Materials for Writing and Books.—The early forms of books were various, and, to modern eyes, more or less clumsy. Wood or bark was one of the oldest substances used to receive writing. Stone was no doubt older still, but stone inscriptions are outside our subject. The early Greeks and Romans employed tablets of soft metal, and wooden leaves coated with wax, when they had anything to write, impressing the characters with a stilus. Thus Pausanius relates that he saw the original copy of Hesiod's Works and Days written on leaden tablets. The wooden leaves, when bound together at one side, foreshadowed the form of book which is now almost universal, and were called by the Romans caudex, or codex (originally meaning a tree-stump), in distinction to the volumen, which was always a parchment or papyrus roll. The oldest manuscript in existence, however, is on papyrus, which, as is well known, was the chief writing-material of the ancient world. Although the discovery that skins of animals, when properly prepared, formed a convenient and durable writing-material, was made at a very early date, the papyrus held its own as the writing-material of literary Egypt, Greece, and Rome, until about the fourth or fifth century of our era.
The books of Babylonia and Assyria took the form of thick clay tablets of various sizes. The wedge-shaped characters they bore were made by impressing the wet, soft clay with a triangular-pointed instrument of wood, bone, or metal. The tablet was then baked, and as recent discoveries prove, rendered exceedingly durable. It is a matter of conjecture as to whether the form of the original documents of the Old Testament was that of the Babylonian tablets, or of the Egyptian papyrus rolls, or of rolls of parchment. Perhaps all three were employed by the various biblical writers at different times.
It is stretching a point, perhaps, to include among writing materials the tablets of bamboo bark which bore the earliest Chinese characters, since the inscriptions were carved. The Chinese, however, soon discarded such primitive uses, and the paper which is so indispensable to-day was invented by them at a very early date, though it remained unknown to Europe until the Arabs introduced it about the tenth century, A.D. One of the earliest extant writings on paper is an Arabic “Treatise on the Nourishment of the Human Body,” written in 960 A.D., but it seems to have been printing which really brought paper into fashion, for paper manuscripts are rare compared with those of parchment and vellum.
[CHAPTER II
THE PRESERVATION OF LITERATURE]
It is easier to find the beginning of writing than the beginning of literature. Although we know for certain that the ancient nations of the world had books and libraries, that they preserved traditions, stored records and knowledge, and assisted memory by means of their tablets, their monuments, and their papyri, we shall probably never know when the art of writing was first applied to strictly literary purposes, and still less likely is it that we shall ever discover when works of the imagination were first recorded for the edification of mankind. It is not very rash, however, to assume that as soon as the art had developed the ancients put it to much the same uses as we do, except, perhaps, that they did not vulgarise it, and no one wrote who had not something to write about. But we are not without specimens of antique literatures. Egypt has preserved for us many different specimens of her literary produce of thousands of years ago—historical records, works of religion and philosophy, fiction, magic, and funeral ritual. Assyria has bequeathed to us hundreds of the clay books which formed the great royal library at Nineveh, books of records, mythology, morals, grammar, astronomy, astrology, magic; books of reference, such as geographical tables, lists of temples, plants, birds, and other things. In the Old Testament we have all that now remains of Israelitish writings, and the early literatures of China and India are also partly known to us. After these the writings of Greece and Rome are of comparatively recent origin, and moreover, they are nearer to us in other respects besides the merely chronological. The literature of Greece, dating from the far Homeric age, grew up a strong and beautiful factor in Greek life, and Rome, drawing first her alphabet and then her literature from the land before which she stooped, even while she conquered it, passed them on as an everlasting possession to the peoples of the western world. The fact of the literary pre-eminence of Greece partly helps to explain why Greek manuscripts form the bulk of the early writings now extant.
