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.
CHAPTER V.
Rome.
ROMAN literature may be said to date from about 250 B.C., or, to take an event which marked an important era in the life of the Republic, from the close of the first Punic War, 241 B.C.