COLIN H. ROBERTS
and
T.C. SKEAT
LONDON. Published for
THE BRITISH ACADEMY
by THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
[[From: Robert Kraft
[mailto:kraft@ccat.sas.upenn.edu]
Sent: 13 December 2006 04:12
To: Fang-Fang Lam
Cc: Robert Kraft
Subject: Permission Procedures?
Some weeks before T. C. Skeat died, I had written him to explore the possibility of producing an updated version of "The Birth of the Codex" (1987 edition by T.C.Skeat, based on the earlier work of C.H.Roberts). Unfortunately, I never received a response. It is a tremendously useful handbook, but difficult for modern students (and some scholars) with minimal skills in the relevant languages (Greek, Latin, German, French, Italian) to use efficiently. I propose to supply English translations as appropriate. It also needs to be updated with reference to more recent work on the subjects covered.
Since I have been working in this subject
area for several years now,
in the intersections of papyrology and the study of early Judaism and
early Christianity, I am very interested in producing such an updated
version for use in the current worlds of scholarship and general
interest. I would want to make it available electronically on the
internet (with appropriate links to images, and to enable regular
updating), but am not opposed to hardcopy byproducts as well. Since the
British Academy holds the rights to the book, I'm inquiring how to
pursue such a request.
Thank you for your help.
R. A. Kraft
Emeritus Professor of Early Judaism and Early Christianity
> Dear Professor Kraft
>
> Thank you for your enquiry regarding the possibility of producing
an updated version of "The Birth of the Codex".
>
> The volume is still available and continues to sell as an
important scholarly contribution in its own right.
>
> We would have no objection to a new independent publication which
builds upon the work, but we do not wish to produce a revised, or
updated edition of "The Birth of the Codex" itself.
>
> Yours sincerely
>
> Amrit Bangard
>
> Amrit Bangard (Ms)
> Publications Assistant
> British Academy=20
> 10 Carlton House Terrace
> London SW1Y 5AH
>
> Tel: 020 7969 5216
> Fax: 020 7969 5414
> www.britac.ac.uk =20
6
THE
EVIDENCE OF LEGAL WRITERS
30
+ Other
"Paraliterary
Formats and Practices
LITERARY TEXTS OF THE FIRST FIVE CENTURIES
+ Roll and Codex in early
visual representations
8
THE
CODEX IN EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE
38
[[fairly simplistic and historically
uncritical]]
9 WHY DID CHRISTIANS ADOPT THE CODEX? 45
INADEQUACY OF PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS
10 THE
CHRISTIAN ADOPTION OF THE
CODEX: TWO HYPOTHESES
54
[[expand
with additional hypotheses]]
12 THE
CODEX IN NON-CHRISTIAN LITERATURE
67
[[update, combine with chapter 8]]
PREFACE
The
predecessor of this monograph, The Codex,
was published in the Proceedings of
the British Academy 40 (1954) 169-204 and
was substantially based on two lectures delivered as the Special
University
Lectures in Palaeography at University College, London, in January
1953. When stock was exhausted, it was clear that
in view of subsequent discoveries and further work on the subject more
than a
reprint was called for. Since at that
time I was not free to undertake the revision myself, Mr T. C. Skeat
generously
agreed to do it on my behalf. The present book, a completely revised
and in
some respects enlarged version of its predecessor, is the result of his
work;
for the structure of the whole and the first seven Sections he is
solely
responsible. We have, however, collaborated throughout and the work as
it
stands represents our joint views.
Two books have greatly lightened our task, Sir Eric Turner's The Typology of the early Codex (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977) and the Abbé Joseph van Haelst's Catalogue des Papyrus Littéraires Juifs et Chrétiens (Paris, 1976) and to their authors we wish to express our indebtedness.
C. H. Roberts
I
Inscribed
wax tablet, mid third century B.C.E. [at least four tablets hinged
horizontally, inscribed on only one side each]: account of
expenses incurred on journey in
By courtesy of the
II
Notebook
on thin leather, second
century A.D., with notes of labor employed and payments made. Actual
measurements 7.5cm x l 1.8cm.
By permission
and with the kind assistance of
Professor Dr. Wolfgang Müller, Direktor des
Aegvptisches Museums und Leiter der Papyrus-Sammlung der
Staallichen Museen zu Berlin (P.
