Romulus. Abbott Jacob
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seems that writing was not much employed for any of the ordinary and private purposes of life by the people of Greece until the article called papyrus was introduced among them. This took place about the year 600 before Christ, when laws began first to be written. Papyrus, like the art of writing upon it, came originally from Egypt. It was obtained from a tree which it seems grew only in that country. The tree flourished in the low lands along the margin of the Nile. It grew to the height of about ten feet. The paper obtained from it was formed from a sort of inner bark, which consisted of thin sheets or pellicles growing around the wood. The paper was manufactured in the following manner. A sheet of the thin bark as taken from the tree, was laid flat upon a board, and then a cross layer was laid over it, the materials having been previously moistened with water made slightly glutinous. The sheet thus formed was pressed and dried in the sun. The placing of two layers of the bark in this manner across each other was intended to strengthen the texture of the sheet, for the fibers, it was found, were very easily separated and torn so long as they lay wholly in one direction. The sheet when dry was finished by smoothing the surface, and prepared to receive inscriptions made by means of a pen fashioned from a reed or a quill.
Mode of using ancient books.
In forming the papyrus into books it was customary to use a long sheet or web of it, and roll it upon a stick, as is the custom in respect to maps at the present day. The writing was in columns, each of which formed a sort of page, the reader holding the ends of the roll in his two hands, and reading at the part which was open between them. Of course, as he advanced, he continually unrolled on one side, and rolled up upon the other. Rolls of parchment were often made in the same manner.
Volumes.
The term volume used in respect to modern books, had its origin in this ancient practice of writing upon long rolls. The modern practice is certainly much to be preferred, though the ancient one was far less inconvenient than might at first be supposed. The long sheet was rolled upon a wooden billet, which gave to the volume a certain firmness and solidity, and afforded it great protection. The ends of this roller projected beyond the edges of the sheet, and were terminated in knobs or bosses, which guarded in some measure the edges of the papyrus or of the parchment. The whole volume was also inclosed in a parchment case, on the outside of which the title of the work was conspicuously recorded. Many of these ancient rolls have been found at Herculaneum.
Ink.
Ink found at Herculaneum.
For ink, various colored liquids were used, generally black, but sometimes red and sometimes green. The black ink was sometimes manufactured from a species of lampblack or ivory black, such as is often used in modern times for painting. Some specimens of the inkstands which were used in ancient times have been found at Herculaneum, and one of them contained ink, which though too thick to flow readily from the pen, it was still possible to write with. It was of about the consistence of oil.
These rolls of papyrus and parchment, however, were only used for important writings which it was intended permanently to preserve. For ordinary occasions tablets of wax and other similar materials were used, upon which the writer traced the characters with the point of a steel instrument called a style. The head of the style was smooth and rounded, so that any words which the writer wished to erase might be obliterated by smoothing over again, with it, the wax on which they had been written.
Recent discoveries in respect to the Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Such is a brief history of the rise and progress of the art of writing in the States of Greece. Whether the phonetic principle which Cadmus introduced was brought originally from Egypt, or from the countries on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean sea, can not now be ascertained. It has generally been supposed among mankind, at least until within a recent period, that the art of phonetic writing did not originate in Egypt, for the inscriptions on all the ancient monuments in that country are of such a character that it has always been supposed that they were symbolical characters altogether, and that no traces of any phonetic writing existed in that land. Within the present century, however, the discovery has been made that a large portion of these hieroglyphics are phonetic in their character; and that the learned world in attempting for so many centuries, in vain, to affix symbolical meanings to them, had been altogether upon the wrong track. The delineations, though they consist almost wholly of the forms of plants and animals, and of other natural and artificial objects, are not symbolical representations of ideas, but letters, representing sounds and words. They are thus precisely similar, in principle, to the letters of Cadmus, though wholly different from them in form.
Specimen of Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Specimen of Egyptian hieroglyphics.
To enable the reader to obtain a clearer idea of the nature of this discovery, we give on the adjoining page some specimens of Egyptian inscriptions found in various parts of the country, and which are interpreted to express the name Cleopatra, a very common name for princesses of the royal line in Egypt during the dynasty of the Ptolemy's. We mark the various figures forming the inscription, with the letters which modern interpreters have assigned to them. It will be seen that they all spell, rudely indeed, but yet tolerably distinctly, the name Cleopatra.
Explanation of the figures.
By a careful examination of these specimens, it will be seen that the order of placing the letters, if such hieroglyphical characters can be so called, is not regular, and the letter a, which is denoted by a bird in some of the specimens, is represented differently in others. There are also two characters at the close of each inscription which are not represented by any letter, the one being of the form of an egg, and the other a semicircle. These last are supposed to denote the sex of the sovereign whose name they are connected with, as they are found in many cases in inscriptions commemorative of princesses and queens. They are accordingly specimens of symbolic characters, while all the others in the name are phonetic.
Moses in Egypt.
It seems therefore not improbable that the principle of forming a written language by means of characters representing the sounds of which the words of the spoken language are composed, was of Egyptian origin; and that it was carried in very early times to the countries on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean sea, and there improved upon by the adoption of a class of characters more simple than the hieroglyphics of Egypt, and of a form more convenient for a regular linear arrangement in writing. Moses, who spent his early life in Egypt, and who was said to be learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, may have acquired the art of writing there.
Importance of the art of writing.
However this may be, and whatever may be the uncertainty which hangs over the early history of this art, one thing is certain, and that is, that the discovery of the art of writing, including that of printing, which is only the consummation and perfection of it, – the art by which man can record language, and give life and power to the record to speak to the eye permanently and forever – to go to every nation – to address itself simultaneously to millions of minds, and to endure through all time, is by far the greatest discovery, in respect to the enlargement which it makes of human powers, that has ever been made.
Chapter III.
The Story of Æneas.
B.C. 1200
Story of Æneas remained long unwritten.
Besides the intrinsic interest and importance of the facts stated in the last chapter, to the student of history, there was a special reason for calling the attention of the reader to them here, that he might know in what light the story of the destruction of Troy, and of the wanderings of Æneas, the great ancestor of Romulus, which we now proceed to relate, is properly to be regarded. The events connected with the destruction of Troy took place, if they ever occurred at all, about the year twelve hundred before Christ. Homer is supposed to have lived and composed his poems about the year nine hundred; and the art of writing is thought to have been first employed for the purpose of recording continuous compositions, about the year six hundred. The story of Æneas then, so far as