186 
Pliny's i^atural histobt. 
[Book XIII. 
the victorious 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, 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 Saitic JSTomes, in which all the papyrus is produced, have 
been added since his time by the alluvion of the Nile ; indeed, 
he himself has stated^ that the main -land was a day and a 
night's sail from the island of Pharos^, 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,^ in reference to their respective libraries, 
Ptolemy prohibited the export of papyrus; upon which, as Yarro 
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 OF MAKIJyTO PAPEE. 
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, * and is about the 
It is hardly necessary to state that this is not the fact. This plant is 
the Cyperus papyrus of Linnseus, the "herd" of the modern Egyptians. 
II. B. vi. 1. 168. See B. xxxiii. c. 4, where the tablets which are 
here called " pugillares," are styled "codicilli" by Pliny. 
^9 His argument is, that paper made from the papyrus could not he 
known in the time of Homer, as that plant only grew in certain districts 
which had been rescued from the sea since the time of the poet. 
1 Od. B. iv. 1. 355. 2 gee B. ii. c. 87. 
^ 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 lonians had been accustomed to give' the 
name of skins, ^Mkpai^ to books. 
^ Brachiali radicis obliquae crassitudine. 
