BOOK XIII. XXII. 72-xxiii. 76 



woven into sail-cloth and matting, and also cloth, 

 as well as blankets and ropes. It is also used as 

 chewing-gum, both in the raw state and when boiled, 

 though only the juice is swallowed. 



Papyrus also grows in Syria on the borders of the 

 lake round which grows the scented flag already xii. 104 

 mentioned, and King Antiochus would only allow 

 ropes made from this Syrian papyrus to be used in 

 his navy, the employment of esparto not yet having 

 become general. It has recently been realized that 

 papyrus growing in the Euphrates near Babylon can 

 also be used in the same way for paper ; nevertheless 

 up to the present the Parthians prefer to embroider 

 letters upon cloths. 



XXIII. The process of making paper from papyrus Manufactwe 

 is to spht it with a needle into very thin strips made ^^p^p^- 

 as broad as possible, the best quahty being in the 

 centre of the plant, and so on in the order of its 

 sphtting up. The first quaUty used to be called 

 ' hieratic paper ' and was in early times devoted 

 solely to books connected with rehgion, but in a 

 spirit of flattery it was given the name of Augustus, 

 just as the second best was called ' Livia paper ' 

 after his consort, and thus the name ' hieratic ' came 

 down to the third class. The next quahty had been 

 given the name of * amphitheatre paper,' from the 

 place of its manufacture.« This paper was taken 

 over by the clever workshop of Fannius at Rome, 

 and its texture was made finer by a careful process 

 of insertion, so that it was changed from common 

 paper into one of first-class quahty, and received 

 the name of the maker ; but the paper of this kind 

 that did not have this additional treatment remained 

 in its own class as amphitheatre paper. Next to this 



143 



