Papyrus was extensively used by the elite, and all well-to-do Romans were familiar with it. ¹ But in spite of some assertions to the contrary it must have been quite expensive for most people's purses, currently outside Egypt, which remained the main source of supply. The price at Tebtunis in the period 45-49 seems normally to have been four drachmas a roll, and a single sheet might cost two obols- this at a time when skilled labor earned about six obols a day, unskilled three. The price is analogous to one of, say, thirty to thirty five dollars for a sheet of paper today. The real price of papyrus would have been much higher in Greece or Italy, not to mention Spain or Britain, than in Egypt.

William V. Harris, Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1989), 194-195.

¹ The elder Pliny errs in saying that rolls never exceeded twenty sheets (NH xiii.77; cf. E.G. Turner, Greek Papyri. An Introduction [Oxford, 1968], 4), but he is defended by T.C. Skeat, ZPE xlv (1982), 169-175, esp. 172. (The standard length was twenty sheets, totallying 320 to 360 cms.