The mention of a particular water has caused trouble to the commentators. Some have supposed that certain chemical proper ties of which the Nile water was possessed acted as a glue or cement to cause the two layers to adhere ; others, with more rea son, that glutinous matter contained in the material itself was solved by the action of water, whether from the Nile or any other source ; and others again read in Pliny's words an implication that a paste was actually used. The sheet was finally hammered and dried in the sun. Any roughness was levelled by polishing with ivory or a smooth shell. But the material was also subject to other defects, such as moisture lurking between the layers, which might be detected by strokes of the mallet ; spots or stains ; and spongy strips (taeniae), in which the ink would run and spoil the sheet. When such faults occurred, the papyrus must be re-made. To form a roll the several sheets were joined together with paste (glue being too hard), but not more than twenty sheets in a roll (scapus). As, however, there are still extant rolls consisting of more than the prescribed number of sheets, either the reading of vicenae is cor rupt, or the number was not constant in all times. The scapus seems to have been a standard length of papyrus, as sold by the stationers. The best sheet formed the first or outside sheet of the roll, and the others were joined on in order of quality, so that the worst sheets were in the centre of the roll.
The different kinds of papyrus writing material and their dimen sions are also enumerated by Pliny. The best quality, formed from the middle, and broadest strips of the plant, was originally named hieratica, but afterwards, in flattery of the emperor Au gustus, it was called, after him, Augusta; and the charta Livia, or second quality, was so named in honour of his wife. The hieratica thus descended to the third rank. The first two were 13 digiti, or about in. in width; the hieratica, II digiti or 8 in. Next came the charta amphitheatrica, named after the principal place of its manufacture, the amphitheatre of Alexandria, of 9 digiti or 61 in. wide. The charta Fanniana appears to have been a kind of papyrus worked up from the amphitheatrica, which by flattening and other methods was increased in width by an inch, in the factory of a certain Fannius at Rome. The Saitica, which took its name from the city of Sais, and was probably of 8 digiti or 5i in., was of a common description. The Taeniotica, named apparently from the place of its manufacture, a tongue of land (ratvia) near Alex andria, was sold by weight, and was of uncertain width, perhaps from 4i to 5 in. And lastly there was the common packing-paper, the charta emporetica, of 6 digiti or 41 in. Isidore (Etymol. vi. io) mentions yet another kind, the Corneliana, first made under C. Cornelius Gallus, prefect of Egypt, which, however, may have been the same as the amphitheatrica or Fanniana. In the reign of Claudius another kind was introduced and entitled Claudia. The charta Augusta was, from its fineness and porous nature, ill suited for literary use ; it was accordingly reserved for correspondence only, and for other purposes was replaced by the new paper.
The charta Claudia was made from a composition of the first and second qualities, the Augusta and the Livia, a layer of the former being backed with one of the latter; and the sheet was increased to nearly a foot in width. The largest of all, however, was the macrocollon, probably of good quality and equal to the hieratic, and a cubit or nearly 18 in. wide. It was used by Cicero (Ep. ad Attic. xiii. 25, xvi. 3). The width, however, proved in convenient and the broad sheet was liable to injury by tearing. An examination of extant papyri has had the result of proving that sheets of large size, measuring about 12 in., were sometimes used. A large class of examples run to io in., others to 8 in., while the smaller sizes range from 4 to 6 in. It has been observed that the width of extant rolls of papyrus does not tally satisfactorily with Pliny's measurements. It is possible that the breadth (not the height) of the individual rolls was referred to.
The first sheet of a roll was named rpc.or6KoXXov; the last, kaxaroK6XXLov. Under the Romans, the former bore the name of the comes largitionum, who had control of the manufacture, with the date and name of place. It was the practice to cut away the portion thus marked; but in case of legal documents this mutilation was forbidden by the laws of Justinian. On the Arab conquest of Egypt in the 7th century, the manufacture was continued, and the protocols were marked at first, as it appears, with inscriptions in both Greek and Arabic, and later in the latter language alone. There are several examples extant, some being in the British Museum, ranging between the years 67o and 715. The Arab in scriptions are accompanied by curious scrawls on each side, which may be imitated from words used in the Latin inscriptions of the Roman period.
Papyrus was cultivated and manufactured for writing material by the Arabs in Egypt down to the time when the growing industry of paper in the 8th and 9th centuries rendered it no longer a necessity. (See PAPER.) It seems to have entirely given place to paper in the loth century. Varro's statement, repeated by Pliny, that papyrus was first made in Alexander's time, should probably be taken to mean that its manufacture, which till then had been a government monopoly, was relieved from all restrictions. It is not probable, however, that it was ever manufactured from the native plant anywhere but in Egypt. At Rome there was cer tainly some kind of industry in papyrus, the charta Fanniana, al ready referred to, being an instance in illustration. But it seems probable that this industry was confined to the re-making of material imported into Italy, as in the case of the charta Claudia. This second manufacture, however, is thought to have been detri mental to the papyrus, as it would then have been in a dried condi tion requiring artificial aids, such as a more liberal use of gum or paste, in the process. The more brittle condition of the Latin papyri found at Herculaneum has been instanced as the evil result of this re-making of the material.