_Tablets on coins and gems._ Representations of these folding tablets occur frequently both in Greek and in Roman art, as, for example on various Sicilian coins, where the artist's name is placed in minute letters on a double tablet, which in some cases, as on a _tetradrachm_ of Himera, is held open by a flying figure of Victory. A gem of about 400 B.C., a large scarabaeoid in chalcedony, recently acquired by the British Museum, is engraved with a seated figure of a lady holding a book consisting of four leaves; she is writing lengthwise on one leaf, while the other three hang down from their hinge. Some of the beautiful terra-cotta statuettes from the tombs of the Boeotian Tanagra represent a girl reading from a somewhat similar double folding tablet. On Greek vases and in Roman mural paintings the _pugillares_ are frequently shown, though the roll form of manuscript is on the whole more usual. _Tablets from tombs._ Some examples of these tablets have been found in a good state of preservation in Graeco-Egyptian tombs and during recent excavations in Pompeii. Part of a poem in Greek written in large uncial characters is still legible on the single leaf of a pair of tablets from Memphis in Egypt, which is now in the British Museum. Though the coating of wax has nearly all perished, the sharp stilus has marked through on to the wood behind the wax, so that the writing is still legible. Its date appears to be shortly before the Christian era[4]. _Pompeian tablets._ Some well preserved _pugillares_ found in Pompeii are now in the Museum in Naples; the writing on them is of less interest, consisting merely of accounts of expenditure. Though the wood is blackened and the wax destroyed, the writing is still perfectly visible on the charred surface. A more costly form of _pugillares_ was made of bone or ivory[5]; in some cases the back of each ivory leaf was decorated with carving in low relief. _Consular diptychs._ A good many examples of these tablets, dating from the third to the sixth century A.D., still exist. These late highly decorated _pugillares_ are usually known as _Consular diptychs_, because, as a rule, they have on the carved back the name of a Consul, and very frequently a representation of the Consul in his _pulvinar_ or state box presiding over the Games in the Circus. It is supposed that these ivory diptychs were inscribed with complimentary addresses and were sent as presents to newly appointed officials in the time of the later Empire. _Many-leaved tablets._ In some cases the ancient writing-tablets consisted of three or more leaves hinged together ([Greek: triptycha], [Greek: pentaptycha] &c.); this was the earliest form of the _codex_ or _book_ in the modern sense of the word. The inner leaves of these _codices_ had sinkings to receive the wax on both sides; only the backs of the two outer leaves being left plain or carved in relief to form the covers. _Waxed tablets._