Forty Centuries of Ink Part 3

The uncial letters, as they are termed, appear to have arisen as writing on papyrus or vellum became common, when many of the straight lines of the capitals, in that kind of writing, gradually acquired a curved form, to facilitate their more rapid execution. However this may be, from the sixth to the eighth, or even 10th century, these uncials or partly rounded capitals prevail.

"The modern minuscule, differing from the ancient cursive character, appears to have arisen in the following manner: During the 6th and 7th centuries, a kind of transition style prevailed in Italy and some other parts of Europe, the letters composing which have been termed semi-uncials, which, in a further transition, became more like those of the old Roman cursive. This manner, when definitely formed, became what is now termed the minuscule manner; it began to prevail over uncials in a certain cla.s.s of MSS. about the 8th century, and towards the 10th its general use was, with few exceptions, established. It is said to have been occasionally used as early as the 5th century; but I am unable to cite an authentic existing monument. The Psalter of Alfred the Great, written in the 9th century, is in a small Roman cursive hand, which has induced Casley to consider it the work of some Italian ecclesiastic."

The learned who have made a life study of the history of the most ancient ma.n.u.scripts, mention them specifically in great number and of different countries, which would seem to indicate that the art of handwriting had made great strides in the very olden times; many nations had adopted it, and B. C. 650 "it had spread itself over the (then known) greater part of the civilized world."

We can well believe this to be true in reading about the ancient libraries, notwithstanding that some rulers had sought to prohibit its exercise.

Plato, who lived B. C. 350, expresses his views of the importance of writing in his imaginary colloquy between Thamus, king of Egypt, and Thoth, the G.o.d of the liberal arts of the Egyptians; he acquaints us:

"That the discourse turned upon letters. Thoth maintained the value of Writing, as capable of making the People wiser, increasing the powers of Memory; to this the king dissented, and expressed his opinion that by the exercise of this Art the mult.i.tude would appear to be knowing of those things of which they were really ignorant, possessing only an idea of Wisdom, instead of Wisdom itself."

Pythagoras, B. C. 532, we are informed by Astle:

"Went into Egypt where he resided twenty-two years; he was initiated into the sacerdotal order, and, from his spirit of inquiry, he has been justly said to have acquired a great deal of Egyptian learning, which he afterwards introduced into Italy.

The Pythagorean schools which he established in Italy when writing was taught, were destroyed when the Platonic or new philosophy prevailed over the former. Polybius (lib. ii. p. 175) and Jamblichus (in vita Pythag.) mention many circ.u.mstances, relative to these facts, quoted from authors now lost; as doth Porphyry, in his life of Pythagoras."

For the hundred years or more following, however, the dissemination of learning and the transcription of events was not to be denied. We find ink-written volumes (rolls) relating to diverse subjects being loaned to one another; correspondence by letter to and from distant lands of frequent occurrence, and the art of handwriting regularly taught in the schools of learning.

Its progress was to be interrupted by the wars of the Persians. Mr. Astle in calling attention to events which have contributed to deprive us of the literary treasures of antiquity thus refers to them:

"A very fatal blow was given to literature, by the destruction of the Phoenician temples, and of the Egyptian colleges, when those kingdoms, and the countries adjacent, were conquered by the Persians, about three hundred and fifty years before Christ. Ochus, the Persian general, ravaged these countries without mercy, and forty thousand Sidonians burnt themselves with their families and riches in their own houses. The conqueror then drove Nectanebus out of Egypt, and committed the like ravages in that country; afterwards he marched into Judea, where he took Jericho, and sent a great number of Jews into captivity. The Persians had a great dislike to the religion of the Phoenicians and the Egyptians; this was one reason for destroying their books, of which Eusebius (De Preparat.

Evang.) says, they had a great number."

These losses, apparently, did not interfere with the progress of the art in more western countries. Professor Rollin in his "Ancient History," 1823, remarks:

"Ptolemy Soter, King of Egypt B. C. 285, had been careful to improve himself in public literature, as was evident by his compiling the life of Alexander, which was greatly esteemed by the ancients, but is now entirely lost. In order to encourage the cultivation of the sciences, which he much admired, he founded an academy at Alexandria, called the Museum, where a society of learned men devoted themselves to philosophic studies, and the improvement of all other sciences, almost in the same manner as those of London and Paris. For this purpose, he began by giving them a library, which was prodigiously increased by his successors.

