# Illuminated Manuscripts in Classical and Mediaeval Times/Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.
Classical Manuscripts written with Pen and Ink.
To return now to classical forms of manuscripts, it appears to have been a long time before the book or codex form of manuscript was extended from the wood and ivory tablets to writings on parchment or paper.
The roll form of MS.It seems probable that throughout the Greek period manuscripts on paper or vellum were usually, if not always, in the shape of a long roll; and that it was not till about the beginning of the Roman Empire that leaves of parchment or paper were sometimes cut up into pages and bound together in the form of the older tablets. The codex form.During the first two or three centuries of the Empire, manuscripts were produced in both of these forms—the codex and the volumen; but the roll form was by far the commoner, almost till the transference of the seat of government to Byzantium.
The roll form of book is the one shown in many of the wall paintings of Pompeii; but on some sarcophagi reliefs of the second century A.D. books both of the roll and the codex shape are represented.
Writing with a pen.Having given some account of the various classical forms of manuscript in which the writing is incised with a sharp stilus, we will now pass on to the other chief forms of manuscript which were written with a pen and with ink or other pigment.
​Books of the dead.Manuscripts on papyrus; the oldest existing examples of this class are the so-called Rituals of the Dead found in the tombs of Egypt, especially in those of the Theban dynasties; the oldest of these date as far back as the sixteenth or fifteenth century B.C.
They are executed with a reed pen in hieroglyphic writing on long rolls of papyrus, and are copiously illuminated with painted miniatures illustrating the subject of the text, drawn with much spirit and coloured in a very finely decorative way. Immense numbers of these Egyptian illuminated manuscripts still exist in a more or less fragmentary condition. One of the most perfect of these is the Book of the Dead of Ani, a royal scribe, dating from the fourteenth century B.C., now in the British Museum. An excellent facsimile of the whole of this fine illuminated manuscript has been edited by Dr Budge and published by the Trustees of the British Museum in 1890.
Egyptian psalter.Manuscripts of this important class are not very accurately described as Rituals of the Dead; as Dr Budge points out they really consist of collections of psalms or sacred hymns which vary considerably in different manuscripts.
They appear to have been written in large numbers and kept in stock by the Egyptian undertakers ready for purchasers. Blank spaces were left for the name and titles of the dead person for whom they were bought.
Thus we find that the names are often filled in carelessly by another hand than that of the writer of the manuscript, and some examples exist in which the spaces for the name are still left blank.
Another of the finest and most complete of the funereal papyri is preserved in the Museum in Turin; see Pierret, Le livre des Morts des anciens Egyptiens, Paris, 1882.
Use of papyrus.Papyrus seems to have been used for manuscripts more than any other substance both by the Greeks from the sixth century B.C. and by the Romans down to the time of the later Empire. Some very valuable Greek manuscripts on papyrus are preserved in the British Museum; among them the most ​important for their early date are some fragments of Homer's Iliad of the third or second century B.C. Existing Greek MSS.Another papyrus manuscript in the same collection dating from the first century B.C. contains four Orations of the Athenian Orator Hyperides, a contemporary and rival of Demosthenes. In the last few years the important discovery has been made that in certain late tombs in Egypt, dating from the Roman period, the mummied bodies are packed in their coffins with large quantities of what was considered waste paper. This packing in some cases has been found to consist of papyrus manuscripts, some of which are of great importance. In this way the newly discovered treatise by Aristotle on the Political Constitution of Athens, and the Mimes of Herondas were saved from destruction by being used as inner wrappings for a coffin of about the year 100 A.D.
Other important manuscripts may yet be found, now that careful search is being made in this direction.
Herculaneum library.Unfortunately the large library of manuscripts, consisting of nearly 1800 papyrus rolls, which was discovered about the middle of the last century in the lava-buried town of Herculaneum, has not as yet been found to contain any works of much value or interest. These rolls are all charred by the heat of the lava, which overwhelmed the town, and the work of unrolling and deciphering the brittle carbonized paper necessarily goes on very slowly. The owner of this library appears to have been an enthusiastic student of the Epicurean philosophy in its later development, and his books are mainly dull, pedantic treatises on the various sciences such as mathematics, music and the like, treated from the Epicurean point of view, or rather from that of the Graeco-Roman followers of Epicurus.
Papyrus rolls.All these manuscripts appear to be of about the same date, not many years older, that is, than the year 79 A.D., when the eruption of Vesuvius overwhelmed Herculaneum and Pompeii in the same catastrophe. They are written in fine bold uncial ​characters without illumination or ornament of any kind on rolls of papyrus nine or ten inches in breadth. In their present burnt and shrunken condition the rolls average about two inches in diameter, but they were probably larger than that in their original state; see Palaeo. Soc. Pl. 151, 152; the other published 'facsimiles' of the Herculaneum manuscripts are not perfectly trustworthy.
