parchment – History From Below

Pliny the Elder remarks on a conflict that arose between King Eumenes of Pergamum and Ptolemy V, the Egyptian pharaoh, around 191 BCE. The naturalist notes the regal rivalry in his section on writing materials from the ancient world (NH 13.21). During an epic battle to build each other’s libraries bigger and faster (would that thisContinue reading “Sacrificial Lambs: Livestock, Book Costs, and the Premodern Parchment Trade”