"His son Philadelphus left a hundred thousand volumes in it at the time of his death, and the succeeding princes of that race enlarged it still more, till at last it consisted of seven hundred thousand volumes.

"This library was formed by the following method: All the Greek and other books that were brought into Egypt were seized, and sent to the Museum, where they were transcribed by persons employed for that purpose. The copies were then delivered to the proprietors, and the originals were deposited in the library.

"As the Museum was at first in that quarter of the city which was called Bruchion, and near the royal palace, the library was founded in the same place, and it soon drew vast numbers thither; but when it was so much augmented, as to contain four hundred thousand volumes, they began to deposit the additional books in the Serapion. This last library was a supplement to the former, for which reason it received the appellation of its Daughter, and in process of time had in it three hundred thousand volumes.

"In Caesar's war with the inhabitants of Alexandria, a fire, occasioned by those hostilities, consumed the library of Bruchion, with its four hundred thousand volumes. Seneca seems to me to be out of humour, when, speaking of the conflagration, he bestows his censures both on the library itself, and the eulogium made on it by Livy, who styles it an ill.u.s.trious monument of the opulence of the Egyptian kings, and of their judicious attention to the improvement of the sciences. Seneca, instead of allowing it to be such, would have it considered only as a work resulting from the pride and vanity of those monarchs, who had ama.s.sed such a number of books, not for their own use, but merely for pomp and ostentation. This reflection, however, seems to discover very little sagacity; for is it not evident beyond contradiction, that none but kings are capable of founding these magnificent libraries, which become a necessary treasure to the learned, and do infinite honour to those states in which they are established?

"The library of Serapion, did not sustain any damage, and it was undoubtedly there that Cleopatra deposited those two hundred thousand volumes from that of Pergamus, which was presented to her by Antony. This addition, with other enlargements that were made from time to time, rendered the new library of Alexandria more numerous and considerable than the first; and though it was ransacked more than once, during the troubles and revolutions which happened in the Roman empire, it always retrieved its losses, and recovered its number of volumes. In this condition it subsisted for many ages, displaying its treasures to the learned and curious, till the seventh century, when it suffered the same fate with its parent, and was burnt by the Saracens, when they took that city in the year of our Lord 642. The manner by which this misfortune happened is too singular to be pa.s.sed over in silence.

"John, surnamed the Grammarian, a famous follower of Aristotle, happened to be at Alexandria, when the city was taken; and as he was much esteemed by Amri Ebnol As, the general of the Saracen troops, he entreated that commander to bestow upon him the Alexandrian library. Amri replied, that it was not in his power to grant such a request; but that he would write to the Khalif, or emperor of the Saracens, for his orders on that head, without which he could not presume to dispose of the library. He accordingly wrote to Omar, the then Khalif, whose answer was, that if those books contained the same doctrine with the Koran, they could not be of any use, because the Koran was sufficient in itself, and comprehended all necessary truths; but if they contained any particulars contrary to that book, they ought to be destroyed. In consequence to this answer, they were all condemned to the flames, without any further examination; and, for that purpose, were distributed among the public baths; where, for the s.p.a.ce of six months, they were used for fuel instead of wood. We may from hence form a just idea of the prodigious number of books contained in that library; and thus was this inestimable treasure of learning destroyed!

The Museum of Bruchion was not burnt with the library which was attached to it. Strabo acquaints us, in his description of it, that it was a very large structure near the palace, and fronting the port; and that it was surrounded with a portico, in which the philosophers walked. He adds, that the members of this society were governed by a president, whose station was so honourable and important, that, in the time of the Ptolemies, he was always chosen by the king himself, and afterwards by the Roman emperor; and that they had a hall where the whole society ate together at the expense of the public, by whom they were supported in a very plentiful manner."

Among the other events contributing to the deplorable losses which mankind has sustained in this respect, a sad one was when the most ancient ink writings of the Chinese were ordered to be destroyed by their emperor Chee-Whange-Tee, in the third century before Christ, with the avowed purpose that everything should begin anew as from his reign. The small portion of them which escaped destruction were recovered and preserved by his successors.

CHAPTER III.

CLa.s.sICAL INK AND ITS EXODUS.

