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paper or parchment. It is no use to in- | the Greeks déλrol and nívakes. Each would dulge in mere assertion, and say that represent a page; and for the purposes "papyrus, with the Egyptian trade open of a note-book, or of transmission under now for over a century and a half, must seal, they could easily have been used like have been cheap and plentiful in Greece the Roman pugillares. That the surface and Sicily."* Why, then, is it never was covered with a thin layer of wax is mentioned as a writing-material? There probable from many considerations. In is indeed one verse in Aeschylus † in the first place it is a material very cheap, which he speaks of certain commands very plentiful, very easily impressed or not being "sealed down in folds of by- obliterated,* and very durable. We have blus," after the manner of an official mis- a vast number of ancient deeds, and the sive, but delivered viva voce; but the waxen seals still appended to them remain genuineness of the verse cannot, even for in good preservation after the lapse of metrical reasons, be trusted, and the con- six or seven centuries. There are incitext tends to show it is a later interpola- dental notices of these waxed tablets betion. Anyhow, it is evident, from the ing used in the Athenian law-courts for mention of sealing, that letter-writing, and indictments and other purposes. So in not the copying of literature, must be the "Clouds," there is a joke about meltalluded to. Still the line is one of the ing the letters of a writ in the sunshine,t greatest importance to the determination and in the "Wasps" we read of an old of this question; for, if papyrus was used juryman having his finger-nail full of wax for letter-writing, it could also have been from scratching a line on a tablet. It is used for copying books. therefore highly probable that a stiff and not a flexible material was at first used for writing; in other words, the schoolslate preceded the use of the copy-book; and the "blackboard" of the lecturer is still a witness to the ancient custom. It is the origin too of the diptychs and triptychs that came into use over the altars of churches, not, at first, for paintings, but for lists of written names.

Herodotus does indeed tell us that the Ionians used prepared skins for writing on, and this is probably the origin of parchment. Yet no notice of it anywhere occurs beyond the brief statement S he makes to this effect. There is nowhere the slightest indication that either papyrus or parchment was ever used for the transcription of literary works.

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What, then, did they use? For, even if Homer and Hesiod and the rhapsodists who represented them, made no written copies (which, in itself, they either may or may not have done), it cannot be doubted that the plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles were written down from the first; and being so written, they must have been preserved (and all the more carefully because they were unique autograph copies) either in temples or treasaries, or among the State archives, till the times of the Alexandrine school of learning, when for the first time the use of papyrus and the practice of transcription became common; and from them have come down to us the copies we still possess in a more or less corrupt state of the texts.

Nothing could be more convenient than light strips or tablets of wood, called by

Dr. Hayman in the Journal of Philology, viii., p.

1 Suppl. 947. Book v. 58. Corrupted from Pergamena, from its manufacture & Pergamos in Asia Minor.

Diogenes Laertius tells us that Xenophon stole and published (as he also himself continued) the "Hisry of Thucydides." This anecdote, if true, shows that the book had not been published or circulated (Lart ii. 6, § 13).

LIVING AGE.

The examples of Egypt and Assyria, not to mention some other countries, as Lycia, Phoenicia, and Etruria, tend to show that the earliest form of writing was scratching stone or clay, a process essentially different from the use of the pen. The form of the arrow-headed character is thought to show that clay cylinders, impressed by an angular piece of wood or metal, were used before the inscriptions were cut in stone, which must have been very early, though not so early as Egyptian hieroglyphics on granite. Assyrian inscriptions on slabs considerably exceed one thousand years B.C. The Greeks too made inscriptions on stone pillars (ornλa) as early as Solon or Pisistratus, perhaps, - very short and badly executed, so far as we can now judge from the ungainly shapes of the letters and the non-division of words. The early "lettering" of the Greek vases, of about the same period,

The word used by Euripides for altering words in a δέλτος is συγχεῖν, implying melting the surface, or obliterating words with the blunt end of a stilus. Iph. The prepared wax was called μion or pá20a (Jul. Pollux, Onom. x. 58). See Herod. vii. 239.

