From: Senator [Cassiodorus], Praetorian Prefect
To: Johannes, Revenue Officer of Tuscia
Date: ~533-537 AD
Context: A pay order that becomes a celebrated hymn to papyrus — Cassiodorus marvels at this Egyptian invention that made civilization's written memory possible.
Antiquity, that regulator of all things, carefully provided that since many people required the services of our bureaus, there should be no lack of a supply of paper — so that when judges decreed things beneficial to many, their sweet gifts would not suffer hateful delays. This provision was made for petitioners, so they would not be stingily squeezed for profit when the public purse had already covered the cost. The shameless opportunity for extortion was removed: those on whose behalf the Emperor's generosity gave the supply were specifically exempted from charges.
Ingenious Memphis [Egypt] conceived a truly splendid creation — clothing all the bureaus of the world in what the elegant labor of a single region had woven. There rises a Nilotic forest without branches, a grove without leaves — a harvest of the waters, the beautiful hair of the marshes. Softer than shrubs, harder than grass; somehow full in its emptiness and empty in its fullness. A spongy tenderness, an absorbent wood whose strength, like a fruit's, is in the bark, whose softness is in the pith. Light in its tallness, yet self-supporting — the most beautiful product of a foul inundation.
For what is produced by any form of cultivation to compare with this — the thing in which the thoughts of the wise are preserved? Before it existed, the sayings of wise men and the reflections of our ancestors were in danger. How could anyone write quickly when the resistance of bark could barely allow it? The heat of the mind had to endure absurd delays, and while words were held up, genius was forced to cool. This is why antiquity called the works of earlier writers "books" [libri] — for even today we call the stripped bark of a living tree a liber. It was, I confess, undignified to entrust learned discourse to rough tablets and to inscribe on moss-covered branches what the elegance of the intellect could produce. It reminded the memory of only a few things with burdened hands, and no one was encouraged to write at length when such a surface presented itself. But this was fitting for beginnings — for a crude starting point needed just such an invention to provoke the genius of those who followed.
Papyrus's inviting beauty flows abundantly where there is no fear that the material for writing will run out. With its snowy back, it opens a field for the eloquent. It stands ready in copious supply and, to make itself manageable, rolls up into itself, only to be unrolled for great treatises. Joints without cracks; continuity from fragments; the snowy interior of green reeds; a writable surface that receives blackness as its decoration. There, with characters standing in relief, the most fertile crop of words, once planted, yields the sweetest fruit to the mind as often as a reader's desire encounters it — preserving faithful testimony of human deeds, speaking of the past, the enemy of oblivion.
For our memory, though it retains the substance of things, alters the words. On papyrus, however, what is stored there is heard forever unchanged. Therefore I order you to pay the designated sum of solidi from the province of Tuscia, from the third installment, to the aforementioned sub-assistant — to be charged to the accounts of the thirteenth indiction — so that the public archive may preserve its faithful integrity in perpetuity. For the archive, knowing no decay among mortal things, grows continually through annual accumulation, forever receiving the new while guarding the old.
XXXVIII.
IOHANNI CANONICARIO TUSCIAE SENATOR PPO.
[1] Moderatrix rerum omnium diligenter consideravit antiquitas, ut, quoniam erat plurimis per nostra scrinia consulendum, copia non deesset procurata chartarum, quatinus, cum iudices multis profutura decernerent, odiosas moras dulcia beneficia non haberent. hoc munus supplicantibus datum est, ne avare constringerentur ad commodum, pro quibus a largitate publica constabat acceptum. ademptus est impudentissimus exactionibus locus: specialiter a damnis exemit propter quos principis humanitas dedit. [2] Pulchrum plane opus Memphis ingeniosa concepit, ut universa scrinia vestiret quod unius loci labor elegans texuisset. surgit Nilotica silva sine ramis, nemus sine frondibus, aquarum seges, paludum pulchra caesaries, virgultis mollior, herbis durior, nescio qua vacuitate plena et plenitudine vacua, bibula teneritudo, spongeum lignum, cui more pomi robur in cortice est, mollities in medullis, proceritas levis, sed ipsa se continens, foedae inundationis pulcherrimus fructus. [3] Nam quid tale in qualibet cultura nascitur, quam illud, ubi prudentium sensa servantur? periclitabantur ante hoc dicta sapientium, cogitata maiorum. nam quemadmodum velociter potuisset scribi, quod repugnante duritia corticis vix poterat expediri? ineptas nimirum moras calor animi sustinebat et cum differebantur verba, tepescere cogebantur ingenia. [4] Hinc et priscorum opuscula libros appellavit antiquitas: nam hodie quoque librum virentis ligni vocitamus exuvias. erat indecorum, fateor, doctos