Herodotus on MSS.In the time of Herodotus (c. 460 B.C.) papyrus paper (βιβλία or χάρται) appears to have been used by the Greeks almost to the exclusion of parchment or other kinds of skin. In his interesting section on the introduction of the art of writing into Greece by the Phoenicians, Herodotus (v. 58) remarks that the Ionians in old times used to call papyrus rolls διφθέραι or "parchment," because they had once been in the habit of using skins of sheep or goats for manuscripts, at a time when papyrus paper was not to be had; and, Herodotus goes on to say, "Barbarians even now are accustomed to write their manuscripts on parchment."
Use of parchment.Manuscripts on parchment; this old use of parchment for manuscripts was again introduced among the Greeks by Eumenes II., king of Pergamus from 197 to 159 B.C. At this time men had forgotten that parchment had ever been used for books, and so Varro, quoted by Pliny (Hist. Nat. XIII. 70), tells us that Eumenes invented this use of parchment; the real fact being that he re-introduced an old custom, and stimulated the careful preparation of parchment for the sake of the great library which he was anxious to make the most important collection of manuscripts in the world.
Pergamena.Varro tells us that he was driven to this use of parchment by the jealousy of the Egyptian King Ptolemy Epiphanes, whose enormous library at Alexandria was the only existing rival to the Pergamene collection. One of the Greek names for parchment, Pergamena, was derived from the fact of its being so largely made for the Pergamene Kings Eumenes and Attalus, both of whom were not only great patrons of ​literature and collectors of ancient manuscripts, but were also enthusiastic buyers of pictures, statues, rich textiles and works of art of every class. The other word for parchment used for manuscripts is membrana.
Linen MSS.Manuscripts on linen; in ancient Egypt hieroglyphic manuscripts with sacred hymns and portions of the so-called Ritual of the Dead were frequently written with a reed pen on fine linen. These manuscripts, which are often found among the mummy wrappings of burials under the Theban Dynasties, are usually illustrated with pen drawings in outline, not painted miniatures like those on the papyrus rolls. These drawings are executed with much spirit and with a beautiful, clean, certain touch.
Early MSS. in Italy.The early Italian races, Latins, Samnites and others, appear to have used linen very frequently for their manuscript records and sacred books. Among the public records mentioned by Livy as having once been preserved with the Archives in the Capitoline Temple of Juno Moneta were some of these early linen manuscripts (libri lintei); see Liv. IV. 7, 13, 20. Livy also (X. 38) describes an ancient manuscript, containing an account of the ritual customs of the Samnites, as a liber vetus linteus. In historic times, however, papyrus and parchment appear to have superseded linen in ancient Rome.
Inscribed potsherds.Ostraka Manuscripts. For ephemeral purposes, such as tradesmen's accounts and other business matters, writing was often done with a pen and ink on broken fragments of pottery (ὄστρακα). An enormous number of these inscribed potsherds, mostly dating from the Ptolemaic period, have been found in Egypt, and especially on the little island of Elephantine in the Nile a short distance below the first cataract.
Among the Greeks too, writing on potsherds was very common; especially when the Athenian tribes met in the Agora to record their votes for the exile of some unpopular citizen, whence is derived the term ostracism (ὀστρακισμός).
The word liber as meaning a book is supposed to be derived from a primitive custom of writing on the smooth inner bark ​of some tree, such as the birch, which supplies a fine silky substance, not at all unsuited for manuscripts.
MSS. on leaves.The large broad leaves of some varieties of the palm tree have also been used for manuscript purposes, more especially among the inhabitants of India and Ceylon. In early times the questions asked of the Oracle of the Pythian Apollo at Delphi were said to have been written on leaves of the laurel plant. Pali manuscripts in Ceylon are even now frequently written on palm-leaves; and we have the evidence of Pliny that this custom once existed among some of the ancient classical races: see Hist. Nat. XIII. 69, "Ante non fuisse chartarum usum, in palmarum foliis primo scriptitatum; deinde quarundam arborum libris. Postea publica monumenta plumbeis voluminibus, mox et privata linteis confici coepta aut ceris. Pugillarium enim usum fuisse etiam ante Trojana tempora invenimus apud Homerum." In this passage Pliny gives a list of all the chief materials that had been used for manuscripts in ancient times, the leaves and bark of trees, plates of lead, linen cloth and waxed tablets, he then goes on to describe at considerable length the methods of making paper from the pith of the papyrus plant; see page 22.