Berol. 7358/9)
III Papyrus Codex of the Pauline Epistles, third century A.D.: the conjoint leaves show Romans 11.24-33 on the left and on the right the end of Philippians and the beginning of Colossians. Actual measurements 19 cm x 30 cm.
By courtesy of the
IV Parchment Codex of Demosthenes, De Falsa Legatione, second century A.D.: the plate shows the two pages of a bifolium, slightly reduced, each with two columns to the page. Actual measurement of a page 19 cm x 16.5 cm.
By permission of the British Library (ref. Add. MS. 34473, art. I)
V Parchment Codex of the Bible, Codex Sinaiticus, fourth century A.D.: the bifolium shows in part Psalms, xix-8 -- xxiii 5. Actual measurement of a page 37.6 cm X C. 24. 7 cm.
By permission of the
British Library (ref. Add.
MS. 43725, ff
92v, 93r)
VI Painting of a young man holding an open Codex, from the catacomb of SS. Peter and Marcellinus, Rome, third century.
This, the earliest representation of the codex in art, is an exception to the practice whereby in the early centuries the roll is the symbol of the book in Christian as well as in secular art.
By permission of the
Pontifica Commissione di Archeologia Sacra
| English |
Greek |
Latin |
discussed
in R&S |
| "book(s)" generic |
βίβλοι | librum (libri) |
|
| tablets (pages) |
δέλτοι | tabellae | chs 3-4 |
| notebook(s) |
δελτάριον, γραμματεῖον | codex, pugillares | |
| wood |
philyrae | ||
| wax |
cera |
||
| scroll |
volumen |
p.34 |
|
| papyrus |
chartae volumina | ||
| parchment (leather) | διφθέραι | membranae volumina | |
| scroll box |
capsa |
||
| codex |
codex | ||
| papyrus |
charta |
||
| parchment(s) |
membrana |
||
| library |
|||
| cabinet for books |
|||
| bookseller |
|||
| (poetic) lines |
στίχοι |
INTRODUCTION
THE MOST momentous development in the history of the book until the invention of printing was the replacement of the roll by the codex; this we may define as a collection of sheets of any material, folded double and fastened together at the back or spine, and usually protected by covers. There has never been any doubt about the physical origin of the codex, namely that it was developed from the wooden writing tablet; there should have been little doubt about the time when this development took place, although it has needed the impact of successive discoveries, mainly but not entirely in Egypt, during the present [20th] century to induce scholars to take notice of what their literary authorities told them. But the questions why this change took place when it did, in what circles the codex was first used, and why it eventually supplanted the roll, are more complex and uncertain. The aim of the present work is to suggest at least provisional answers based upon a reappraisal of our literary sources coupled with an analysis of the evidence from papyri.
It is no part of the plan of this work to attempt to compile a
bibliography of
the vast literature (much of it now antiquated and inaccurate, or
falsified by
subsequent discoveries) concerning the codex, its origins and
development. Any worker in this field must begin by
expressing his obligations to Theodor Birt's Das antike Buchwesen
in
seinem Verhältnis zur Literatur, Berlin, 1882,
supplemented many
years later by
his Kritik und Hermeneutik nebst Abriss des
antiken Buchwesens (Iwan v. Müller, Handbuch der
Altertumswissenschaft, I.
Band, 3 Abt., München 1913). As a
collection of the literary material Birt's work is indispensable and
calls for
few supplements, but the eccentricity of its interpretations makes it
an unsafe
guide even to these sources. Much can be learned from W. Schubart's Das
Buch bei
den Griechen und Römern (2nd edition, Berlin, 1921; the
so-called 3rd edition, by E. Paul, Heidelberg and Leipzig, 1961, though
embellished with additional
illustrations, omits the notes which are so valuable a feature of the
2nd
edition), [[02]] which
still remains not only the most readable but also the
most
reliable introduction to the whole subject. There are many valuable
observations in K. Dziatzko's Untersuchungen
über ausgewählte Kapitel des antiken Buchwesens, Leipzig,
1900, supplemented by his articles 'Buch' and 'Buchhandel' in
Pauly-Wissowa, Real Encyclopädie. Considering the period
when
he wrote,
Theodor Zahn's admirable treatment of the evidence for the Christian
book in
his Geschichte der neutestamentlicher Kanons, i, pp. 60 sq.
