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Author: * QuintusCinna Cocceius -
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Date: Sep 10, 2003 - 22:50
CALAMUS (ka/lamoj, Pollux, x.15), a sort of reed which the ancients used as a pen for writing (Cic. ad Att. vi.8; Hor. De Art. Poët. 447). The best sorts were got from Aegypt and Cnidus (Plin. H.N. xvi.36, 64). So Martial (xiv.38), "Dat chartis habiles calamos Memphitica tellus." When the reed became blunt, it was sharpened with a knife, scalprum librarium (Tac. Ann. v.8; Suet. Vitell. 2); and to a reed so sharpened the epithet temperatus, used by Cicero, probably refers (Cic. Ad Qu. F. ii.15, "calamo et atramento temperato res agetur"). The calamus was split like our pens, and hence Ausonius (vii.49) calls it fissipes or clovenfooted. William Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, John Murray, London, 1875. p 220.
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