Greek libraries.Ancient libraries; among the Greeks and Romans of the historic period books do not appear to have been either rare or costly as they were during the greater part of the mediaeval period.
In the time of Alexander, the latter part of the fourth century B.C., large libraries had already been formed by wealthy lovers of literature, and in the second century B.C. the rival libraries of Ptolemy Epiphanes at Alexandria and of King Eumenes II. at Pergamus were said to have contained between them nearly a million volumes.
Roman libraries.Among the Romans of the Empire books were no less common. The owner of the above mentioned library at Herculaneum, consisting of nearly 1800 rolls or volumes, does not appear to have been a man of exceptional wealth; his house was small and his surroundings simple in character.
The great libraries of Rome.As early as the reign of Augustus, Rome possessed several large public libraries (bibliothecae). The first of these ​was instituted in 37 B.C. by Asinius Pollio both for Greek and Latin manuscripts. The second was the Bibliotheca Octaviae founded by Augustus in the Campus Martius in honour of his sister. The third was the magnificent double library of Apollo Palatinus, which Augustus built on the Palatine Hill. The fourth, also on the Palatine, the Bibliotheca Tiberiana was founded by Tiberius. The fifth was built by Vespasian as part of the group of buildings in his new Forum Pacis. The sixth and largest of all was the double library, for Greek and Latin books built by Trajan in his Forum close to the Basilica Ulpia. To some extent a classification of subjects was adopted in these great public libraries, one being mainly legal, another for ancient history, a third for state papers and modern records, but this classification appears to have been only partially adhered to.
Parish libraries.In addition to these state libraries, Rome also possessed a large number of smaller "parish libraries" in the separate vici, and the total number, given in the Regionary catalogues as existing in the time of Constantine, is enormous; see Séraud, Les livres dans l'antiquité.
Library fittings.With regard to the arrangement and fittings of Roman libraries, the usual method appears to have been this. Cupboards (armaria), fitted with shelves to receive the rolls or codices and closed by doors, were placed against the walls all round the room. These armaria were usually rather low, not more than from four to five feet in height, and on them were placed busts of famous authors; while the wall-space above the bookcases was decorated with similar portrait reliefs or paintings designed to fill panels or circular medallions.
Library decorations.Pliny (Hist. Nat. XXXV. 9), speaks of it being a new fashion in his time to adorn the walls of libraries with ideal portraits of ancient writers, such as Homer, executed in gold, silver or bronze relief.
The public library of Asinius Pollio was, Pliny says, decorated with portraits, but whether the great libraries of Pergamus and Alexandria were ornamented in this way, Pliny is unable to say. Magnificent medallion portraits in gold and silver were fixed round the walls of the two great ​libraries of Apollo on the Palatine Hill, and probably in the other still larger public libraries which were founded by subsequent Emperors.
Recent discovery.The ordinary private libraries of Rome were decorated in a similar way, but with reliefs of less costly materials. A very interesting example of this has recently been discovered and then destroyed on the Esquiline hill in Rome. The house in which this library was discovered was one of no very exceptional size or splendour. The bibliotheca itself consisted of a handsome room; the lower part of its walls, against which the armaria fitted, was left quite plain. Above that the walls were divided into square panels by small fluted pilasters, Authors' busts.and in the centre of each space there was, or had been, a medallion relief-portrait about two feet in diameter enclosed in a moulded frame. All this was executed in fine, hard marble-dust stucco (opus albarium or marmoreum).
The names of the authors whose portraits had filled the medallions were written in red upon the frames. Only one was legible—APOLLONIVS THYAN.... No doubt the works of Apollonius of Thyana were kept in the armarium below the bust.
The library at Herculaneum, which contained the famous papyrus rolls, was a much smaller room. Besides the bookcases all round the walls, it had also an isolated armarium in the centre of the room; and this, no doubt, was a usual arrangement.
The room at Herculaneum was so small that there can only have been just enough space to walk between the central bookcase and the armaria ranged all round against the wall.
Closed bookcases.As the Comm. Lanciani has pointed out (Ancient Rome, p. 195), it is interesting to note that the ancient Roman method of arranging books in low, closed cupboards is still preserved in the great library of the Vatican in Rome; which is unlike most existing libraries in the fact that on first entering no one would guess that it was a library, not a single book being visible.
Of the ancient armaria themselves no example now ​exists. They were of wood, and therefore, of course, perishable. But we may, I think, argue from analogy, that the doors of the cupboards were richly ornamented with painted decorations, thus forming an elaborate dado or podium below the row of portrait reliefs which occupied the upper part of the walls.
