This method of holding a papyrus manuscript is shown very clearly on a vase in the British Museum on which the same motive is painted. The lady (Sappho) holds the two rolled up portions of the manuscript, stretching tight the intermediate portion on which is the column of writing which she is reading. _Umbilicus or roller._ As the reader progressed the paper was unrolled from the roll held in the right hand, and the part just read was rolled up in the left-hand roll. These Greek representations do not usually show any stick or roller for the manuscript to be rolled round; but in Roman times a wooden or ivory roller ([Greek: omphalos], _umbilicus_) was used as the core of the roll; and the end of the long strip of papyrus by the last page or column of text was pasted on to it. The ends of the _umbilicus_ were often fitted with a round knob or boss, which was decorated with gilding or colour. The edges of the papyrus roll were smoothed with pumice-stone (_pumice mundus_), and the whole manuscript was often provided with a vellum case, which was stained a bright colour, red, purple or yellow. Tibullus (_El._ III. i. 9) alludes to these ornamental methods, _Lutea sed niveum involvat membrana libellum. Pumex et canas tondeat ante comas;_ _Atque inter geminas pingantur cornua frontes._ The _frontes_ are the edges of the roll, and the _cornua_ are the projecting portions of the two wooden rollers. _Inscribed titles._ The title of the manuscript was written on a ticket or slip of vellum, which hung down from the closed roll like the pendant seal of a mediaeval document. Thus when a number of manuscripts were piled on the shelf of an _armarium_ the pendants hanging down from the ends of the rolls indicated plainly what the books were, without the necessity of pulling them from their place. Small numbers of rolls, especially manuscripts which had to be carried about, were often kept in round drum-like boxes (_capsae_ or _scrinia_), with loop handles to carry them by. _Coloured inks._ Much of the beauty of an ancient manuscript depended on the use of red or purple ink for _headings_, _indices_ and _marginal glosses_. As Pliny says (_Hist. Nat._ XXXIII. 122) _minium in voluminum quoque scriptura usurpatur_. The use of purple ink for the _index_ is mentioned by Martial in his epigram _Ad librum suum_ (III. 2) where he sums up the various methods of decoration which in his time were applied to manuscripts, _Cedro nunc licet ambules perunctus, Et frontis gemino decens honore Pictis luxurieris umbilicis; Et te purpura delicata velet, Et cocco rubeat superbus index._ _Use of oil._ The oil of cedar wood, mentioned in the first of these lines, was smeared over the back of papyrus manuscripts to preserve them from book-worms.