Book-Terminology in Classic Times.
BEFORE proceeding to the consideration of the conditions under which
works of literature in Rome were prepared by the writers and were
brought within reach of the hearers or readers, it will be convenient
to give consideration to the different forms of books which existed
among the ancients, the various names by which these forms were known,
and the nature of the material from which they were prepared.
The history of the different materials used in the writing of books and
of the various terms employed to designate the books themselves, throws
light on the conditions and the development of the production and
distribution of literature. The baked clay tablets of the Chaldeans and
Assyrians have already been referred to. Layard speaks of those found
by him as of different sizes, the largest being flat and measuring nine
inches by six and a half, while the smallest were slightly convex, and
in some cases not more than an inch long, with but one or two lines of
writing. The cuneiform characters on most of them were singularly sharp
and well defined, but so minute in some instances as to be illegible
without the aid of a magnifying glass. Curiously enough, in the same
ruins with the tablets have been found specimens of the glass lenses
which were probably used by their readers. Specimens have also been
found of the instrument which was employed to trace the cuneiform
characters, and its form sufficiently accounts for the peculiar shape
of these characters, a shape which was imitated by the engravers on
stone. The tracer is a little iron rod (a _stylus_), not pointed but
triangular at the end. By slightly pressing this end on the cake of
soft moist clay held in the left hand, no other sign could be obtained
but that of a wedge, the direction being determined by a turn of the
wrist, presenting the instrument in various positions. The tablets,
having been thus inscribed on both sides and accurately numbered or
folioed, were baked in the oven.
An astronomical work discovered by George Smith comprised seventy such
tablets, say one hundred and forty pages. The first of these begins
with the words “When the gods Anu,” and this seems to have been taken
as the title of the work, for each successive tablet bears the notice
“First (second or third) tablet of ‘When the gods Anu.’ Further, to
guard against all chance of confusion, the last line of one tablet is
repeated as the first line of the following one--a fashion which we
still see in old books, in which the last word or two at the bottom of
a page is repeated at the top of the next.... If the tablets were to
be impressed with figures or hieroglyphics in place of or in addition
to the cuneiform characters, engraved cylinders were used of some hard
stone, such as jasper, cornelian, or agate.... Tablets have also been
found (usually in foundation stones) of gold, silver, copper, lead, and
tin.”[128]
Referring to the care with which each monarch gathered into his palace
the chronicles of his reign, building long series of inscribed tablets
into the walls and burying others beneath the foundation stones, Ménant
says:
“It was not mere whim which impelled the kings of Assyria to build
so assiduously. Palaces had in those times a destination which they
have no longer in ours. Not only was the palace indeed the dwelling
of royalty, but, as the inscriptions indicate, it was also the
_Book_, which each sovereign began at his accession to the throne,
and in which he was to record the history of his reign.”
Painstaking and slow as the method appears to have been in which the
Babylonians and Assyrians recorded the earliest known literature of the
world, in one respect at least they achieved a success greater than
that of any of the literature-producing nations who were to follow
them. Their books were made to last, and through forty centuries of
vicissitudes such as would have crumbled into unrecognizable dust
the collections of the Vatican or of the British Museum, the mounds
of Mesopotamia have safely protected the libraries of the Chaldean
kings, and it is probable that, notwithstanding the completeness of the
devastation that overwhelmed the Assyrian lands, a larger proportion
of the entire body of Assyrian literature has been preserved for the
students of to-day than of any national literature which came into
existence prior to the invention of printing.
The book of Egyptian literature was nearly always written on papyrus,
that is, on the tissue prepared from the stems of the papyrus plant,
a species of reed which in ancient times abounded on the banks of the
Nile. In the earlier days, there are instances of palm-leaves being
used for certain classes of documents. According to Wilkinson, the
papyrus plant has now entirely disappeared from Egypt. So important
was the rôle played by papyrus in the history of classic literature
that ancient writers speak as if their literature could hardly have
existed, or at least could hardly have been preserved, without it.
Pliny, for instance, writes: _Papyri natura dicetur, cum chartæ usu
maxime humanitas vitæ constet, certe memoria_.[129] Birt renders this:
It is on literature that all human development depends, and assuredly
to literature is due the transmission of history.[130] Pliny here uses
the word _charta_ (_i. e._, paper made of papyrus) as a general term
for literature, and speaks as if papyrus were the only material in use
for books. He was writing about the middle of the first century.
