The Technique of the Documents
The Roman documents are made up of small rectangular wooden tablets (tabulae), roughly the size of a hand. On one or both sides they have a small slightly raised edge, and the surfaces within the edge were covered with a kind of wax: hence, they were known as wax tablets (tabulae ceratae).13 The writing was inscribed on the wax with a metal stylus.
On one of the longer sides there were usually two holes through which strings were drawn, making it possible to combine two or three tablets into a codex which could be handled like a book. The prepared surfaces were inscribed parallel to the spine of the book: the writing on the second side ended at the spine, while the writing on the third side began at the spine: the holes were therefore at the bottom of the second side but at the top of the third (and, for a triptych, the fifth).14A diptych (as the name suggests) consisted of two tablets. In this case, the (outer) sides of the cover were not prepared: only the inner sides, sides 2 and 3, were inscribed; they could then be laid together, and the raised edges would prevent the writing from becoming smeared. The document was then closed in order to protect the writing and secure the text against forgery. A string was wound over the spine and around the tablets. It was secured in a groove of about a finger’s breadth on the back of the second tablet (side 4), and it was in this groove (sulcus) that the witnesses placed their seals on the string, so that the seals were within the indentation rather than standing proud of the surface. The string would need to be cut or the seals broken if the document was to be opened again, for example to lead evidence before a court. As a reminder of the contents of the document, the text within was repeated on the unprepared ‘cover’ sides of the diptych (the scriptura exterior).
A triptych consisted of three tablets and therefore had six sides. Sides 2 and 3 were inscribed in the same way as with a diptych and sealed in the same way. The external text was written on side 5 and remained accessible. In order to make the document easier to find, an indication of its contents was often also written in ink on the first or last side. Occasionally, in the case of both diptychs and triptychs, an indication of this kind is also found on the edges of the tablets opposite its spine.
Under Nero, a senatusconsultum of AD 61 provided further protection for the internal text: it provided that the edge of the tablets should also be perforated and a string should be drawn through this perforation three times.15
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