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βύβλων. Byblus or papyrus, made from the marsh-plant Byblus (cf. ii. 92. 5 n.), had been in use in Egypt from the earliest times (circ. 3500 B. C.). It cannot have been introduced into Greece till the opening of Egypt to foreigners by Psammetichus (ii. 154 n.) circ. 650 B. C., but was clearly in common use in the days of H., and was employed for keeping accounts when the Erechtheum was being rebuilt 407 B. C.; cf. Maunde Thompson, Palaeography, ch. iii; Kenyon, Papyri, ch. ii. It continued to be in ordinary use throughout classical times, and was grown and used in Sicily as late as 1300 A. D.

διφθέραι: leather rolls were used by the Egyptians occasionally, by the Jews, and by the Persians. Diodorus (ii. 32) mentions βασιλικαὶ διφθέραι followed by Ctesias. The manufacture of parchment or vellum is a later improvement ascribed by Varro (Plin. N. H. xiii. 68) to Eumenes II of Pergamum (197-158 B. C.). No doubt Pergamum was the centre of the trade, but parchment superseded papyrus very slowly, its use for books is mainly late Roman, Byzantine, and mediaeval.

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