THE MATERIALS AND METHODS EMPLOYED IN PREPARING THE INK MSS. OF ANTIQUITY--THE INTRODUCTION OF PARCHMENT AS A SUBSt.i.tUTE FOR PAPYRUS--MODE OF WRITING ON PARCHMENT--HOW SEPARATE PIECES WERE FIRST JOINED INTO BOOK FORM--EVIDENCE OF THE CHARACTER OF WRITING UTENSILS TO BE FOUND IN ANCIENT PICTURES--SOME FORMULAS BY THE YOUNGER PLINY AND HIS CONTEMPORARY DIOSCORIDES--HOW THE GREEKS AND ROMANS KEPT THEIR PAPYRI FROM BREAKING--WHEN BLACK INK BEGAN TO FALL INTO DISUSE AND ITS CAUSE--THE ADOPTION OF THE STYLUS AND ITS ACCOMPANYING SHEETS OF LEAD, IVORY, METAL AND WOOD COATED WITH WAX--THE EFFORTS MADE TO RESUME THE USE OF SOME INK WHICH WOULD BIND TO PARCHMENT--WHY THERE ARE NO ORIGINAL MSS.

EXTANT BELONGING TO THE TIME OF CHRIST--THE INVENTION OF THE VITRIOLIC INKS--HUMPHREY'S BLUNDER IN LOCATING DATES OF EARLY GREEK MSS.--THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CITIES OF HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII--AWAKENING OF INTEREST AGAIN ABOUT THE EMPLOYMENT OF INKS--REDISCOVERIES OF SOME OF THE MORE REMOTE ANCIENT RECIPES--THE WRITERS IN GOLD AND SILVER--RECORDED INSTANCES OF ILLUMINATED MSS.--Pa.s.sAGE FROM THE BOOK OF JOB WRITTEN BY ST.

JEROME--DENIAL OF THE EMPLOYMENT OF TANNO- GALLATE OF IRON INK IN THE FOURTH CENTURY-- DESTRUCTION OF THE INSPIRED WRITINGS BY ORDER OF THE ROMAN SENATE--THE ECLIPSE OF CLa.s.sICAL LITERATURE AND DISMEMBERMENT OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE--POEM ON THE THOUSAND YEARS KNOWN AS THE DARK AGES WHICH FOLLOWED.

THEOPHRASTUS says that the papyrus books of the ancients were no other than rolls prepared in the following manner: Two leaves of the rush were plastered together, usually with the mud of the Nile, in such a fas.h.i.+on that the fibres of one leaf should cross the fibres of the other at right angles; the ends of each being then cut off, a square leaf was obtained, equally capable of resisting fracture when pulled or taken hold of in any direction. In this form the papyri were exported in great quant.i.ties. In order to form these single leaves into the "scapi," or rolls of the ancients, about twenty were glued together end to end. The writing was then executed in parallel columns a few inches wide, running transversely to the length of the scroll. To each end of the scrolls were attached round staves similar to those we use for maps. To these staves, strings, known as "umbilici," were attached, to the ends of which bullae or weights were fixed.

The books when rolled up, were bound up with these umbilici, and were generally kept in cylindrical boxes or capsae, a term from which the Mediaeval "capsula,"

or book-cover was derived. "The mode in which the students held the rolls in order to read from them is well shown in a painting in the house of a surgeon at Pompeii. One of the staves, with the papyrus rolled round it, was held in each hand, at a distance apart equal to the width of one or more of the transverse columns of writing. As soon as the eye was carried down to the bottom of a column, one hand rolled up and the other unrolled sufficient of the papyrus to bring a fresh column opposite to the reader's eye, and so on until the whole was wound round one of the staves, when, of course, the student had arrived at the end of his book."

Eumenes, king of Pergamus, being unable to procure the Egyptian papyrus, through the jealousy of one of the Ptolemies, who occupied himself in forming a rival library to the one which subsequently became so celebrated at Pergamus, introduced the use of Parchment properly "dressed" for taking ink and pigments and hence the derivation of the word "pergamena" as applied to parchment or vellum, the former substance being the prepared skin of sheep, and the latter of calves.

The sheets of parchment were joined end to end, as the sheets of papyrus had been, and when written upon, on one side only, and in narrow columns across the breadth of the scroll, were rolled up around staves and bound with strings, to which seals of wax were occasionally attached, in place of the more common leaden bullae.

The custom of dividing wax, ivory, wood and metal MSS. into pages and in this way into book form is said by Suetonius to have been introduced by Julius Caesar, whose letters to the Senate were so made up, and after whose time the practice became usual for all doc.u.ments either addressed to, or issuing from that body, or to or from the Emperors. As that form subsequently crept into general use, the books were known as "codices;" and hence the ordinary term as applied to ma.n.u.script volumes.

