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 p220  Calamus

Article by Alexander Allen, Ph.D.,
on p220 of

William Smith, D.C.L., LL.D.:
A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, John Murray, London, 1875.

CA′LAMUS (κάλαμος, Pollux, X.15), a sort of reed which the ancients used as a pen for writing (',WIDTH,195)" onMouseOut="nd();">Cic. ad Att. VI.8; ',WIDTH,195)" onMouseOut="nd();"> Hor. De Art. Poët. 447). The best sorts were got from Aegypt and Cnidus (Plin. H. N. XVI.36, 64). So Martial of the Epigrams of Martial'+Lat2+LatSearch+'calamos',WIDTH,195)" onMouseOut="nd();"> (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 (of Cicero\'s Letters to his brother Quintus'+Lat2+LatSearch+'atramento',WIDTH,195)" onMouseOut="nd();">Cic. Ad Qu. F. II.15, "calamo et atramento temperato res agetur"). One of the inkstands given under the article Atramentum has a calamus upon it. The calamus was split like our pens, and hence Ausonius Epistulae'+Lat2+LatSearch+'fissipedis')" onMouseOut="nd();"> (VII.49) calls it fissipes or clovenfooted.

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