(Berlin,
1888) is vitiated only by the then common assumption that papyrus
implies the
roll and parchment the codex. All these
discussions, even to a large extent that of Schubart, were written
before the
full effect of the Egyptian discoveries had been appreciated, and these
set the
sources the authors quoted in a different light. A notable attempt to
re-assess the question
against the background of these discoveries is that of H. A. Sanders, The
Beginnings
of the Modern Book: the Codex,\1/ University of Michigan Quarterly
Review,
44, no. 15, Winter 1938, pp. 95-111, while among studies which have
appeared since the first edition of the present work, mention may be
made of H. Hunger, O. Stegmüller, and others, Geschichte
der Textüberlieferung der antiken und mittelalterlichen Literatur,
Zürich, 1961,
especially pp. 47-51 (Hunger), 346-50 (K. Büchner).
F. Wieacker, Textstufen klassischer Juristen
(Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen,
Phil.-hist.
K1., 3. Folge, Nr. 45, 1960),
especially in his § 4, 'Rolle und Codex, Papyrus und Pergament',
discusses the transition from roll to codex in relation to his
principal thesis,
namely that the works of the classical jurists (Ulpian, Paulus, etc.)
were
originally published in rolls, and were transferred to codices circa
300 C.E., and that hand in hand with this transference went a
re-edition of the works themselves. Tönnes Kleberg, Buchhandel
und
Verlagswesen in der Antike, Darmstadt, 1969, includes (pp. 69-86)
an "Exkurs über die
Buchherstellung und die Formen des Buches in der Antike" which
provides an
excellent summary of the question. Sir Eric Turner's The Typologv
of the Early Codex, 1977,
though a mine of information concerning all physical aspects
of the codex, explicitly (cf. pp. 1-2) excludes
any discussion of the origin of the codex form. The latest treatment,
by Guglielmo Cavallo in his composite
[[03]]
volume, Libri, Editori e pubblico nel
Mondo antico, 1975, is considered in
Section 12 below. It should be added that
the task of assembling the data on texts other than Christian has been
immeasurably
lightened by the publication of Roger A. Pack, The Greek and Latin
Literary
Texts from Greco-Roman Egypt,
University of Michigan Press, 1st
edition 1952, 2nd
edition 1965, here referred to as Pack-1 and Pack-2. In the
predecessor of the present work the evidence was based on Pack-1; here
it has
been revised with the aid of Pack-2 and brought up to date with the aid
of other
bibliographies. For Christian texts the
bibliographies of Kurt Aland and Joseph Van Haelst mentioned below (p.
38) have
been of outstanding value.[+add
references to new online resources]
\1/ See also the articles of C. C. McCown, 'Codex and Roll in the New Testament', Harvard Theological Review 34 (1941) 219-250, and ‘The earliest Christian books' in The Biblical Archaeologist 6 (1943) 21-31.
