Recently I came across these two new(ish) open access books on Roman Latin writing and extant writing tools and artifacts. Here is the information about these resources quoted from volume 1.
"The manual is split into two volumes. Vol. 1 prioritizes the reading and understanding of Roman cursive and the documents in which it is found. Vol. 2 provides an overview and catalogue of Roman writing implements, the main writing materials and accessories, and information about archaeological finds, photographs, drawings, and literary and iconographic testimony. It also presents a commentary on the social aspects of literacy and writing." ("Scripts and Texts," pg. 9)
The first volume, Scripts and Texts, focuses on the development of Latin scripts across the various geographical regions. There are ample pictures of artifacts and tables of the various letter forms of the Latin scripts. This volume is valuable for the study of Latin Palaeography.
The second volume, Writing Equipment, contains several excellent essays on the mechanics of writing and composition and the use of ancient writing tools and media. There are ample pictures of extant artifacts that represent these various writing tools. There is an excellent final chapter that consists of quotations from ancient Greek and Roman literary sources that reference the use of writing tools or writing tools and media (pgs. 109-145). Here is just a random sampling of these quotations.
"To whom am I to present my pretty new book, freshly smoothed off with dry pumice-stone?" (Catullus 1.1-2)
"I suppose he has got some ten thousand or even more written out in full, and not, as is often done, put down on used sheets; imperial paper, new rolls, new bosses, red ties, parchment wrappers; all ruled with lead and smoothed with pumice." (Catullus 22.4-8)
"The wretched tablet, which I tire myself out waxing each month, lies orphaned before the bed-post next the wall, except when he looks at it as if it were Hades and writes nothing good but scrapes it all smooth." (Herodas, Mimes 3.14–18)
"But as ink when handled leaves mark and stain, so ofttimes with unseemly verse poets put a blot on bright exploits." (Horace, Epistles 2.1.235–237)
"We are informed that there are three kinds of sponge: a thick and very hard and rough one is called goat-thorn sponge, a less thick and softer one loose-sponge, and a thin one of close texture, used for making paint-brushes, Achilles sponge." (Pliny, Natural History 9.148)
"In her right hand she holds her pen, in her left an empty waxen tablet. She begins, then hesitates and stops; writes on and hates what she has written; writes and erases; changes, condemns, approves; by turns she lays her tablets down and takes them up again." (Ovid, Metamorphoses 9.522–525)
These two volumes are excellent open-access resources for those wishing to understand the writing tools, media, composition practices, and mechanics of writing in the Greco-Roman era. I think that it is very useful and valuable that students, professors, teachers, New Testament Textual Critics, and scholars of the New Testament more widely understand these processes in greater detail.
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