All cla.s.ses of "books," the reeds for writing in them, the inkstands, and the "capsae" or "scrinia,"

the boxes in which the "scapi" or rolls were kept, are minutely portrayed in ancient wall-paintings and ivory diptychs (double tablets), and which may belong to a period near the beginning of the Christian era.

Pliny and Dioscorides have given the formulas for the writing inks used by the Greek and Roman scribes immediately before and during their time. Pliny declares that the ink of the bookmakers was made of soot, charcoal and gum, although he does not state what fluid was employed to commingle them. He does, however, mention to an occasional use of some acid (vinegar) to give the ink a binding property on the papyrus.

Dioscorides, however, specifies the proportions of this "soot" ink. Another formula alluded to by the same author calls for a half ounce each of copperas (blue) and ox-glue, with half pound of smoke black made from burned resin. He adds, "is a good application in cases of gangrene and is useful in scalds, if a little thickened and employed as a salve." De Vinne speaks of this as a "crude" receipt which will enable one to form a correct opinion of the quality of scientific knowledge then applied to medicine and the mechanical arts; also that these mixtures which are more like shoe blacking than writing fluid were used with immaterial modifications by the scribes of the dark ages.

The old Greeks and Romans had no subst.i.tute for the papyrus, which was so brittle that it could not be folded or creased. It could not be bound up in books, nor could it be rolled up unsupported. It was secure only when it had been wound around a wooden or metal roller.

After the wholesale destruction of the libraries of ink-written MSS., the black inks began to fall into disuse; their value in respect to quality gradually deteriorated, caused by the displacement of gummy vehicles, and a consequent absence of any chance of union between the parchment or papyrus and the dry black particles, which could be "blown" or washed off. To employ any other kind of ink except one of natural origin like the juice of berries which soon disappeared, was forbidden by prevailing religious customs. Such conditions naturally merged into others, in the shape of "ink" subst.i.tutes for writing; the stylus, with its accompanying sheets or tablets of ivory, wood, metal and wax came into popular vogue and so continued for many centuries, even after the employment of ink for writing purposes had been resumed.

Ovid, in his story of Caunus and Byblis, ill.u.s.trates the use of the tables (tablets), and he lived at the time of the birth of Christ, thus translated:

"Then fits her trembling hands to Write: One holds the Wax, the Style the other guides, Begins, doubts, writes, and at the Table chides; Notes, razes, changes oft, dislikes, approves, Throws all aside, resumes what she removes.

"The Wax thus filled with her successless wit, She Verses in the utmost margin writ."

He also makes reference to inks, in the pa.s.sage taken from his first elegy, "Ad Librum:"

"Nec te purpureo velent vaccinia succo; Non est conveniens luctibus ille color.

Nec t.i.tulus minio, nec cedro charta notetur.

Candida nec nigra cornua fronte geras."

which Davids translates as follows:

"TO HIS BOOK.

"Nor shall huckleberries stain (literally veil) thee with purple juice: That color is not becoming to lamentations.

Nor shall t.i.tle (or head-letter) be marked with vermillion, or paper with cedar, Thou shalt carry neither white nor black horns on thy forehead (or front, or frontispiece)."

The traditions handed down as of this era relating to the efforts to find some subst.i.tute for "Indian"

ink which would not only "bind" to parchment and vellum but also would be satisfactory to the priests, are more or less confirmed by the younger Pliny, and makes it safe to a.s.sume that several were invented and employed in writing, though possessing but little lasting qualities. Their use and natural disappearance is perhaps the real cause of the fact that there are no original MSS. extant dating as of or belonging to the time immediately preceding or following the birth of Christ, or indeed until long after his death.

There is some authority though for the statement that at this time two vitriolic substances were used in the preparation of black ink,--a slime or sediment (Salsugo) and a yellow vitriolic earth (Misy). This last-named mineral, is unquestionably the same natural chemical mentioned by writers, which about the end of the first century was designated "kalkanthum" or "chalkanthum" and possessed not only the appearance of, but the virtues of what we know as blue copperas or sulphate of copper. It continued in use as long as men were unacquainted with the art of lixiviating salt, or, in other words, as long as they had no vitriol manufactories. Commingled with lampblack, bitumen or like black substances in gummy water, it was acceptable to the priests for ritualistic writings and was in general vogue for several centuries thereafter under the name of (blue) "vitriolic"

ink, notwithstanding the fact that there could not be any lasting chemical union between such materials.