This introductory section
may suitably close with a warning. An overwhelming proportion of the
evidence
comes from
Two passages which sum up the difficulties and dangers in evaluating the material may be quoted here. The former is from T. Kleberg's Buchhandel und Verlagswesen mentioned above (p. 67): [[04]] "This presentation could provide only some fragmentary witnesses from the history of ancient book trade. But we must recognize that actually everything that we know in general about this detail of ancient life consists of fragmentary episodes that, taken together, attest to different situations and must be filled out through inferences that are not always as well grounded. And so it is generally with most areas of ancient everyday life. The ancient authors very seldom provide us with complete coherent portrayals. At most we must content ourselves with individual sparse notices that are strewn about in the large portions of the surviving literature and in inscriptions."\4/ The same point had been made long before, and even more incisively, by Prof. F. Zucker in a review of K. Ohly's Stichometrische Untersuchungen; "I need to point out that in general, with respect to knowledge of books, we are dependent on the proposal of possibilities to a much greater extent than one often appears to recognize. The material is dangerously irregular, in some respects exceedingly rich, in others very poor. Above all one must be forewarned about filling out gaps in our knowledge on the basis of certain general assumptions that seem to us to be obvious."\5/
\4/ 'Diese
Darstellung konnte nur einige bruchstückartige Züge aus der
Geschichte des antiken
Buchhandels bieten. Aber wir müssen tatsächlich feststellen,
dass alles, was wir überhaupt von dieser Einzelheit des antiken
Lebens
wissen,
bruchstückartige Episoden sind, die zusammengestellt, von
verschiedenen
Seiten
aus beleuchtet und durch nicht immer gleich gut begründete
Schlussfolgerungen
ergänzt werden müssen. So steht es übrigensmit den
meisten Gebieten des
antiken Alltagslebens. Die Schriftsteller der Antike bieten uns
äusserst selten vollstandige zusammenhangende Schilderungen. Meist
müssen wir uns mit einzelnen spärlichen Notizen
begnügen, die
sich über grosse Teile der erhaltenen Literatur
und in Inschriften verstreut finden' [English
translation supplied by RAK]. A
very similar warning is given by Schubart, Das
Buch ...2, p. 36
2
PAPYRUS AND PARCHMENT
First,
the
sources of information. The history of
papyrus from every aspect in the period which concerns us is amply
covered by
Naphtali Lewis, Papyrus in Classical
Antiquity (Oxford, 1974), a new and enlarged edition of his
well-known L'Industrie du Papyrus dans l’Egypte
gréco-romaine
(Paris, 1934). Until
recently no similar study has been
devoted to the history of parchment, but now a full-scale scientific
and
technical investigation is available in R. Reed, Ancient
Skins, Parchments and Leathers (Seminar Press, 1972).\8/ To
complement this there is a useful collection of the historical and
literary
evidence in the University of California dissertation of Richard R.
Johnson, The Role of Parchment in Greco-Roman
Antiquity, [[06]]
1968 (published by University Microfilms in both microfilm and xerox
form).
One of Johnson's principal services is
to
collect and
elucidate the confused and partly contradictory accounts of the
'invention' of
parchment at
To explain the eventual
supersession of
papyrus by
parchment a number of reasons have been put forward, and although most
of them
have little bearing on the origin and development of the codex, they
may be
briefly considered here. The
comparative qualities of
papyrus
and parchment
have often been compared, usually to the disadvantage of the
former.\11/ The
durability of both under normal conditions is not open to [[07]]
doubt. Many instances of the long life
of writings on papyrus could be quoted, but this is no longer
necessary, since
the myth that papyrus is not a durable material has at last been
authoritatively and, one would hope, finally refuted by Lewis (op.
cit., pp. 60-61). At
the same time Lewis finds no difficulty in
dispelling another popular delusion, namely that papyrus was
essentially a
fragile and brittle material.\12/ He demonstrates that it was in fact
extremely
strong and flexible. Wieacker's claim
that parchment was preferred for the codex because papyrus was too
brittle to
fold is totally without foundation.
A further
question which has often been fruitlessly debated is whether papyrus or
parchment was the more costly material -- fruitlessly because
objective criteria
are almost wholly lacking. Richard R. Johnson (op. cit., pp. 113-117)
quotes a number of earlier opinions,\13/ but finally concludes that the
question
is both unanswerable and meaningless. The
great difficulty is that we have no comparative figures for the cost of
papyrus
and parchment during the same period of time. Of
the few certain prices of papyrus rolls
collected by Lewis (op. cit., pp. 131-134)\14/
the latest (10 dr. 3 chalk.) is dated third century [[C.E.]], but as
the amount
shows it
must antedate the massive inflation which marked the latter part of the
century. Conversely, the only certain
price recorded for parchment is that given in Diocletian's Maximum
Price
Edict of 301 C.E.;\15/ and there is no way in which the one can
be balanced against the
other.
Despite all that has been said above, even the strongest supporters of papyrus [[perhaps??]] would not deny that parchment of good [[08]] quality is the finest writing material ever devised by man. It is immensely strong, remains flexible indefinitely under normal conditions, does not deteriorate with age,\16/ and possesses a smooth even surface which is both pleasant to the eye and provides unlimited scope for the finest writing and illumination. Above all, it possesses one outstanding advantage over papyrus: whereas production of papyrus was limited to
Why, and when, parchment replaced papyrus
is a complex question detailed discussion of which is outside the scope
of this
book. The manufacture of papyrus in
\17/ Lewis, op. cit., pp. 92, 94, n. 10.