Booksellers' quarter.The principal quarter in Rome for the shops of booksellers (bibliopolae or librarii) appears to have been the Argiletum, which (in Imperial times) was an important street running into the Forum Romanum between the Curia and the Basilica Aemilia; see Mart. I. 3, 117.
For ancient manuscripts or autograph works of famous authors large prices were often paid. Aristotle is said to have given three talents (about £750) for an autograph manuscript of Speusippus, and a manuscript of Virgil's second book of the Aeneid, thought to be the author's own copy, sold for twenty aurei, more than £20 in modern value; see Aul. Gell. III. 17, and II. 3.
Cost of new books.But ordinary copies of newly published works, even by popular authors, appear to have been but little more expensive than books of this class are at the present day. The publisher and bookseller Tryphon could sell Martial's first book of Epigrams at a profit for two denarii—barely two shillings in modern value; see Mart. XIII. 3. It may seem strange that written manuscripts should not have been much more costly than printed books, but when one considers how they were produced the reason is evident. Slave scribes.Atticus, the Sosii and other chief publishers of Rome owned a large number of slaves who were trained to be neat and rapid scribes. Fifty or a hundred of these slaves could write from the dictation of one reader, and thus a small edition of a new volume of Horace's Odes or Martial's Epigrams could be produced with great rapidity and at very small cost.
Little capital would be required for the education of the ​slave-scribes, and when once they were taught, the cost of their labour would be little more than the small amount of food which was necessary to keep them alive and in working order.
Cicero (Att. II. 4) speaks of the publisher Atticus selling manuscripts produced in this way by slave labour on a large scale.
Librarii.The name librarius was given not only to the booksellers, but also to slave librarians, and to scribes, the latter being sometimes distinguished by the name scriptores librarii. Librarii antiquarii were writers who were specially skilled in copying ancient manuscripts. The word scriba commonly denotes a secretary rather than what we should now call a scribe.
In Athens a class of booksellers, βιβλιογράφοι, appears to have existed as early as the fifth century B.C.; see Poll. VII. 211. The name βιβλιοπῶλαι was subsequently used, and adopted by the Romans.
The technique of Ancient Manuscripts.
Parchment and vellum.Parchment. With regard to the preparation of parchment and other kinds of skin for writing on (Pergamena and Membrana) there is little to be said. The skins of many different animals have been used for this purpose both in classical and mediaeval times, especially skins of calves, sheep, goats and pigs. Unlike manuscripts on papyrus, parchment or vellum manuscripts were usually covered with writing on both sides, since the ink does not show through from one side to the other, as it is liable to do on the more absorbent and spongy ​papyrus paper. Erasures.For this reason complete or partial erasures were much easier to execute on vellum than on papyrus. The writing was first sponged so as to remove the surface ink, and the traces that still remained were got rid of by rubbing the surface of the vellum with pumice stone. In some cases the manuscript was erased from the whole of a vellum codex or roll, and the cleaned surface then used to receive fresh writing.
Palimpsests.Palimpsests; manuscripts of this class, on twice-used vellum, were called palimpsests (παλίμψηστος); see Cic. Fam. vii. 18. Several important texts, such as the legal work of Gaius, have been recovered by laboriously deciphering the not wholly obliterated writing on these palimpsests. During the early mediaeval period, when classical learning was little valued, many a dull treatise of the schoolmen or other theological work of small interest was written over the obliterated text of some much earlier and more valuable classical author.
Papyrus MSS.In some cases it appears that papyrus manuscripts were made into palimpsests, but probably not very often, as it would be difficult to erase the ink on a roll of papyrus without seriously injuring the surface of the paper.
Moreover as papyrus manuscripts were only written on one side of the paper, the back was free to receive new writing without any necessity to rub out the original text. The recently discovered treatise by Aristotle on the Political Constitution of Athens has some monetary accounts written on the back of the papyrus by some unphilosophical man of business not many years later than the date of the original treatise.
Papyrus paper.Papyrus paper. The ancient methods employed in the preparation of papyrus paper (charta) can be clearly made out by the evidence of existing examples aided by the minute but not wholly accurate description given by Pliny, Hist. Nat. XIII. 71 to 83.
Papyrus plant.The papyrus plant, the Cyperus Papyrus of Linnaeus, (Greek βύβλος) is a very tall, handsome variety of reed which grows in marshes and shallows along the sides of streams of ​water. The plant has at the top a very graceful tufted bunch of foliage; its stem averages from three to four inches in diameter, and the total height of the plant is from ten to twelve feet.
