185 pliny's natural history. [EookXIII. 



the victorious 97 career of Alexander the Great, at the time 

 when Alexandria in Egypt was founded by him ; before which 

 period paper had not been used, the leaves of the palm having 

 been employed for writing at an early period, and after that 

 the bark of certain trees. In succeeding ages, public docu- 

 ments were inscribed on sheets of lead, while private memo- 

 randa were impressed upon linen cloths, or else engraved on 

 tablets of wax ; indeed, we find it stated in Homer, 98 that tablets 

 were employed for this purpose even before the time of the 

 Trojan war. It is generally supposed, too, that the country 

 which that poet speaks of as Egypt, was not the same that is 

 at present understood by that name, for the Sebennytic and 

 the Sait] c " Nomes, in which all the papvrus is produced, have 

 been added since his time by the alluvion of the Nile ; indeed, 

 he himself has stated 1 that the main -land was a day and a 

 night's sail from the island of Pharos 2 , which island at the 

 present day is united by a bridge to the city of Alexandria. In 

 later times, a rivalry having sprung up between King Ptolemy 

 and King Eumenes, 3 in reference to their respective libraries, 

 Ptolemy prohibited the export of papyrus; upon which, as Varro 

 relates, parchment was invented for a similar purpose at 

 Pergamus. After this, the use of that commodity, by which 

 immortality is ensured to man, became universally known. 



CHAP. 22. THE MODE OE MAKING PAPER. 



Papyrus grows either in the marshes of Egypt, or in the 

 sluggish waters of the river Mle, when they have overflowed 

 and are lying stagnant, in pools that do not exceed a couple of 

 cubits in depth. The root lies obliquely, 4 and is about the 



97 It is hardly necessary to state that this is not the fact. This plant is 

 the Cyperus papyrus of Linnaeus, the "herd" of the modern Egyptians. 



> 8 II. B vi. 1. 168. See B. xxxiii. c. 4, where the tablets which are 

 here called " pugillares," are styled "codicilli" by Pliny. 



99 His argument is, that paper made from the papyrus could not be 

 known in the time of Homer, as that plant only grew in certain districts 

 which had been rescued fiom the sea since the time of the poet. 



1 Od. B. ir. 1. 355. 2 See B i{ 0< 87# 



3 There is little doubt that parchment was really known many years 

 before the time of Eumenes II., king of Pontus. It is most probable that 

 this king introduced extensive improvements in the manufacture of parch- 

 ment, for Herodotus mentions writing on skins as common in his time ; and 

 in B. v. c. 58, he states that the Ionians had been accustomed to give the 

 name of skins, ditiQepai, to books. 



4 Brachiali radicis obliques crassitudine. 