\18/ Cf. Lewis, op. cit., pp. 90-4, and the article by E. Sabbe, 'Papyrus et parchemin au haut moyen age,' Miscellanea historica in honorem Leonis van der Essen 1 (1947) 95-103.
As
already
mentioned, parchment had the advantage over papyrus in that it could be
manufactured virtually anywhere. At
first sight this advantage would seem to be so overwhelming that one is
inclined to pose the question, not in the form 'Why did parchment
replace
papyrus?', but rather 'Why did parchment take so long to replace
papyrus?' Here
there is a technological factor which has not hitherto been
sufficiently
appreciated. Whereas the manufacture of
papyrus, like that of paper, is basically a simple and straightforward
process,
and the technical skills necessary had in any case been elaborated by
the
Egyptians over thousands of years, the production of parchment poses
very
different problems, the nature of which can best be illustrated by the
following quotations from R. Reed, Ancient
Skins, Parchments and Leathers:
It is perhaps the extraordinarily high durability of the product, produced by so simple a method, which has prevented most people from [[09]] suspecting that many subtle points are involved.... The essence of the parchment process, which subjects the system of pelt to the simultaneous action of stretching and drying, is to bring about peculiar changes quite different from those applying when making leather. These are: (1) reorganisation of the dermal fibre network by stretching, and (2) permanently setting this new and highly stretched form of fibre network by drying the pelt fluid to a hard, glue-like consistency. In other words, the pelt fibres are fixed in a stretched condition so that they cannot revert to their original relaxed state (pp. 119-120).\19/
Where the medieval parchment makers were greatly superior to their modern counterparts was in the control and modification of the ground substance in the pelt, before the latter was stretched and dried .... The major point, however, which modern parchment manufacturers have not appreciated is what might be termed the integral or collective nature of the parchment process. The bases of many different effects need to be provided for simultaneously, in one and the same operation. The properties required in the final parchment must be catered for at the wet pelt stage, for due to the peculiar nature of the parchment process, once the system has been dried, any after treatments to modify the material produced are greatly restricted. (p. 124).
This method, which follows those used in medieval times for making parchment of the highest quality, is preferable for it allows the grain surface of the drying pelt to be "slicked" and freed from residual fine hairs whilst stretched upon the frame. At the same time, any processes for cleaning and smoothing the flesh side, or for controlling the thickness of the final parchment may be undertaken by working the flesh side with sharp knives which are semi-lunar in form. . . . . To carry out such manual operations on wet stretched pelt demands great skill, speed of working, and concentrated physical effort. (pp. 138-9).
Enough has been said to suggest that behind the apparently simple instructions contained in the early medieval recipes there is a wealth of complex process detail which we are still far from understanding. Hence it remains true that parchment-making is perhaps more of an art than a science. (p. 172).
From these statements it will be clear that a parchment industry on a scale adequate to enable it to challenge the [[10]] dominance of papyrus could not have been created overnight. Many years -- perhaps even centuries -- would have been required to work out the details of the process by trial and error, and to build up and train a sufficient labor force spread over the length and breadth of the
This brief survey will, it is hoped, be
sufficient to show that the transition from papyrus to parchment was of
an
entirely different character from, and quite unconnected with, the
transition
from roll to codex, to which we will now turn.