From their own land the Greeks could secure no materials for
book-making, and their literature, which was to inspire and to
enlighten future generations, could be preserved for these generations
only by the use of substances imported from other countries. By far,
the most important of their book-making materials was the same papyrus
plant which had long been utilized by the Egyptians. To the stem of
this plant, from which the book “paper” was prepared (the English
term being, of course, derived from the Egyptian plant), the Greeks
gave the name of βύβλος, or βίβλος. These terms, with the diminutives
βύβλίον, βιβλίον, and βιβλάριον speedily came to stand for the book
itself instead of for the book-paper, the “book” comprising a series of
prepared papyrus sheets, gummed together into a roll. βύβλος usually
denoted a single work only, although such work might comprise several
volumes or rolls. Suidas, however, whose _Lexicon_ was written about
1000 A.D., asserts that it was also used for a collection of books. The
word βύβλος was in like manner used for cordage, _i. e._, the ropes of
ships, for the making of which the papyrus stem was also employed.
We have named first in order papyrus, as the material most universally
used by the Greek writers, and βύβλος as the term for book most
frequently occurring in Greek literature.
Centuries, however, before the introduction of the papyrus, or of
the dressed skins, other materials were employed for writing, such
as thinly rolled sheets of lead, used for public documents, and
slips of linen sheets, and wax tablets, used for private records and
correspondence. Wax tablets were known to Homer, and twelve hundred
years after Homer were still in use among the Romans. The Homeric
Greeks also utilized slabs of wood and the bark of trees, another
material which remained useful for many generations, and which gave to
the Romans the term for book, _liber_. Another term in which the roll
nature of the book is clearly indicated is κύλινδρος, a cylinder.[131]
This brings us back to one of the Assyrian forms, arrived at, however,
in a very different way.
The papyrus book, whether Egyptian, Greek, or Roman, was gotten up
very much like a modern mounted map. A length of the material, written
on one side only, was fastened to a wooden roller, around which it
was wound. The Egyptian name for such a roll was _tamā_. Such rolls
were often twenty, thirty, or even forty yards long.[132] Herodotus
tells us the whole of the _Odyssey_ was written on one such roll. He
also refers to an Egyptian priest rolling a book about the horns of a
sacrificial bull.[133] As the inconvenience of these long rolls became
apparent, the practice obtained of breaking up the longer works into
sections. Certain suitable sizes became normal, and the conventional
length of the roll possibly exercised some influence on the length of
what are still called the “books,” _i. e._, divisions of the classical
authors. The Egyptian rolls were kept in jars, holding each from six to
twelve.[134]
The term ἁπλὰ was applied to a “book” or writing completed on a single
strip of papyrus and comprising therefore only one leaf.[135]
The word τόμος (from which comes our English tome) occurs only after
the Alexandrian era. It means literally a slice or a cutting, and when
used with precision stood, as to-day, for a portion or division of the
entire work. A diminutive of this is τομάριον.
Ὁ χάρτης indicated originally a papyrus sheet or roll which had not
yet been written upon, but came later to be used also for a papyrus
manuscript.[136]
Τεῦχος, which had for its earlier signification tool or implement,
was later used for a chest, repository, or book-case, and, after the
Alexandrian age, came finally into use as a term for a set or series of
(literary) works.
Γράμμα, meaning in the first place “that which is graven or written,”
and then “the letter” or the scripture, is used, although but rarely,
for book, occurring more often in the plural Γράμματα,[137] and still
more frequently in the form Συγγράμματα, “words written together.”
The Σύγγραμμα was a collection of manuscript rolls tied together in a
bundle or faggot, called by the Latins _fasces_.
The famous term Λόγος, meaning in the first place that which is
said, the word, the utterance, and then the story or narrative, came
occasionally to be referred to as the book, or in the plural form,
Λόγοι, as the books, writings, or works of a particular writer. It
was, however, the substance of the writings and not their physical
form which was then referred to, and the expression seems to have been
applied only to writings in prose.