It grows in many places in Syria, in the Euphrates valley and in Nubia. In Egypt itself it is now extinct, but it was abundant there in ancient times, especially in the Delta of the Nile.
The only spot in Europe where the papyrus plant grows in a wild state is near Syracuse in the little river Anapus, where it was probably introduced by the Arab conquerors in the eighth or ninth century A.D.
It grows here in great abundance and sometimes nearly blocks up the stream so that a boat can scarcely get along.
The stem of the papyrus consists of a soft, white, spongy or cellular pith surrounded by a thin, smooth, green rind. Papyrus paper (βιβλία or χάρτης) was wholly made from the cellular pith. The method of manufacture was as follows.
Process of manufacture.The long stem of the plant was first cut up into convenient pieces of a foot or more in length; the pith in each piece was then very carefully and evenly cut with a sharp knife into thin slices. These slices were then laid side by side, their edges touching but not overlapping, on the smooth surface of a wooden table which was slightly inclined to let the superfluous sap run off, as it was squeezed out of the slices of pith by gentle blows from a smooth wooden mallet. When by repeated beating the layer of pith had been hammered down to a thinner substance, and a great deal of the sap had drained off, some fine paste made of wheat-flour was carefully brushed over the whole surface of the pith. A second layer of slices of pith, previously prepared by beating, was then laid crosswise on the first layer made adhesive by the paste, so that the slices in the second layer were at right angles to those of the first. The beating process was then repeated, the workmen being careful to get rid of all lumps or inequalities, and the beating was continued till the various slices of pith in the two layers were thoroughly united and amalgamated together.
Use of many layers.For the best sort of papyrus these processes were repeated ​a third and sometimes even a fourth time, the separate slices in each layer being cut much thinner than in the coarser sorts of paper which consisted of two layers only. The next process was to dry and press the paper; after which its surface was carefully smoothed and polished with an ivory burnisher; its rough edges were trimmed, and it was then ready to be made up into sheets or rolls. There was nothing in the method of manufacture to limit strictly the size of the papyrus sheets (σελίδες, paginae) either in breadth or length; Sizes of papyrus.the workmen could lay side by side as many slices of the pith as he liked, and slices of great length might have been cut out of the long stem of the papyrus. Practically, however, it was found convenient to make the paper in rather small sheets; twelve to sixteen inches are the usual widths of papyrus manuscripts.
Union of the sheets.The reason of this obviously was that it would have been impossible to cut slices of great length to the requisite thinness and evenness of substance, and so papyrus manuscripts are always made up of a large number of separate sheets carefully pasted together. This was very skilfully done by workmen who (in Pliny's time) were called glutinatores; cf. Cic. Att. IV. 4. The two adjacent edges of the sheets, which were to be joined together by lapping, were thinned down by careful rubbing to about half their original substance. The two laps were then brushed over with paste, accurately applied together, and the union was then completed by beating with the wooden mallet. When the pasted joint was dry it was rubbed and polished with the ivory burnisher till scarcely any mark of the joining remained. Long rolls.In this way long rolls were formed, often fifty feet or more in length; as a rule, however, excessive length for a single roll was inconvenient. Pliny mentions 20 sheets as being an ordinary limit. Thus, for example, in such works as Homer's Iliad or Virgil's Aeneid, each book would form a separate volumen or roll (Greek κύλινδρος or τόμος).
The invention of papyrus paper dates from an early period in the history of Egypt. Examples still exist which ​are as early as 2300 B.C., and its manufacture was probably known long before that.
Papyrus used in Greece.In later times Egyptian papyrus was an important article of export into many countries. An Attic inscription of the year 407 B.C. tells us what the cost of paper then was in Athens; two sheets (χάρται δύο) cost two drachmae and four obols, equal in modern value to about four shillings; see C. I. A. I. 324. The χάρται in this case probably mean, not a single page, but several sheets pasted together to form a roll.
Papyrus made in Rome.In Pliny's time paper was made not only in Egypt but also in Rome and at other places in Italy. The best kind was formerly called Hieratica, because it was used in Egypt for sacred hieroglyphic writing only. In later times this finest quality, in Rome at least, was called Augusta, and the second quality Liviana, from Livia the wife of Augustus. A coarse variety used for wrapping up parcels and the like was called "shop-paper," emporetica. Pliny also tells us that paper was manufactured of many different breadths, varying from about four to eighteen inches. The commonest width was about twelve inches; see Pliny, Hist. Nat. XIII. 71 to 83. Old MSS. on papyrus.In the last of these paragraphs Pliny mentions examples of old papyrus manuscripts existing in his time, such as manuscripts in the handwriting of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, which were nearly two centuries old. Manuscripts written by Cicero, Augustus and Virgil are, he says, still frequently to be seen.