[[add notes \20/
and \21/ or modify numbers]]
3
THE WRITING TABLET
THE writing tablet need not long detain us. It was commonly formed of two or more flat pieces of wood, held together either by a clasp or by cords passed through pierced holes; the central area of the tablet was usually hollowed slightly to receive a coating of wax, while a small raised surface was often left in the centre to prevent the writing on the wax being damaged when the tablet was closed. [[Such tablets are depicted in both a "vertical" form (opening away from the user) and a "horizontal" form (opening to the side), with multiple pieces sometimes attached accordian style (see n.23 below). These variations also mirror different ancient scroll formats (vertical and horizontal).]] Writing in ink or chalk was sometimes placed directly on the wood. It was one of the oldest, if not the oldest,\22/ recipient of writing known to the Greeks, who may have borrowed it from the Hittites.\23/ [[add information on its wide use in the Near East]] Homer knew of it, for it was on a folded tablet or diptych [["two piecer"]] that Proitos scratched the 'deadly marks' (Iliad 6.168 sq.) that were intended to send Bellerophon to his death. To the Greeks of the classical age the tablet had a tradition behind it and a dignity that the papyrus roll lacked;\24/ in Sophocles, Agamemnon orders the muster roll [list] of the Greek princes to be read from a tablet, and it is on a tablet that Zeus, in a fragment of Euripides, records the sins of men.\25/ In later Greece they [tablets] were the familiar recipient of anything of an impermanent nature -- letters, bills, accounts, school exercises [+add somewhere the details from Cribiore's research], memoranda, a writer's first draft. Already in the
\26/ Cf. Euripides, I.T. 727, δέλτου μὲν αἵδε πολύθυροι διαπτυχαί (of a tablet, then, many folding pages). Schubart's comment (op. cit., p. 175) that πτυχή (fold) is not strictly applicable to a hard material such as wood, and that therefore in this passage it implies a previous use of folded leather, papyrus, etc., is misconceived, since πτυχή can be used of the folds of doors. Cf. LSJ and Pollux, Onomast., ed. Bethe, i, p. 207 [= TLG 418, 2nd century CE]: καὶ Ἡρόδοτος (VII 239) μὲν λέγει `δελτίον δίπτυχον,’ οἱ δ’ Ἀττικοὶ ‘γραμματεῖον δίθυρον,’ καὶ θύρας τὰς πτύχας ἄχρι δύο, εἶτα πτύχας, καὶ τρίπτυχον καὶ πολύπτυχον (and Herodotus said "two-fold tablet," but the Attic commentators "two-paged notebook," and pages/doors the folds until two, then folds, even tri-fold and multiple-fold) [[check ET of Herodotous 7.239]].
\27/For
the uses to which tablets were put see Schubart, Das Buch...2,
pp. 24 sqq., and notes, p. 175; the ninefold wax
tablet illustrated on p. 24 must originally have had ten leaves (see
Plaumann's
article referred to by Schubart, p. 175). P. Fouad 74 of the fourth
century C.E. refers to and describes a
δελτάριον δεκάπτυχον (ten folded
little tablet). [[Jewish rabbinic
literature refers to
a 12 leafed version -- see Lieberman, etc.]]
\28/ Published by H.
I. Bell and Flinders
Petrie, Ancient
\29/ Ep. 3.5.15 sq. [[To Baebius Macer -- 10 Post cibum saepe - quem
interdiu levem et facilem veterum more sumebat - aestate si quid otii
iacebat in sole, liber legebatur, adnotabat excerpebatque. Nihil enim
legit quod non excerperet; dicere etiam solebat nullum esse librum tam
malum ut non aliqua parte prodesset. 11
Post solem plerumque frigida lavabatur, deinde gustabat dormiebatque
minimum; mox quasi alio die studebat in cenae tempus. Super hanc liber
legebatur adnotabatur, et quidem cursim. . . . 15 In itinere quasi solutus
ceteris curis, huic uni vacabat: ad latus notarius cum libro et
pugillaribus, cuius manus hieme manicis muniebantur, ut ne caeli quidem
asperitas ullum studii tempus eriperet; qua ex causa Romae quoque sella
vehebatur. 16 Repeto me correptum
ab eo, cur ambularem: 'poteras' inquit 'has horas non perdere'; nam
perire omne tempus arbitrabatur, quod studiis non impenderetur. 17
Hac intentione tot ista volumina peregit electorumque commentarios
centum sexaginta mihi reliquit, opisthographos quidem et minutissimis
scriptos; qua ratione multiplicatur hic numerus. Referebat ipse
potuisse se, cum procuraret in Hispania, vendere hos commentarios
Larcio Licino quadringentis milibus nummum; et tunc aliquanto pauciores
erant.