Aul. 37.

f Aristoph. Nub. 772,- a passage very remarkable for the early mention of a glass lens and its use for drawing the sun's rays into a focus.

O

There is hardly any allusion to " books earlier than the writings of Plato. And is very remarkable that they are spoke of as a novelty and a development in th "Frogs of Aristophanes (B.C. 404 where it is said "that every one no has a book and learns wisdom out of it."

belongs to the department of painting | same diameter, so that a strip of bark o rather than of writing proper; and it skin wrapped round, and written hardly extended, for two or three centu- lengthwise, would be intelligible only b ries, beyond single words. As a rule, precisely the same arrangement of th ancient sites, eg. those called "Cyclo- lines, since the order of the words woul pian," are wholly destitute of inscrip- become disjointed on a stick of any othe tions; we might as well expect to find diameter. letters on a block at Stonehenge as on a polygonal or squared stone at Mycenae. Even the scratches on the clay balls (whorls) found by Schliemann at Hissarlik have no claim at all to be considered as writing. Nor have any Hebrew inscriptions of any antiquity (apart from the Moabitic stone,* with its Assyrian and Egyptian affinities of form and material) ever come to light in any of the explorations at Jerusalem or in Palestine. The sole exception to the absence of ancient writing other than that on stone, seems to be certain papyri found in Egyptian tombs, which are said to claim a very high antiquity.

But because the Egyptians had the papyrus and wrote upon it, it must not be assumed, as it too often is, contrary to all evidence, that the early Greeks used it too, and wrote copies of Homer upon it even in the time of Solon. A stonecutter with his chisel is a widely different person from a student with his pen. It is curious to find written words described as composed of "shapes" rather than of letters. Thus, in the "Theseus" of Euripides,† a countryman (illiterate, of course) describes the letters composing the name as so many combinations of Jines, circles, and zigzags, just as if the letter A were described to us by a country bumpkin as "two sticks set aslant with a bar across them." There was a legend that Palamedes "invented writing "in the time of the Trojan War; and in allusion to this we have a droll scene in Aristophanes, where Mnesilochus, a relative of Euripides, while in prison cuts a rude inscription on pieces of wood, and throws them out to inform his friends of his trouble.

The custom of sending written messages must have prevailed early; and we may safely place letter-writing before book-writing. The scytale was one of the earliest contrivances, and it was a very ingenious one. Two persons privately kept staves or batons of precisely the

* I observe that the supposed date of this stone, B.C. 896, is now seriously questioned, and the date placed as late as B.C. 260 (Athenæum, Dec. 6, 1879). † Frag. 385, Dind.

Athenaeus, who quotes this in Book x., gives other examples of similar descriptive accounts given by those who could not read.

We must next inquire how far the pre ceding remarks agree with the opinion ordinarily held by scholars. And thi inquiry will show, I think, how erroneous or, at least, how baseless, are many of th current opinions on the subject.

Mr. Grote writes as follows: "Th interval between Archilochus and Solo (660-580 B.C.) seems, as has been r marked in my former volume, to be th period in which writing first came to b applied to Greek poems, - to the H meric poems among the number; an shortly after the end of that period, cor mences the era of compositions witho metre or prose. The philosopher Pher cydes of Syros, about 550 B.C., is calle by some the earliest prose-writer. B no prose-writer for a considerable tin afterwards acquired any celebrity, seemingly none earlier than Hecataeus Miletus, about 510-490 B.C.,-prose bein a subordinate and ineffective species composition, not always even perspicuou and requiring no small practice befo the power was acquired of rendering interesting." He adds (p. 25), "T acquisition of prose-writing, commenci: as it does about the age of Peisistratu is not less remarkable as an evidence past, than as a means of future, pro ress."

