Forty Centuries of Ink | Page 9

middle ages, can only be considered, as it is
intimately bound up in the chronology and story of handwriting and
writing materials. Even then it must not be supposed that the history of
ink is authentic and continuous from the moment handwriting was
applied to the recording of events; for the earliest records are lost to us
in almost every instance. We are therefore dependent upon later writers,
who made their records in the inks of their own time, and who could
refer to those preceding them only by the aid of legends and traditions.
There is no independent data indicating any variation whatever in the
methods of the admixture of black or colored inks, which differentiates
them from those used in the earliest times of the ancient Egyptians,
Hebrews or Chinese. On the contrary if we exclude "Indian" and one of

the red inks, for a period of fourteen hundred years we find their
number diminishing until the first centuries of the Christian era.
Exaggerated tradition has described inks as well as other things and
imagination is not lacking. Some of these legends, in later years put in
writing, compel us to depend on translations of obscure and obsolete
tongues, while the majority of them are mingled with the errors and
superstitious of the time in which they were transcribed.
The value of such accounts depends upon a variety of circumstances
and we must proceed with the utmost caution and discrimination in
examining and weighing the authenticity of these sources of
information.
If we reason that the art of handwriting did not become known to all the
ancient nations at once, but was gradually imparted by one to another,
it follows that records supposed to be contemporaneous, were made in
some countries at a much earlier period than in others. It must also be
observed that the Asiatic nations and the Egyptians practiced the art of
writing many centuries before it was introduced into Europe. Hence we
are able to estimate with some degree of certainty that ink-written
accounts of some Asiatic nations were made while Europe was in this
respect buried in utter darkness.
An interesting story which bears on this statement is told by Kennett, in
his "Antiquities of Rome," London, 1743, as to the discovery of ancient
MSS., five hundred and twenty years before the Christian era, of what
even then must have been remarkable:
"A strange old woman came once to Tarquinius Superbus with nine
books, which, she said, were the oracles of the Sybils, and proffered to
sell them. But the king making some scruple about the price, she went
away and burnt three of them; and returning with the six, asked the
same sum as before. Tarquin only laughed at the humour; upon which
the old woman left him once more; and after she had burnt three others,
came again with them that were left, but still kept to her old terms. The
king now began to wonder at her obstinacy, and thinking there might
be something more than ordinary in the business, sent for the augars
(soothsayers) to consult what was to be done. They, when their

divinations were performed, soon acquainted him what a piece of
impiety he had been guilty of, by refusing a treasure sent to him from
heaven, and commanded him to give whatever she demanded for the
books that remained. The woman received her money, and delivered
the writings; and only, charging them by all means to keep them sacred,
immediately vanished. Two of the nobility were presently after chosen
to be the keepers of these oracles, which were laid up with all
imaginable care in the Capitol, in a chest under ground. They could not
be consulted without a special order of the Senate, which was never
granted, unless upon the receiving of some notable defeat; upon the
rising of any considerable mutiny, or sedition in the State; or upon
some other extraordinary occasion; several of which we meet with in
Livy."
Some of the ancient historians even sought to be misleading respecting
the events not only of their own times, but of epochs which preceded
them. Richardson, in his "Dissertation on Ancient History and
Mythology," published in 1778, remarks:
"The information received hitherto has been almost entirely derived
through the medium of the Grecian writers; whose elegance of taste,
harmony of language, and fine arrangement of ideas, have captivated
the imagination, misled the judgment, and stamped with the dignified
title of history, the amusing excursions of fanciful romance. Too proud
to consider surrounding nations, (if the Eyptians may be excepted) in
any light but that of barbarians; they despised their records, they altered
their language, and framed too often their details, more to the
prejudices of their fellow citizens, than to the standard of truth or
probability.