[ET Harvard Classics Letter #27]
After a short and light refreshment at noon (agreeably to the good old
custom of our ancestors) he would frequently in the summer, if he was
disengaged from business, lie down and bask in the sun; during which
time some author was read to him (liber
legebatur), while he took notes and made
extracts (adnotabat excerpebatque),
for every book he read he made extracts (excerperet)
out of, indeed it was
a maxim of his, that “no book was so bad but some good might be got out
of it.” [11] When this was over, he generally took a cold bath, then
some
light refreshment and a little nap. After this, as if it had been a new
day, he studied till supper-time, when a book was again read (liber
legebatur) to him,
which he would take down running notes upon (adnotabatur). . . . [15] A shorthand writer [notarius] constantly attended him, with book
and tablets [cum libro et
pugillaribus], who,
in the winter, wore a particular sort of warm gloves, that the
sharpness of the weather might not occasion any interruption to my
uncle’s studies: and for the same reason, when in Rome, he was always
carried in a chair. [16] I recollect his once taking me to task for
walking.
“You need not,” he said, “lose these hours.” For he thought every hour
gone [lost] that was not given to study. [17] Through this
extraordinary
application he found time to compose the several treatises [volumina] I have
mentioned, besides one hundred and sixty volumes of extracts [electorumque
commentarios] which
he
left me in his will, consisting of a kind of commonplace, written on
both sides [opisthographos], in very small hand [minutissimis
scriptos], so that
one might fairly reckon the
number considerably more. He used himself to tell us that when he was
comptroller of the revenue in Spain, he could have sold these
manuscripts to Largius Licinus for four hundred thousand sesterces, and then there were not so many of them.]
The correct designation in Latin for a plurality of tablets or for multi-leaved tablets was codex, whether the material used was wood, as was usual or, e.g., ivory. When Seneca [[the Younger]] enlarges\30/ on that inane studium supervacua discendi, [[vain passion for learning (digressing on ??) useless things ]], an infection the Romans had contracted from the Greeks, he cites as an example the enquiry [[13]] whether Claudius Caudex, one of the consuls of 264 B.C.E., was so called 'quia plurium tabularurn contextus caudex apud antiquos vocabatur, unde publicae tabulae codices dicuntur.'[[because among the ancients a structure formed by joining together several tablets was called a caudex, whence also the Tables of the Law (?? public tablets??) are called codices]]. Already in the time of Cato the Censor\31/ the words tabulae and codex were interchangeable, and both are frequently found in Cicero for tablets used for business purposes.\32/ But neither now nor for a long time to come was there any question of the word codex denoting a book.
\32/ G.E.M. de Ste Croix, 'Greek and
Roman Accounting' in Studies in the
History of Accounting, ed. A.
C. Littleton and B. S. Yamey, 1956, pp.
41-3; P. Jouanique, 'Le codex accepti et expensi chez Cicéron', Revue
historique de Droit francais et étranger
46 (1968) 5-31.
The second passage, on which much ink has
been spilt to little profit, is the
statement by the elder Pliny that Cicero had reported a copy of the
Iliad on
parchment which could be enclosed in a [[14]] nut
(in
nuce inclusam Iliadem Homeri carmen in membrana tradit
The trouble is that none of the scholars
who have commented on this passage have investigated the subject of
microscopic
writing, and therefore have no conception of what can be achieved by
ingenuity
and application. To take but a single
example, Harley MS. 530 in the
\38/ Very
approximately, the Bible is six times as long as the Iliad. [+ Mani codex size, etc.]
4
FROM WRITING TABLET TO PARCHMENT
NOTE-BOOK
It would seem that it was
the
Romans, rather than the Greeks, who developed the
writing tablet to a size where it could accommodate lengthy accounts
(they
distinguished, as the Greeks did not, between the large tablet and the pugillares
that could be held in a
closed hand). Certainly it was the
Romans who took the decisive next step, that of replacing the wooden
tablet by
a lighter, thinner and more pliable material [[including very thin
wood, as at Vindolanda]]. We have seen
that,
according to our literary evidence, the
Romans may
have been made familiar with parchment as a writing material before the
middle
of the second century B.C.E. But
if, as
also our sources suggest, it was intended as a substitute for papyrus,
it would
probably have been used, like papyrus, in roll form.\41/ In any
case it is
probable that after the temporary interruption of supply [[in the early 2nd century B.C.E.]]
papyrus
regained its
former predominance, though some knowledge of the usability of
parchment may
have subsisted.\42/
Another passage which has often been quoted in this connection is Catullus 22.4-8:
