Hill, George Francis: A handbook of Greek and Roman coins (London: Macmillan, 1899)

ιφ8

GREEK AND ROMAN COINS

form λυτκρα for λίτηκράτωρ is so common on Greek imperial
coins that it must be no blunder, but a deliberate syncopation.
The form CB for 2e/3<inrds, though easily explicable as a blunder,
may perhaps be another instance of this method. The forms
IC XC, and the like, of course become common in Byzantine
times. A monogrammatic abbreviation of Καίσορ, consisting
only of the letters KA and P, is found in early imperial times at
Chalcedon and Byzantium \
The common method of abbreviation is, however, that in
which a certain number of letters are dropped from the end
of the word. The Latin cos for consul stands halfway between
this and the syncopated form.
In later Roman times, in the third century a.d., a form
of abbreviation for the expression of the plural is intro-
duced. This is the familiar doubling of the last consonant in
the abbreviation, of which the form AVGG or AVGGG for two
or three Augusti is the commonest. From coins struck in the
Greek part of the Roman world it is sufficient to quote Γαλλικό?
OvaXfpLavos Π. AiKimoi Σιββ. from a coin of Adada in Pisidia.
and Victorias DDD. NNN. (i.e. trium dominorum nostrorum)
from a coin of Pisidian Antioch with the portrait of Caracalla1 2.
1 Imhoof-Blumer in Journ. Intern. 1898. pp. 15 f.
2 The three domini are presumably Septimus Severus, Caracalla, and
Geta.