( 158 ) 
He obferves, that before the Ufe of Pens the An- 
cients performed their Writing with an Inftrument 
call’d by them a Stylus or Grapbium. The Matter 
of it was Gold, Silver, Brafs, Iron, or Bone ; the 
Shape various, but alike in being pointed and {harp 
at one End, and flat and broad at the other End : The 
firft for writing, or rather cutting their Letters, the 
latter for defacing or rubbing out whatever wanted 
Correction ; for all which, as well as for every thing 
elfe afferted by him, he produces fuflicient Proofs from 
proper Authors, 
He informs us, that the Styli made of Iron, were 
fometimes ufed as Daggers, and quotes two Paflages 
out of Suetonius to prove it} one where Julius CaJ'ar 
is faid to have wounded Cajfius in the Arm, Gra - 
phio ; the other, where he tells us it was cuftomary 
with Caligula to get his Enemies murder’d, Gra- 
phiis, when they came into the Senate-Houfe, and 
confirms thefe two Paflages by a third, taken from 
Seneca' s Firft Book De Clementia , He fuppofes the 
Stylus made of Bone was for the Ufe of Women and 
Children, as lefs dangerous than thofe of Metal } 
by a Quotation from Prudentius , it appears that CaJ- 
ftanus the Martyr was kill’d by his Scholars with Iron 
Styli . 
He agrees with Petavius, or his Editors, that the 
Implements, which gave Birth to this Diflertation, 
were Styli , and . not Fibula ad connetdendas vejles , 
as Monfaucon and other Antiquaries have imagined, 
and thinks an Objection that the Tongues of the Styli 
muft have been much longer than the Tongues of 
their fuppofed Fibula , to be of little Weight } fines 
there 
