After the wholesale destruction of the libraries of ink-written MSS., the black inks began to fall into disuse; their value in respect to quality gradually deteriorated, caused by the displacement of gummy vehicles, and a consequent absence of any chance of union between the parchment or papyrus and the dry black particles, which could be "blown" or washed off. To employ any other kind of ink except one of natural origin like the juice of berries which soon disappeared, was forbidden by prevailing religious customs. Such conditions naturally merged into others, in the shape of "ink" substitutes for writing; the stylus, with its accompanying sheets or tablets of ivory, wood, metal and wax came into popular vogue and so continued for many centuries, even after the employment of ink for writing purposes had been resumed. Ovid, in his story of Caunus and Byblis, illustrates the use of the tables (tablets), and he lived at the time of the birth of Christ, thus translated: "Then fits her trembling hands to Write: One holds the Wax, the Style the other guides, Begins, doubts, writes, and at the Table chides; Notes, razes, changes oft, dislikes, approves, Throws all aside, resumes what she removes. * * * * * * * * "The Wax thus filled with her successless wit, She Verses in the utmost margin writ." He also makes reference to inks, in the passage taken from his first elegy, "Ad Librum:" "Nec te purpureo velent vaccinia succo; Non est conveniens luctibus ille color. Nec titulus minio, nec cedro charta notetur. Candida nec nigra cornua fronte geras." which Davids translates as follows: "TO HIS BOOK. "Nor shall huckleberries stain (literally veil) thee with purple juice: That color is not becoming to lamentations. Nor shall title (or head-letter) be marked with vermillion, or paper with cedar, Thou shalt carry neither white nor black horns on thy forehead (or front, or frontispiece)." The traditions handed down as of this era relating to the efforts to find some substitute for "Indian" ink which would not only "bind" to parchment and vellum but also would be satisfactory to the priests, are more or less confirmed by the younger Pliny, and makes it safe to assume that several were invented and employed in writing, though possessing but little lasting qualities. Their use and natural disappearance is perhaps the real cause of the fact that there are no original MSS. extant dating as of or belonging to the time immediately preceding or following the birth of Christ, or indeed until long after his death.