Page:EB1911 - Volume 20.djvu/609

GREEK PAPYRI] hand, even very ancient examples have been post-dated in an incredible manner.

Down to the time of the introduction of printing, writing ran in two lines—the natural cursive, and the set book-hand which was evolved from it. Cursive writing was essential for the ordinary business of life. MSS. written in the set book-hand filled the place now occupied by printed books, the writing being regular, the lines generally kept even by ruling or other guides, and the texts provided with regular margins. The set book-hand disappeared before the printing press; cursive writing necessarily remains.

In the study of handwriting it is difficult to exaggerate the great and enduring influence which the character of the material employed for receiving the script has had upon the formation of the written letters. The original use of clay by the Babylonians and Assyrians as their writing material was the primary cause of the wedge-shaped symbols which were produced by the natural process of puncturing so stiff and sluggish a substance. The clinging waxen surface of the tablets of the Greeks and Romans superinduced a broken and disconnected style of writing. The comparatively frail surface of papyrus called for a light touch and slenderly built characters. With the introduction of the smooth and hard-surfaced vellum, firmer and heavier letters, with marked contrasts of fine and thick strokes, became possible, and thence became the fashion. In the task which lies before us we shall have to deal mainly with MSS. written on the two very different materials, papyrus and vellum, and we shall find to how great an extent the general character and the detailed development of Greek and Latin writing, particularly for literary purposes, has been affected by the two materials.

The history of the ancient papyrus roll and of its successor, the medieval vellum codex, and the particulars of the mechanical arrangement of texts and other details appertaining to the evolution of the written book are described in the article . In the present article our attention is confined to the history of the script.

The papyrus period of our subject, as regards literary works, ranges generally from the end of the 4th century to the 4th century of our era, when the papyrus roll as the vehicle for literature was superseded by the vellum codex. The vellum period extends from the 4th century to the 15th century, when the rise of the art of printing was the doom of the written book. Yet it must not be imagined that there is a hard and fast line separating the papyrus period from the vellum period. In the early centuries of our era there was a transitional period when the use of the two materials overlapped. The employment of vellum for literary purposes began tentatively quite at the beginning of that era; nor did the use of papyrus absolutely cease with the 4th century. But that century marks definitely the period when the change had become generally accepted.

In the case of non-literary documents, written in cursive hands, the papyrus period covers a still wider field. These documents range from the 3rd century down to the 7th century, and a certain number of examples even extend into the 8th century. The survival of cursive papyrus documents in large numbers is due to the fact that they are chiefly written in Egypt, where papyrus was the common writing material and where climatic conditions ensured their preservation. On the other hand, early cursive documents on vellum are scarce, for it must be borne in mind that, even allowing for the loss of such documents attributable to the perishable nature of that material in the humid climates of Europe, papyrus and waxen tablets were also the usual writing materials of the Greeks and Romans. The importance of the survival of Greek cursive papyri to so late a period is very great, for it enables us to trace the development of the Greek literary minuscule handwriting of the 9th century in a direct line from the cursive script of the papyri centuries earlier.

In no branch of our subject has so great a development been

effected since about 1875 as in that of the palaeography of Greek papyri. Before that time our knowledge was very limited. The material was comparatively meagre; and, though its increase was certainly only a matter of time, yet the most sanguine would hardly have dared to foretell the remarkable abundance of documents which the excavations of a few years would bring to light.

The history of Greek writing on papyrus can now be followed with more or less fullness of material for a thousand years. Actual dated examples range from the late years of the 4th century to the 7th century  We have a fair knowledge of the leading features of the writing of the 3rd and 2nd centuries For the first four centuries of the Christian era there is a fairly continuous series of documents; of the 5th century only a few examples have as yet been recovered, but there is an abundance of material for the 6th and early 7th centuries. Thus it will be seen that, while for some periods we may be justified in drawing certain conclusions and laying down certain rules, for others we are still in an imperfect state of knowledge. But our knowledge will no doubt almost yearly become more exact, as fresh material is brought to light from the excavations which are now continually proceeding; and those periods in which the lack of papyri breaks the chain of evidence will sooner or later be as fully represented as the rest. The material certainly lies buried in the sands; it is our misfortune that the exact sites have not yet been struck.
 * a less perfect acquaintance with those of the 1st century

The first discovery of Greek papyri was made in Europe in 1752, when the excavations on the site of Herculaneum yielded a number of charred rolls, which proved to be of a literary character. All subsequent discoveries we owe to Egypt; and it is to be observed that the papyri which are found in that country have come down to us under different conditions. Some, generally of a literary nature, were carefully deposited with the bodies of their owners in the tomb with the express intention of being preserved; hence such MSS. in several instances have come to our hands in fairly perfect condition. On the other hand, by far the larger number of those recently brought to light have been found on the sites of towns and villages, particularly in the district of the Fayûm, where they had been either accidentally lost or purposely thrown aside as of no value, or had even been used up as material for other purposes besides their original one. These are consequently for the most part in an imperfect and even fragmentary condition, although not a few of them have proved to be of the highest palaeographical and literary importance.

The date of the first find of Greek papyri in Egypt was in 1778, when some forty or fifty rolls were discovered by some native diggers, who, however, kept only one of them. After this scarcely anything appeared until the year 1820, when was found on the site of the Serapeum at Memphis, as it was reported, a group of documents of the 2nd century Then followed a fruitful period, when several important literary papyri were secured: in 1821, the Bankes Homer, containing the last book of the Iliad; in 1847, the roll containing the Lycophron and other orations of Hypereides; in 1849 and 1850, the Harris Homer, bk. xviii. of the Iliad, and a MS. of bks. ii.–iv.; and, in 1856, the Funeral Oration of Hypereides.

But the great bulk of the Greek papyri from Egypt is the result of excavations undertaken during the last quarter of the 19th century and down to the present day. Within this time four very important discoveries of documents in large quantities have taken place. In 1877 a great mass of papyri was found on the site of Arsinoë in the Fayûm, being chiefly of a non-literary nature, and unfortunately in a very fragmentary state; they are also late in date, being of the Byzantine period. The greater number passed into the possession of the Archduke Rainer, and are now at Vienna; the rest are divided between London, Oxford, Paris and Berlin. After an interval this find was followed by the recovery in 1892, in the same neighbourhood, and chiefly on the site of a village named Socnopaei Nesus, of an extensive series of documents of the Roman period,