Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/170

 154 PAL^OGKAPHY Biblical commentary (Exempla, tab. 3). Other examples, of which good facsimiles may be consulted are the Corbie MS. of Canons, at Paris (Exempla, tabb. 41, 42), and the St Severianusat Milan (Pal. Soc., pis. 161, 162), of the 6th century ; and the Cologne MS. of Canons (Exempla, tab. 44), and the Josephus (Pal. Soc., pi. 138) and St Ambrose (Pal. Soc, pi. 137) of Milan, of the 6th or 7th century. cun NI oNcidfuulloof n m cor offers ors Latiu Half-Uncial, 509-510 A. n. (episcopi manum innocente[m] [lin]guam non ad falsiloquium coeg[isti] nation em anterioris sententi[ae] ) The influence which this style of hand had upon the minuscule book-writing of the 7th and 8th centuries may be traced in greater or less degree in the Continental MSS. of that period. It appears at a comparatively late time with much of its old form in the Berlin MS. of Gregory s Moralia (Arndt, Sckrifttaf., 5), attributed to the 8th century. After the Caroline reform an ornamental kind of half-uncial, evidently copied from this hand, was used for particular purposes in minuscule MSS. (Pal. Soc., pi. 239). Cursive. For examples of Roman cursive writing we are able to go as far back as the 1st century of the Christian era. During the excavations at Pompeii in July 1875, there was discovered in the house of L. Csecilius Jucundus a box containing as many as one hundred and twenty-seven libelli or waxen tablets consisting of per- scriptiones and other deeds connected with sales by auction and receipts for payment of taxes (Atti della R. Accademia del Lincei, ser. ii., vol. iii. pt. 3, 1875-76, pp. 150-230). Other waxen tablets, twenty-five in number, some bearing dates ranging from 131 to 167 A.T&amp;gt;., were found in the ancient mining works in the neighbourhood of Alburnus Major (the modern Verespatak) in Dacia, at different times between 1786 and 1855. In 1840 Massmann published such as had at that time been discovered (Libellus aurarius) ; and the whole collection is given in the Corpus Inscr. Lat. of the Berlin Academy, vol. iii. pt. 2 (1873). Although the waxen tablets prepared for the reception of legal instruments followed the system of the bronze diptychs on which were inscribed the privileges granted to veteran soldiers under the empire, in so far that they contained the deed witnessed and sealed, and also its duplicate copy open to inspection, yet they differed in being generally triptychs. Wood was a cheaper material than bronze, and the third tablet gave protection to the seals. These triptychs then were libelli of three tablets of wood, cleft from one piece and fastened together, like the leaves of a book, by strings passed through two holes pierced near the edge. In the case of the Pompeian libelli one side of each tablet was sunk within a frame, and the hollowed space was coated with wax, in such a way that, of the six sides or pages, Nos. 2, 3, 5 were waxen, while 1, 4, 6 presented a wooden surface. The first and sixth sides were not used, but served as the outside of the libellus ; on 2 and 3 was inscribed the deed, and on 4 the names of the witnesses were written in ink and their seals were added in a groove cut down the centre, the deed being closed against inspection by means of a string of twisted threads which passed through two holes, one at the head and the other at the foot of the groove, round the two tablets and under the wax of the seals which thus secured it. An abstract or copy of the deed was written on the fifth page. The arrangement of the Dacian libelli differed in this respect that page 4 was also waxen, and that the copy of the deed was commenced on that page in the space on the left of the groove, that on the right being reserved for the names of the witnesses. In one instance (Corp. Inscr. Lat., iii. 2, p. 938) the seals and fastening threads still remain. In these tablets some of the writing contains more capital letters, and is not so cursive as the rest ; but here it is the cursive hand which has to be considered. This writing in both the Pompeian and Dacian tablets is very similar, differing only slightly in some of the letters ; and both resemble the more cursive graffiti found on the walls of Pompeii. Roman Cursive (Graffiti), 1st century, (censio est nam noster magna liabet pecuni[am]). Roman Cursive (Dacian Tablet), 167 A. D. (descriptum et recognitum factum ex Ubello erat Albfurno] maiori ad statione Resculi in quo scri id quod i[nfra] sfcriptum] est) It is of particular importance to notice that, when examining the alphabet of this early Roman cursive hand, we find (as we found in the early Greek cursive) the first beginnings of minuscule writing. The slurring of the strokes, whereby the bows of the capital letters were lost and their more exact forms modified, led the way to the gradual development of the small letters, which, as will be afterwards seen, must have formed a distinct alphabet at an early time. With regard to the particular forms of letters employed in the waxen tablets, compare the tables in Corp. Inscr. Lat., vols. iii., iv. The letter A is formed by a main stroke supporting an oblique cross-stroke above it ; similarly P and li, having lost their bows, and F throwing away its bar, are formed by two strokes placed in relatively the same positions but varying in their curves. The main stroke of B dwindles to a slight curve, and the two bows are transformed into a long bent stroke so that the letter takes the shape of a stilted a or of a d. The D is chiefly like the uncial o ; the E is generally represented by the old form j| found in inscriptions and in the Faliscan alphabet. In the modified form of G the first outline of the flat-headed g of later times appears; H, by losing half its second upright limb in the haste of writing, comes near to being the small h. In the Pompeian tablets M has the four-stroke form ||||, as in the graffiti ; in the Dacian tablets it is a rustic capital, sometimes almost an uncial 00. The hastily written is formed by two strokes, almost like a. As to the general character of the writing, it is close and compressed, and has an inclination to the left. There is also much combination or linking together of letters (Corp. Inscr. Lat., iii. tab. A). These peculiarities may, in some measure, be ascribed to the material and to the confined space at the command of the writer. The same character of cursive writing has also been found on a few tiles and potsherds inscribed with