In considering how early literature has been preserved, therefore, we are hardly concerned with Egyptian papyri or cuneiform tablets, but with the writings of Greece and Rome, or writings produced under Greek or Roman influence. And it is curious that while the libraries and books of older nations have survived in comparatively large numbers, there should be no Greek literary manuscripts older than about 160 B.C., and even these are very fragmentary and scarce. The earliest Latin document known is dated 55 A.D., and is an unimportant wax tablet from Pompeii. For this lack of early documents many causes are responsible, and those who remember that it is not human beings only who suffer from the vicissitudes inseparable from existence will wonder, not that we have so few ancient writings in our present possession, but that we have any. The evidence of many curious and interesting discoveries of manuscripts made from time to time goes to show that accident, rather than design, has worked out their preservation, and that the civilised world owes its present store of ancient literature more to good luck than good management, to use a handy colloquialism. It is true, of course, that in early days there were many who guarded books as very precious things, but in times of wars and tumults people would naturally give little thought to such superfluities. Fire and war have been the agencies most destructive of books, in the opinion of the author of Philobiblon, but carelessness and ignorance, wanton destruction and natural decay, are also accountable for some part of the great losses which have wasted so large a share of the literary heritage, and although we are deeply indebted to monastic work for the transmission of classic lore as well as of Christian compositions, we can hardly conclude that the monkish scribes wrote solely for the benefit of posterity. Their immediate purpose, no doubt, and naturally so, was much narrower, and identified the service of God with the enrichment of their houses. Besides, they did not hesitate to erase older writings in order that they might use the parchment again for their own, whenever it suited them to do so.
Before noting some of the ways by which ancient literature has come down to the present day, let us for a moment transport ourselves into the past, and see how a wealthy Roman lover of letters would set about gathering a collection of books. Having no lack of means, all that is best in the literary world will be at his service. He will first take care that the works of every Greek writer which can possibly be obtained, as well as those of Roman authors, are represented in his library by well-written papyrus rolls containing good, correct texts. If he can obtain old manuscripts or original autographs of famous writers, so much the better; but whereas ordinary volumes will cost him comparatively little, on these he must expend large sums. If a book on which he has set his heart is not to be purchased, he may be able to obtain the loan of it, so that it may be transcribed for him by his librarius or writing-slave. If he can neither borrow nor purchase what he desires, he may commission the bookseller to send for it to Alexandria, where there is an unrivalled store of books and many skilled scribes ready to make copies of them.
But it is not easy to estimate with any degree of certainty the quantity of literary material available, say, at the time of the establishment of the first public library in Rome, which was probably about 39 B.C. Books were common and booksellers flourished. Greek and Roman writings were preserved on papyrus, not neglected or lost, and the various parts of what we now call the Old Testament probably existed in the Hebrew synagogues. We may, perhaps, assume that the Roman book collector, did he choose to take the necessary trouble, might add to his collection some of the writings of ancient Egypt. But no doubt Greek and Latin authors only are of value in his eyes. At this point it is dangerous to speculate further, and we must leave the imaginary Roman, and, advancing to our own time, where we are on surer ground, ask what remnants of old records and literature have come down to us, and how have they been preserved?
It will be disappointing news, perhaps, to those to whom the facts are fresh, that no original manuscript of any classical author, and no original manuscript of any part of the Bible, Old Testament or New, has yet come to light. Nothing is known of any of these documents except through the medium of copies, and in some cases very many copies indeed intervene between us and the original. For instance, the oldest Homeric manuscript known, with the exception of one or two fragments, is not older than the first century B.C., and the most ancient Biblical manuscript known, a fragment of a Psalter, is assigned to the late third or early fourth century A.D. The earliest New Testament manuscript extant, the first leaf of a book of St Matthew's Gospel, is also no older than the third century. It is curious, too, that no ancient Greek manuscripts have been found either in Greece or Italy excepting some rolls discovered in the ruins of Herculaneum. One reason for this is no doubt the fact that when Roman armies assailed Athens and other Greek cities they despoiled them not only of their statues and works of art, but of their books as well. These went to furnish the libraries of Rome, though it is probable that certain of them found their way back to Greece in company with some of Rome's own literary produce when Constantine set up his capital and founded a library at Byzantium. Another means by which Greek manuscripts left the country was afforded by the eagerness of Ptolemy II. to extend the great library of Alexandria, to which end he bought books in all parts of Greece, and particularly in Athens and Rhodes.