next, (even if they might only be 20 Km's away), even if they spoke the EXACT same dialect, even if they worshipped the EXACT same gods, just for the sake of being different. Just for that.

**Ancyrean** · 06-26-2007, 13:31

Nice work TA!

I wonder how they weren't confused with similar looking letters (like the Syrakusan and Cretan Gamma looks like the mainstream Lamda, or one version of Corinthian Epsilon looks like the mainstream Beta, or Epiriote Iota looks like mainstream sigma etc). I'm sure each polis had scribes with the knowledge of such differences, but for the average citizen were these different versions in the final analysis deducable from the context?

Speaking of Ancient Greek, may I also ask about one detail in EB that I was wondering about? Most Hellenic/Hellenistic units carry a banner in battle with an inscription on it that (I guess) reads as "Pezoi". I can make out it's a plural form, probably of "Pezos", but what exactly does that word mean?

**keravnos** · 06-26-2007, 13:51

ΠΕΖΟΣ=walker, but also foot soldier in Ancient Greek. It has been theorized that back then, when one walked outside his polis, he would have to be armed, as those weren't the best of times. ΠΕΖΙΚΟ=infantry, evolved from ΠΕΖΟΣ, but not in our timeline, this happened much, much later.

**Ancyrean** · 06-26-2007, 14:36

Originally Posted by keravnos

ΠΕΖΟΣ=walker, but also foot soldier in Ancient Greek. It has been theorized that back then, when one walked outside his polis, he would have to be armed, as those weren't the best of times. ΠΕΖΙΚΟ=infantry, evolved from ΠΕΖΟΣ, but not in our timeline, this happened much, much later.

Thanks for the info, keravnos!

The more I play this mod, the more I love it and the more I learn!