sermones committere tabulis impolitis et in veternosis ramalibus imprimere, quod sensualis poterat elegantia reperire. gravatis manibus paucis memoriam commonebat nec invitabatur plura dicere, cui se talis pagina videbatur offerre. sed hoc primordiis consentaneum fuit, quando rude principium tale debuit habere commentum, quod provocaret ingenia sequentium. invitatrix pulchritudo chartarum affluenter dicitur, ubi exceptionis subtrahi materia non timetur. [5] Haec enim tergo niveo aperit eloquentibus campum, copiosa semper assistit et quo fiat habilis, in se revoluta colligitur, dum magnis tractatibus explicetur. iunctura sine rimis, continuitas de minutiis, viscera nivea virentium herbarum, scripturabilis facies, quae nigredinem suscipit ad decorem, ubi apicibus elevatis fecundissima verborum plantata seges fructum mentibus totiens suavissimum reddit, quotiens desiderium lectoris invenerit: humanorum actuum servans fidele testimonium, praeteritorum loquax, oblivionis inimica. [6] Nam memoria nostra et si causas retinet, verba commutat: illic autem secure reponitur, quod semper aequaliter audiatur. quapropter deputatam summam tot solidorum de Tuscia provincia illi subadiuuae ex illatione tertia te praebere censemus tertiae decimae indictionis rationibus imputandam, quatenus scrinium publicum integritatem fidei suae laudabili debeat perpetuitate servare. quod defectum inter mortalia nesciens annua cumulatione semper augescit, nova iugiter accipiens et vetusta custodiens.
◆
From:Senator [Cassiodorus], Praetorian Prefect
To:Johannes, Revenue Officer of Tuscia
Date:~533-537 AD
Context:A pay order that becomes a celebrated hymn to papyrus — Cassiodorus marvels at this Egyptian invention that made civilization's written memory possible.
Antiquity, that regulator of all things, carefully provided that since many people required the services of our bureaus, there should be no lack of a supply of paper — so that when judges decreed things beneficial to many, their sweet gifts would not suffer hateful delays. This provision was made for petitioners, so they would not be stingily squeezed for profit when the public purse had already covered the cost. The shameless opportunity for extortion was removed: those on whose behalf the Emperor's generosity gave the supply were specifically exempted from charges.
Ingenious Memphis [Egypt] conceived a truly splendid creation — clothing all the bureaus of the world in what the elegant labor of a single region had woven. There rises a Nilotic forest without branches, a grove without leaves — a harvest of the waters, the beautiful hair of the marshes. Softer than shrubs, harder than grass; somehow full in its emptiness and empty in its fullness. A spongy tenderness, an absorbent wood whose strength, like a fruit's, is in the bark, whose softness is in the pith. Light in its tallness, yet self-supporting — the most beautiful product of a foul inundation.
For what is produced by any form of cultivation to compare with this — the thing in which the thoughts of the wise are preserved? Before it existed, the sayings of wise men and the reflections of our ancestors were in danger. How could anyone write quickly when the resistance of bark could barely allow it? The heat of the mind had to endure absurd delays, and while words were held up, genius was forced to cool. This is why antiquity called the works of earlier writers "books" [libri] — for even today we call the stripped bark of a living tree a liber. It was, I confess, undignified to entrust learned discourse to rough tablets and to inscribe on moss-covered branches what the elegance of the intellect could produce. It reminded the memory of only a few things with burdened hands, and no one was encouraged to write at length when such a surface presented itself. But this was fitting for beginnings — for a crude starting point needed just such an invention to provoke the genius of those who followed.
Papyrus's inviting beauty flows abundantly where there is no fear that the material for writing will run out. With its snowy back, it opens a field for the eloquent. It stands ready in copious supply and, to make itself manageable, rolls up into itself, only to be unrolled for great treatises. Joints without cracks; continuity from fragments; the snowy interior of green reeds; a writable surface that receives blackness as its decoration. There, with characters standing in relief, the most fertile crop of words, once planted, yields the sweetest fruit to the mind as often as a reader's desire encounters it — preserving faithful testimony of human deeds, speaking of the past, the enemy of oblivion.
For our memory, though it retains the substance of things, alters the words. On papyrus, however, what is stored there is heard forever unchanged. Therefore I order you to pay the designated sum of solidi from the province of Tuscia, from the third installment, to the aforementioned sub-assistant — to be charged to the accounts of the thirteenth indiction — so that the public archive may preserve its faithful integrity in perpetuity. For the archive, knowing no decay among mortal things, grows continually through annual accumulation, forever receiving the new while guarding the old.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.