To each of them is appended a sort of ticket, which served as a title. Hence the end of the roll, or volume, was called _frons_, a term of frequent recurrence in Ovid and Martial, and not always rightly understood. Hence, also, when we meet with the expression, _gemina frons_, we must understand that the volume had a ticket at each end. These books were also composed of two tables or pages, and served for memoranda, letters, and other writings, not intended to be preserved. They were composed of leaves of wood or metal coated over with wax, upon which the ancients wrote with a _stylus_, or iron pen, or point rather, for it was a solid sharp-pointed instrument, some 6 to 8 inches in length, like a lady's stiletto upon a large scale. In the middle of each leaf there appears to have been a button, called _umbilicus_, intended to prevent the pages touching when closed, and obliterating the letters traced on the yielding wax. The tablets here represented would be called twofold, as consisting only of two leaves; in the following cut may be seen another sort, consisting of several leaves, united at the back with hinges or rings. In Latin they were called _tabulæ_, or _tabellæ_, and the epithets, duplices, triplices, quintuplices, served to mark the number of the leaves. Beside them stands a double inkstand, intended probably to contain both black and red ink. The former was made either of lampblack or some other sort of charcoal, or from the cuttlefish, and was called atramentum. As it contained no mordant, and was readily obliterated by moisture, it could be used for writing upon ivory tablets; and it has been conjectured that some sorts of paper were covered with a wash, or varnish, to facilitate the discharge of the old writing, and render the paper serviceable a second time. Red ink was prepared from cinnabar. The reed, cut to a point, which lies beside the inkstand, is the instrument used in writing with ink before the application of quills. It was called _calamus_. The open papyrus explains how manuscripts were read, rolled up at each end, so as to show only the column of writing upon which the student was intent. At the other side is a purse, or bag, to hold the reed, penknife, and other writing instruments. [Illustration: TABULÆ, CALAMUS, AND PAPYRUS.] The next cut represents, besides a set of tablets bound up, a single one hanging from a nail. Such, probably, were those suspended at Epidaurus, containing remedies by which the sick had been cured, by the perusal of which Hippocrates is said to have profited in the compilation of his medical works. It also contains, besides a papyrus similar to those described, a hexagonal inkstand, with a ring to pass the finger through, upon which there lies an instrument resembling a reed, but the absence of the knots, or joints, marks it to be a stylus. Another of these instruments leans against the open book. [Illustration: TABULÆ, STYLUS, AND PAPYRUS.]