INSTRUMENTS FOR WRITI NG WITH. 



Upon the whole, it appears to us, that the Phenicians hare the 

 best claim to the honour of the invention of letters. 



\_Astle. 



SECTION IV. 



Instruments for izriting with. 



IT is obvious, that when men wrote, or rather engraved, on hard 

 substances, instruments of metal were necessary, such as the chisel 

 and stylus; but the latter was chiefly used for writing ujon 

 boards, waxed tablets, or on bark; these were sometimes made of 

 iron, but afterwards of silver, brass, or bone, called in Greek 

 yaapjov, and in Latin stylus ; though the Romans adopted the 

 Greek word, as appears by this verse in Ovid : 



Quid digitos opus est graphium lassare tenendo ? 



The sfylus was made sharp at one end to write with, and blunt 

 at the other to deface and correct what was not approved ; hence 

 the phrase vertere stylum to blot out, became common among the 

 Romans. The iron styles were dangerous weapons, and were pro- 

 hibited by the Romans, and those of bone or ivory were used in 

 their stead. Suetonius tells us, that Caesar seized the arm of Cas- 

 sius in full senate, and pierced it with his stylus. He also says that 

 Caligula excited the people to massacre a Roman senator with 

 their styles. And Seneca mentions that one Erixo, a Roman 

 knight in his time, having scourged his son to death, was attacked 

 in the forum by the mob, who stabbed him in many parts of his 

 body, with the iron styles which belonged to their pugillares, 

 so that he narrowly escaped being killed, though the emperor in. 

 terposed his authority*. Prudentius very emphatically describes 

 the tortures which Cassianus + was put to by his scholars, who 

 killed him with their pugillares and styles : 



Buxa crepant cerata genis impacta cruenlis, 

 Rubetque ab ictu curva humens pagina ; 



* De Clfmentia, lib. i. cap. 14. 



f This Cas, iaiius was the first bishop of Sibon, in Germany, where he built a 

 church in 350; but he was driven away by die Pagans, and fled to Rome, where 

 he commenced schoolmaster for a subsistence. In the year 365, he wa, ty 

 the order of t!ic Emperor Julian, exposed to (tie merciless rage of his scholars* 



