The length and the width of the roll depended on the taste or convenience of the writer[59]. The contents were written in columns, the lines of which ran parallel to the long dimension[60], and the reader, holding the roll in both hands, rolled up the part he had finished with his left hand, and unrolled the unread portion with his right. This way of dealing with the roll is well shewn in the accompanying illustration (fig. 9) reduced from a fresco at Pompeii[61]. In most examples the two halves of the roll are turned inwards, as for instance in the well-known statue of Demosthenes in the Vatican[62]. The end of the roll was fastened to a stick (usually referred to as _umbilicus_ or _umbilici_). It is obvious that this word ought properly to denote the ends of the stick only, but it was constantly applied to the whole stick, and not to a part of it, as for instance in the following lines: ... deus nam me vetat Inceptos olim promissum carmen iambos Ad umbilicum adducere[63]. ... for heaven forbids me to cover the scroll down to the stick with the iambic lines I had begun a song promised long ago to the world. [Illustration: Fig. 9. A reader with a roll: from a fresco at Pompeii.] These sticks were sometimes painted or gilt, and furnished with projecting knobs (_cornua_) similarly decorated, intended to serve both as an ornament, and as a contrivance to keep the ends of the roll even, while it was being rolled up. The sides of the long dimension of the roll (_frontes_) were carefully cut, so as to be perfectly symmetrical, and afterwards smoothed with pumice-stone and coloured. A ticket (_index_ or _titulus_, in Greek [Greek: sillubos] or [Greek: sittubos]), made of a piece of papyrus or parchment, was fastened to the edge of the roll in such a way that it hung out over one or other of the ends. As Ovid says: Cetera turba palam titulos ostendet apertos Et sua detecta nomina fronte geret[64]. The others will flaunt their titles openly, and carry their names on an uncovered edge. The roll was kept closed by strings or straps (_lora_), usually of some bright colour[65]; and if it was specially precious, an envelope which the Greeks called a jacket ([Greek: diphthera][66]), made of parchment or some other substance, was provided. Says Martial: Perfer Atestinae nondum vulgata Sabinae Carmina, purpurea sed modo culta toga[67]. Convey to Sabina at Ateste these verses. They have not yet been published, and have been but lately dressed in a purple garment. Martial has combined in a single epigram most of the ornaments with which rolls could be decorated. This I will quote next, premising that the oil of cedar, or _arbor-vitae_, mentioned in the second line not only imparted an agreeable yellow colour, but was held to be an antiseptic[68].