Probably the first use was as plain smooth boards only; examples of such
are still in existence. Then of boards thinly covered with, usually,
black wax. A pair of such tablets, wax-covered, was a common form of a
Roman pocket-or memorandum-book. It was also used as a means of
conveying messages, the reply being returned on the same tablets. The
method was to write on the wax with a fine-pointed instrument called a
style, the reverse end of which was flattened. When the person to whom
the message was sent had read it, he (or she) simply flattened out the
writing, smoothed it level, and then wrote the reply on the same wax.
School-children did their exercises on these tablets, housewives and
stewards kept their accounts on them, and on them literary people jotted
down their ideas as they do now in their pocket-books. Extant examples
of these early books, or tablets, are fairly numerous, and may be seen
in most public museums. A codex of two leaves was called a diptych; of
three, a triptych, etc. The codex form was used for legal documents,
wills, conveyances, and general correspondence. Hence the Roman postman
was called a _tabellarius_, the tablets containing correspondence being
tied with a thread or ribbon and sealed. This custom of sending letters
on tablets survived for some centuries after Augustan times.
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