In accordance with the view of an ear written literature here laid down (as if were a plain and acknowledged matter fact) we read, in the dictionaries of bic raphy, of Cadmus of Miletus, Char of Lampsacus, Pherecydes, Hecatae Acusilaus, Hellanicus, all of whom a stated to have lived earlier than B.C. 5 When, however, we look into the autho ties for these alleged composers of w ten prose works, we find only Stral Plutarch, Diodorus, Pliny, and others w lived six centuries later, appealed to

* V. 1113:

↑ Hist. of Greece, Part ii., chap. xxix. (vol. iv., p.

proof of the assertion. With the exception of Acusilaus who is once quoted by Plato, Hellanicus once by Thucydides, and Hecataeus three or four times by Herodotus, we find no reason to believe that their written works, if they then existed, were known to or made use of by the historians of the very next century. Therefore, if their works really existed in MS., they were either unknown or inaccessible to the writers who next succeeded them, or these latter were (which is very improbable) so careless that they did not consult works known to have been written on the very subjects they undertook to record. We must fall back on the supposition, that if there really were written copies, either the authors of them had = scarcely any literary reputation, or they reserved their own properties to be used for "readings" or as repertories from which oral instruction might be obtained, but not either for lending or for circulation. And such a view is, without doubt, in itself neither absurd nor impossible. It will make the limited existence of written literary works at least conceivable at that early period.

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droll stories of Aesop's were orally recited at the dinner-table. Hence he is called by Herodotus, in common with Hecataeus of Miletus, λOYOTTOLÒS, a story-maker." Dr. Hayman is not justified in saying that "prose-writer is undoubtedly the sense in which Herodotus applies 20уonoids to Hecataeus." We read in the "Phaedrus"† that Lysias was taunted with being a "speech-writer," hoyoypapos, the alleged reason being that "the more influential men in the states feel scruple at writing their essays or speeches, and so leaving records of themselves in writing, lest posterity should stigmatize them as Sophists." This also furnishes us with a reason for a repeated boast of Socrates, that he should leave behind him no offspring of his mind, viz. no books or written treatises. He appears to be satirizing a practice which was beginning to come in vogue.

There is certainly no proof at all that Herodotus refers to Hecataeus as a writer. It is perfectly possible, and on the whole highly probable, that the stories, the histories, or the philosophic teachings of the earlier Greeks were a purely oral But the difficulty does not stop here. literature. They were put into writing We find in the early Greek writers, e.g. in eventually from the dictation of their Herodotus, mention made of three dis- pupils and followers; and thus it happens tinct kinds of literary persons, those that in after times the writings of Hera"versed in history" (called λóyo), "com- clitus, Anaximander, Thales, and the posers of stories," and "writers of early philosophers generally as well as stories." The last term is the latest of those of the historians preceding Herod. the three, a fact significant in itself. otus, are referred to. There is not the There must have been separate profes- slightest ground for believing, while sions corresponding to these several there are many grounds for doubting, terms. The oldest are the 2óyio, whom we find mentioned in Pindar along with the "bards" (doidoì), and several times, eg. in the opening chapter, by Herodotus. We cannot doubt that they were a class of men who were authorities in history, such as 66 history" then was, i.e. in the main mere mythology. Oral anecdotes of marvellous exploits or adventures, clanstories of prowess, and all that we express by the terms tales and anecdotes, were called óyou by the early Greeks. Such stories were told by Patroclus to amuse the wounded Eurypylus in his tent, while soothing the pain of his wound.f And we know from Aristophanes that

la i 77 he expressly speaks of the memory of these men, a fact that alone proves the absence of ching from books. They probably consulted such riptions as existed, and made themselves acquainted oracles, records of temples and prytanea (town), and they may have made written notes of them. Santing even this as possible or probable, we are still far from the era of a written literature in circulation. ↑ Iliad xxi.

Vesp. 1258

that there was any written Iliad and Odyssey till the age of "books," which is that of Plato. Hence, to suppose that such long poems could have come down to us, by oral recitation alone, from a period five or six centuries earlier than that, and unmixed with the countless verses which in the times of the tragic poets composed the "tale of Troy," is nothing less than a literary delusion, cherished because it is popular, but opposed to every principle of fair logical inference from facts.

