It is an old
story, found in Pliny's _Natural History_ (bk. xiii. ch. 70), that the
ancient use or revival of the use of parchment was due to the
determination of King Eumenes II. of Mysia or Pergamos to form a library
which should rival those of Alexandria, but that when he applied to
Egypt for papyrus, the writing materials then in use, Ptolemy Epiphanes
jealously refused to permit its exportation. In this difficulty Eumenes,
we are told, had recourse to the preparation of sheepskins, and that
from the place of its invention it was called _charta pergamena_.
Pliny and his authority, however, were both wrong in point of history.
Eumenes, who reigned from about 197 to 158 B.C., was not the inventor,
but the restorer of its use (see Herodotus, v. 58). It was called in
Greek {~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} (2 Tim. iv. 13).
We may mention, by the way, that neither vellum nor parchment are by any
means the oldest materials known. Far older, and more generally used in
Italy, Greece, and Egypt, was the material which has given us the name
of our commonest writing material of to-day, viz.
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