With regard to the antiquity of paper Pliny's views are far from correct. He thinks paper was first made in Egypt in the time of Alexander the Great (Hist. Nat. XIII. 79), whereas, as is mentioned above, papyrus paper of fine quality was certainly made in Egypt nearly 2000 years before the time of Alexander, and probably much earlier.
Paper of fine quality.The best kinds of papyrus paper are close in texture, with ​a smooth surface, very pleasant to write upon with a reed pen, and adapted to receive miniature paintings of great refinement and delicacy of touch. To prevent the ink spreading or soaking into the paper, it was as a final process sometimes soaked in size made of fish-bones or gum and water, exactly as modern linen paper is sized. The colour of the papyrus is a pale brown, very pleasant to the eye, and excellent as a background to the painted decorations.
Fibrous texture.When it was first made, papyrus paper must have been extremely durable and tough owing to its compound structure with two or more fibrous layers placed cross-wise. The parallel fibrous lines of the pith are very visible on the surface of papyrus paper; and these regular lines served as a guide to the scribe when writing, so that when papyrus was used it was not necessary to cover the page with ruled lines to keep the writing even, as had to be done when the manuscript was on vellum.
In a papyrus manuscript the pages of writing are set side by side, across the roll, with a small margin between each page or column.
Greek examples of papyrus rolls.A small terra-cotta statuette of about the fifth or fourth century B.C. found at Salamis in Cyprus in 1890, shows a Greek scribe writing on a long papyrus roll placed on a low table before which he is sitting.
Among Greek vase paintings of the same date a not uncommon subject is the poetess Sappho reading from a papyrus roll. A fourth century vase with this subject in the Central Museum in Athens shows Sappho holding a manuscript on which the following words are inscribed (supplying missing letters and correcting blunders)
ΘΕΟΙ ΗΕΡΙΩΝ ΕΠΕΩΝ ΕΡΧΟΜΑΙ ΑΓΓΕΛΟΣ ΝΕΩΝ ΥΜΝΩΝ.
By the figure of Sappho is inscribed the beginning of her name, in letters of archaistic form.
Sappho reading.A very similar design occurs on a beautiful gem in the British Museum (B.M. Cat. of gems, No. 556), which appears to date from the latter part of the fifth century B.C. A very ​graceful female figure, probably meant for Sappho, is represented seated on a chair with high curved back. She is reading from a manuscript roll which she holds by the two rolled up ends, holding one in each hand.
This method of holding a papyrus manuscript is shown very clearly on a vase in the British Museum on which the same motive is painted. The lady (Sappho) holds the two rolled up portions of the manuscript, stretching tight the intermediate portion on which is the column of writing which she is reading.
Umbilicus or roller.As the reader progressed the paper was unrolled from the roll held in the right hand, and the part just read was rolled up in the left-hand roll. These Greek representations do not usually show any stick or roller for the manuscript to be rolled round; but in Roman times a wooden or ivory roller (ὄμφαλος, umbilicus) was used as the core of the roll; and the end of the long strip of papyrus by the last page or column of text was pasted on to it. The ends of the umbilicus were often fitted with a round knob or boss, which was decorated with gilding or colour. The edges of the papyrus roll were smoothed with pumice-stone (pumice mundus), and the whole manuscript was often provided with a vellum case, which was stained a bright colour, red, purple or yellow. Tibullus (El. III. i. 9) alludes to these ornamental methods,
Lutea sed niveum involvat membrana libellum. Pumex et canas tondeat ante comas;
Atque inter geminas pingantur cornua frontes.
The frontes are the edges of the roll, and the cornua are the projecting portions of the two wooden rollers.
Inscribed titles.The title of the manuscript was written on a ticket or slip of vellum, which hung down from the closed roll like the pendant seal of a mediaeval document. Thus when a number of manuscripts were piled on the shelf of an armarium the pendants hanging down from the ends of the rolls indicated plainly what the books were, without the necessity of pulling them from their place.
Small numbers of rolls, especially manuscripts which had ​to be carried about, were often kept in round drum-like boxes (capsae or scrinia), with loop handles to carry them by.
Coloured inks.Much of the beauty of an ancient manuscript depended on the use of red or purple ink for headings, indices and marginal glosses. As Pliny says (Hist. Nat. XXXIII. 122) minium in voluminum quoque scriptura usurpatur.