Books were no sooner introduced than they became both popular and cheap. Treatises on eloquence, as those by Tisias and Corax mentioned in the " Phaedrus," §

Thus we see this great writer, impressed with the deficiency of any authentic history, either obliged or contented to fall back on inferences, memory, hearsay.* If he had known of the large amount of Spartan traditions recorded in the sixth book of Herodotus, he could hardly have used the language he employs in i. ch. 9, "Now those affirm, who have received the clearest accounts about the Peloponnesus by memory from their predecessors," etc.

the stories of Aesop, and the philosophi- | ments as made with sufficient certainty cal dogmas of Anaxagoras,* could be considering the length of time that has bought at Athens in the time of Plato for elapsed." a very small sum. But Thucydides, with the exception of a single reference by name to the "Attic History" of Hellanicus, and Herodotus, who quotes only the statements of Hecataeus in three or four passages (and both writers in evident disparagement of their authorities), are unable to appeal to any current written literature. Thucydides is evidently glancing at Hellanicus when he alludes (i. 21) to "writers of stories who compose rather to please the ear than with a view to truth." He does not seem to have known Herodotus at all; his appeal is only to hearsay and memory. The following passages in the introduction to his history are well deserving of impartial consideration. It will be observed, that in his sketch of the early history of Greece from the time of the Trojan war, he adduces no single fact on the authority of any one except " Homer," and he nowhere shows the least consciousness that the Persian wars and passages in the early history of Sparta had been written by Herodotus. Thus he says (i. I. § 2), "The events before them (viz. before the Peloponnesian and the Persian wars), and those yet earlier, it was impossible to make out clearly through the length of time." Again (ch. 9, § 2), "Such, according to my research, is the history of early Greece, though it is difficult to put full trust in it by all the chain of evidence I could collect, because men receive from each other hearsay accounts of the past, even when their own country is concerned, without any more inquiry than if it were

not."

Many other matters, even contemporary events, and not beginning to be forgotten through time, the other Hellenic peoples have a wrong notion about" (ib. § 4).

"Still, from the evidences I have mentioned, one would not be far wrong in accepting as facts what I have mentioned, that is, if he does not trust the exaggerations of poets nor the attractive rather than truthful narratives of story-writers.† which have become little better than fables through time, but takes my state

* Plat. Apol. p. 26. E; Phaedo, p. 97. C. Eupolis in Meineke's Fragm. Com. Gr., vol. ii., p. 550.

† He undoubtedly means Hellanicus by the indefinite Aoyoypápol. He is comparing his own narrative of facts, as carefully observed and recorded by himself, with the only existing Attic history that was known, by recitations from it, to his countrymen.

Herodotus himself commences his history with these notable words. "This is the setting forth" (literally, "a showing to the eye") "of the history (or research of Herodotus, in order that events which have taken place may not vanish from mankind by time,t and that deeds great and worthy of admiration may not come to be without renown,' "i.e. lose their credit, as they would in the course o ages if they were narrated only to presen hearers, and not recorded in writing These are precisely the words of an au thor who is congratulating himself or having achieved something more than ha yet been done for the recording of his tory. The only meaning we can fairl attach to his phrase, "become evanes cent by time," is this, that he can fi them in writing, and so make them pe nanent. But if others had done so, an if Hecataeus "the story-maker" had le. a written work, to which Herodotus ha access, how very much out of place th declaration on his part would have been Now, though Hecataeus is referred to few times, there is nowhere the sligh est reference to any written book of hi On the whole then, it is probable, or no improbable, that tales told orally (after fashion analogous to the rhapsodists) c the authority of Hecataeus and Aesc and other composers or compilers, we the only prose literature current in tl time of Herodotus. And thus we unde stand why Thucydides says more tha once that his work was not meant "tickle the ear."

There is a passage in Pindar (Olym vi. 90) on which, as bearing on this su ject, a discussion was raised by me sor ode, with instructions for the perfor years ago. A messenger who conveys