The previous terms (with the exception of Λόγος, which, having to do
with the thought of the writer and not with the form of the writing,
could stand for any intellectual production) were all employed only for
books written on papyrus. A material which preceded the use of papyrus,
and which, with improved methods of preparation, long outlasted this,
although occupying a far less important place in ancient literature,
was obtained from skins or hides. The use of this material for writing
was borrowed from the Phœnicians, from whom were also purchased the
skins themselves. The dressed skins were called διφθέραι, and writings
upon skins came to be known by the same name. Ctesias speaks of the
διφθέραι βασιλικαὶ, royal books (or writings or documents) of the
Persians, and Herodotus says that such skins were used in the earlier
times for book-material not only in Greece, but even in Egypt, the
home of the papyrus. In Greece, the papyrus, introduced from Egypt
through the Phœnician traders, appears at one time to have almost
entirely replaced the dressed skins, while later, owing to the improved
methods for the preparation of the skins, these again found favor. It
was, however, not until the production of parchment (_membrana_ or
_pergamena_), that the value of skins for literary purposes began to be
properly understood, and even parchment made its way but slowly among
writers in competition with the long-established papyrus, which it was,
however, destined to outlast for many centuries. The name parchment,
_pergamena_, is derived from the city of Pergamum, where, according
to the tradition, it was first prepared under the direction of King
Eumenes II., about 190 B.C. It seems certain, however, that parchment
had been produced considerably before this date, but a great impetus
was doubtless given at this time to its use, and its manufacture was
improved, owing to the embargo placed by Ptolemy Philadelphus on the
exportation from Egypt of papyrus. Ptolemy was, it appears, jealous of
the growing fame of the great library of Pergamum, which was beginning
to rival that of Alexandria, and he hoped that by cutting off the
supply of book-material from other countries he could compel the
scholars of the world to resort to Alexandria.
Pliny, writing about 250 years later, appears not to have believed that
the new parchment could serve as in any way an adequate substitute
for the papyrus. He considered it very fortunate that the Ptolemies
had finally consented to withdraw the interdict on the exportation of
papyrus, as otherwise the history of mankind in the past (_immortalitas
hominum_) might have been utterly lost.
Excepting for the temporary impetus given to the use of the parchment
among the writers of Pergamum during the embargo on the Egyptian
papyrus, its introduction among literary circles proceeded but slowly.
It came into competition more directly with wax tablets for private
notes and memoranda than with papyrus for use in books.
For correspondence, at least for the longer letters, papyrus seems for
some centuries to have been found the most convenient material. The
author of the Second Epistle of John evidently wrote on papyrus,[138]
and in the long series of letters between Cicero and his several
correspondents, all the references are to the same material.
The Latin terms for book, like those used by the Greeks, indicate the
nature of the material used, or the method of its arrangement. The word
_liber_, which occurs perhaps the most frequently in Latin literature,
has been already referred to. It means originally bark, and by some
antiquarians is supposed to give evidence of some prehistoric use by
the Italian writers of tablets of wood or bark. It was applied finally
to books of all kinds, but when used with precision, it indicated books
of papyrus arranged in leaves as opposed to a roll or a series of
rolls. The roll, whether composed of papyrus sheets or of parchment,
was called _volumen_. Its use as a general term for a book of any kind
appears to date from the time of Cicero. _Liber_ was also used for a
division of a literary composition, in the sense in which the term
“book” is employed to-day, the entire work being called _volumen_, or
_opus_. The latter term, however, had, like λόγος, no reference to the
material or form, but only to the literary production.
The next term in order of importance was _codex_. The word, which
means originally the trunk of a tree, was in the first place used for
wooden tablets smeared, for writing purposes, with wax. It was later
applied to large documents and manuscripts, whether of papyrus or
parchment. A still later meaning was that of a collection or series
of writings, in the sense in which we should to-day speak of “a body
of literature.” A _codex rescriptus_, or palimpsest, was a parchment
on which the original writing had been erased or defaced to make room
for a later inscribing. The erasing was sometimes imperfectly done, so
that it became possible to decipher the text of the original writing
through that which had been superimposed. A number of important works
of antiquity have in this manner been recovered through the labors of
modern scholars, the list including Cicero’s _De Republica_, some of
the books of Livy, certain books of Pliny the Younger, and portions of
the _Septuagint_.
The term _libellus_, literally a small writing, was used for a
memorandum book, a petition, a memorial, a summons, a complaint in
writing, and finally for a small volume. Birt explains that in the
latter sense it always stood for a book of verse, on the ground that,
according to the usual arrangement, a volume of verse contained half
as much material as one of prose.
The wooden case containing the papyrus roll was called a _capsa_, or a
_scrinium_. The latter term was, possibly, more generally applied to
a case large enough to hold several rolls. The term _umbilicus_ was
applied to a reed or stick fastened to the last leaf or strip of the
manuscript, around which it was rolled.
It is to be borne in mind that as the inspiration for Roman
literature came from Athens and Alexandria, and the earlier Roman
authors were accustomed to use Alexandria as a convenient centre for
book-production, the Greek terms for books and for things connected
with books came into general use with Latin writers, and probably for
some time continued to be employed in place of or indifferently with
the Latin terms.
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