The use of purple ink for the index is mentioned by Martial in his epigram Ad librum suum (III. 2) where he sums up the various methods of decoration which in his time were applied to manuscripts,
Cedro nunc licet ambules perunctus, Et frontis gemino decens honore Pictis luxurieris umbilicis; Et te purpura delicata velet, Et cocco rubeat superbus index.
Use of oil.The oil of cedar wood, mentioned in the first of these lines, was smeared over the back of papyrus manuscripts to preserve them from book-worms.
The act of unrolling a manuscript to read it was called explicare, and when the reader had come to the end it was opus explicitum. In mediaeval times from the false analogy of the word (hic) incipit, a verb explicit was invented, and was often written at the end of codices to show that the manuscript was complete to the end, though, strictly speaking the word is only applicable to a roll.
Mediaeval use of papyrus.The use of papyrus paper for manuscripts to some extent continued till mediaeval times. Papyrus manuscripts of the sixth and seventh century A.D. are not uncommon, and, long after vellum had superseded papyrus paper for the writing of books, short documents, such as letters, Papal deeds and the like, were still frequently written on papyrus. Papal Briefs on papyrus still exist which were written as late as the eleventh century.
Black ink.The black ink which was used for classical manuscripts was of the kind now known as "Indian" or more correctly "Chinese ink," which cannot be kept in a fluid state, but has to be rubbed up with water from day to day as it is required. One of the menial offices which Aeschines when a boy had to ​perform in his father's school was "rubbing the ink," τὸ μέλαν τρίβων; see Demos. De Corona, p. 313. Carbon ink.This kind of ink (μέλαν or μελάνιον, atramentum librarium) simply consists of finely divided particles of carbon, mixed with gum or with size made by boiling down shreds of parchment. It was obtained by burning a resinous substance and collecting the soot on a cold flat surface, from which it could afterwards be scraped off. The soot had then to be very finely ground, mixed with a gummy medium and then moulded into shape and dried. The process is described by Pliny, Hist. Nat. XXXV. 41; and better still by Vitruvius, VII. 10.
Black pigment.A variety of this carbon pigment used for pictures on stucco by wall-painters was called atramentum tectorium, modern "lamp-black"; the only difference between this and writing ink was in the kind of glutinous medium used with it. Careful scribes probably prepared their own ink, as the writers of mediaeval manuscripts usually did. The common commercial black ink of about 300 A.D. was sold at a very cheap rate, as is recorded in an inscription containing part of Diocletian's famous edict which was found at Megalopolis and published by Mr Loring (Jour. Hell. Stud. Vol. XI., 1890, p. 318, line 46). Under the heading "Pens and ink," Περὶ καλάμων καὶ μελανίου, the price of ink, μελάνιον, is fixed at 12 small copper coins the pound.
Very great skill is required to prepare carbon ink of the finest quality. Though it is now largely manufactured in Europe, none but the Chinese can make ink of the best sort.
In some places sepia ink from the cuttle-fish was used in ancient times; see Persius, Sat. III. 12; and cf. Pliny, Hist. Nat. XI. 8, and XXXII. 141.
Red inks.The red ink used for ancient manuscripts was of three different kinds, namely red lead, vermilion or sulphuret of mercury, and red ochre. The ancient names for these red pigments were used very indiscriminately, μίλτος, minium, cinnabaris and rubrica. In some cases μίλτος certainly means the costly vermilion; and again the word is also used both for red lead and for the much cheaper red ochre. The latter appears to be always meant by the name μίλτος Σινώπις; see ​Choisy, Inscrip. Lebadeia, p. 197. The Latin words minium and rubrica are used in the same vague way; see Vitruv. VII. 9; and Pliny, Hist. Nat. XXXV. 31 to 35.
In mediaeval manuscripts red ink (rubrica) was largely used not only for headings and glosses, but also in Service books for the ritual directions, which have hence taken the name of rubrics.
Purple ink.The purple ink (coccus), which Martial mentions in the passage quoted above at page 27, was made from the kermes beetle, which lives on the ilex trees of Greece and Asia Minor. This was one of the most important of the ancient dyes for woven stuffs and it was also used as a pigment by painters; see below, page 246.
Double inkstands.The inkstands of ancient scribes were commonly made double, to hold both black and red ink. Many examples of these from Egypt and elsewhere still exist, and they are shown in many of the Pompeian wall-paintings. They usually are in the form of two bronze cylinders linked together, each with a lid which is attached by a little chain. Other inkstands are single, little round boxes of bronze, in shape like a large pill-box. Another method, specially common in ancient Egypt, was for the scribe to carry about his ink, both black and red, in a solid form; he then rubbed up with water just as much as he needed at the time. The box and palette mentioned below was made for this use of solid inks, except that the whole thing, handle and all, is made out of one piece of metal.
Reed pens.The pens used by ancient writers of manuscripts were mainly some variety of reed (κάλαμος, calamus or canna), cut diagonally to a point like a modern quill pen. Great numbers of reed pens have been found in Egyptian tombs and also in Pompeii; they exactly resemble those still used in Egypt and in Oriental countries generally.
Metal pens.Metal pens were also used by Greek and Roman scribes. Examples both in silver and bronze have been found in Greece and in Italy, shaped very much like a modern steel pen.
​Scribes' palettes.In some cases manuscripts were written with a fine brush instead of a pen, especially the hieroglyphic manuscripts of ancient Egypt. Many combined scribes' palettes and brush cases have been found in Egyptian tombs. These are long slips of wood, partly hollowed to hold the brushes, and with two cup-like sinkings at one end for the writer to rub up his cakes of black and red ink.
In Egyptian manuscripts red ink is used much more copiously than either in Greek or Latin manuscripts. Very often the scribe writes his columns alternately in black and red for the sake of the decorative appearance of the page.
Pen-cases.Egyptian pen-cases in the form of a bronze tube about ¾ inch in diameter and 10 inches long with a tightly fitting cap have frequently been found. The British Museum possesses good examples of these, and of the other writing implements here described.
Reed pens.The above-mentioned passage in the Edict of Diocletian (see page 28) gives the prices of reed pens (καλαμοι) of various qualities. The difference is very great between the best and the inferior kinds of pens; the best quality appears to have been made from the long single joint of a reed.
There is no evidence that quill pens were used in classical times, but it is difficult to believe that so natural an expedient never occurred to any ancient scribe, especially when the use of vellum for manuscripts came in; for papyrus paper the softer reed pen would be more convenient than a quill, and indeed for all the earlier sort of Greek and Latin writing in large uncial characters. It is only for the smaller cursive writing that a quill would be as suitable as a reed pen.
The inscription mentioned at p. 24 as giving the cost of paper in Athens in 407 B.C. is part of a record of the expenses of building the Erechtheum. It also mentions the purchase for 4 drachmae of 4 wooden writing-tablets,
* χάρται ἐωνήθησαν δύο, ἐς ἃς τὰ ἀντίγραφα ἐνεγράψαμεν
* Σανίδες τέτταρες
* ↑ See, for example, a relief on the sarcophagus of a scriba librarius or library curator which is illustrated by Daremberg and Saglio, Dict. Ant. I. p. 708. The scribe is represented seated by his book-case armarium, on the shelves of which both volumina and codices are shown.
* ↑ The ancient method of manufacturing papyrus paper is described below, see page 22.
* ↑ Some very interesting fragments of the Antiope of Euripides have been brought to England by Mr Flinders Petrie, and have been edited by Dr Mahaffy in a collection entitled The Flinders Petrie Papyri, Dublin, 1892.
* ↑ The book-market in Athens was called τὰ βιβλία, i.e. οὗ τὰ βιβλία ὤνια; see Pollux IX. 47. Lucian, in his treatise Adversus Indoctum, gives an interesting account of the Greek book-buyers and book-sellers in his time; see § 1 and § 4.
* ↑ The end of the Argiletum is shown in the plan of the Forum Romanum in Middleton, Ancient Rome, 1892, Vol. I.
* ↑ One reason of this was that even the most popular authors did not receive large sums for the copyright of their works.
* ↑ A good deal of what is said in this section with regard to the technique of classical manuscripts will apply also to manuscripts of the mediaeval period. Many of the processes had been inherited in an unbroken tradition from ancient times, and others were revived in the Middle Ages through a study of various classical writers on pigments and the like, especially Pliny and Vitruvius.
* ↑ The words parchment and vellum are used vaguely to imply many different kinds of skins. Strictly speaking vellum implies calf-skin, but the word is commonly used to denote the finer and smoother qualities of skin; the name parchment being given to the coarse varieties; see Peignot, L'histoire du parchemin, Paris, 1812.
* ↑ In some cases the paper was sized, before the final smoothing; but as a rule sufficient size was supplied by the flour used to paste the layers together.
* ↑ Some of the enormous ranges of store-houses for goods imported into Rome and landed on the Tiber quay were specially devoted to the use of paper warehouses, horrea chartaria; extensive remains of these have recently been discovered near Monte Testaccio; see Middleton, Remains of Ancient Rome, 1892, Vol. II. pp. 260-262.
* ↑ Now in the Fitzwilliam Museum.
* ↑ A silver pen was found by Dr Waldstein in 1891 in the tomb of the Aristotle family at Chalcis.