The pen employed by the Roman scribe was made of a reed and known as a calamus. It was sharpened and split, not unlike a modern quill pen. The question has been raised many times as to whether the Romans did not employ the quill pen itself. Certain pictures seem to suggest that the quill pen was used not merely by the Romans, but by the Egyptians as well. There seems little ground for this supposition, however, and the first specific reference to a quill pen was in the writings of Isidorus, who died in 636 A.D. This proves that the use of quills had begun not later than the seventh century, but it is extremely doubtful whether the Romans employed them, though the quill seems so obvious a substitute for the reed that its non-employment causes wonder. But the history of all simple inventions shows how fallacious would be any argument drawn from this obvious inference. Incidentally it may be noted that the reed pen held its own against the quill for some centuries after the invention of the latter. Even in the late Middle Ages the reed was still employed for particular kinds of writing in preference to the quill, and no doubt a certain number of people for generations continued to prefer the reed, just as there are people now who prefer a quill pen to the steel pens that were perfected in 1830. Every desk in the reading room at the British Museum to-day is supplied with a quill as well as a steel pen; and a fair proportion of the readers there seem to prefer the former.
It would not do to leave the subject of Roman books without at least incidental mention of the tablets which were in universal use. These were probably not employed in writing books for the market, but it is quite probable that many authors used them in making the first drafts of their books. The so-called wax tablet was really made of wood, quite in the form of a modern child’s slate, the wax to receive the writing being put upon the portion that corresponds to the slate proper. These tablets were usually bound together in twos or threes, and only the inner surfaces were employed to receive the writing, the outer surface being reserved for a title in the case of business documents, or for the address when the tablet was used as a letter. When used as business records or in correspondence, the tablets were bound together with a cord, upon which a seal was placed. It was quite the rule for a Roman citizen to carry a tablet about with him for the purpose of making notes. The implement used in writing was a pointed metal needle known as the stylus. It was almost dagger-like in proportions, and was sometimes used as a weapon. It was said that Cæsar once transfixed the arm of Cassius with his stylus in a fit of anger in the senate chamber itself. The other end of the stylus was curved or flattened, and was used to erase the writing on the tablet for corrections or to prepare the surface for a new inscription.[j]
Turning from the practicalities of literature to a yet more important phase of everyday life, let us witness
THE CEREMONY OF A ROMAN MARRIAGE
The solemn ritual of marriage was based on the virginity of the bride, and so appeared in a curtailed version when a widow married again, which, even in later times, was regarded as somewhat shocking and in the earliest period of antiquity was of rare occurrence.
Particular care was taken in choosing the wedding-day, because certain times of the year were, from a religious point of view, ill adapted for the wedding ceremony, particularly the whole month of May and the first half of June. For the Lemuria and the sacrifice of the Argei fall in May, and in the beginning of June come the dies religiosi, devoted to the holiness of Vesta, which come to a close on the 15th of June with the purification of the temple of Vesta. Other days to be avoided were the dies parentales (from the 13th to the 21st of February), the first half of March, the three days on which the Nether World was open (mundus patet on the 24th of August, the 5th of October, and the 8th of November), all dies religiosi, the calends, the nones, and the ides. But solemn marriages were not conducted on festival days chiefly because, in early times at all events, the participators in the marriage were hindered by the festival. Widows on the other hand did not exclude such days from their selection.
All that we are told of the decoration of the bride is again concerned with virgins. On the day before marriage the girl laid aside her virginal attire (toga prætexta), sacrificing it with her toys to the gods and perhaps originally to the Lares of her father’s house. As was the custom for a youth before taking the toga, she was invested (ominis causa) with a new garment suitable to her new condition before going to sleep, a tunica recta or regilla, and upon her head was placed a red hair net. The bridal dress itself was a tunica recta, that is to say a garment woven according to ancient custom with vertical, not horizontal, threads, held together with a woollen girdle (cingulum) that was bound with a nodus herculeus; instead of the hair net she was provided with a red scarf (flammeum) with which she veiled her head (nubit, obnubit); its red colour only distinguished it from those scarfs which all women wore when they went out. Her hair was arranged in sex crines, that is, plaits or locks held together not with a comb but with a crisping pin bent at the end (hasta cælibaris) and separated by ribbons. Beneath the scarf on her head she wore a wreath of flowers gathered by herself, and at a later period the bridegroom himself also wears a wreath.
The ceremony of the marriage day falls into three parts: the handing over of the bride, her home taking, and her reception into the husband’s house; with regard to the disposition of the separate customs appertaining to these three acts we are to some extent left to conjecture.
The solemnisation of marriage began with auspicia, which were usually taken by proper auspices in the silence of early morning, just as at the sponsalia it was sought to inquire into the will of the gods by an omen before sunrise. In the earliest times the flight of birds was observed, this kind of divination being later on replaced in private life (as it already existed in public) by the easier process of causing a haruspica to examine entrails. But the sacrifice made with a view of consulting the gods, the performers of which have also been called auspices, must not be confounded with the main sacrifice, for it took place before the handing over of the bride. The sacrificial animal was probably a sheep, the skin of which was afterwards used for the confarreatio.
On the assembly of the guests the auspices entered to announce the result of their investigation. After this only is the marriage contract completed, and even in later times before ten witnesses such as were accustomed to be present at the ancient confarreatio; the bride and bridegroom then declare their consent to the wedding, and where there is a confarreatio the former declares her will to enter into the manus and thereby the family of her husband, originally announcing also her readiness to exchange her own name for that of her husband in the formula quando tu Caius ego Caia. After this declaration the bridal pair are brought together by a married woman (pronuba) and take each other’s hands (dextras jungunt), upon which, at the confarreatio, in accordance with the most ancient Roman sacrificial custom, a bloodless sacrifice is brought consisting of fruits and a panis farreus. It was dedicated to Jupiter and so was probably performed by the flamen Dialis present; he pronounced the forms of prayer in which the gods of wedlock, especially Juno, and the rustic deities Tellus, Picumnus, and Pilumnus were invoked. During the sacrifice the bridal pair sat upon two chairs joined together, over which the skin of the sheep that had been slain was stretched; at the prayer they wandered round the altar from right to left; a camillus lent his services, bearing a cumerum in which mola salsa and other requisites of the sacrifice were received.