Note * — INTRODUCTION.

There is reason to believe that the Romans carried the Art of Binding to considerable perfection. Some of the public offices had books called Dyptichs,* in which their acts were written. The binding of one of these in carved wood is thus described:—"Seated in the centre of each board is a consul, holding in one hand a baton, and in the other, upraised, a purse, as if in the act of throwing it to some victor in the games. Above these are miniature portraits, various other ornaments, and an inscription; below, on one board, are two men leading out horses for the race, and beneath them a group, with a ludicrous representation of two other men, exhibiting their endurance of pain by allowing crabs to fasten on their noses." A small print of an ivory dyptich of the fifth century, in Mr. Arnett's "Books of the Ancients," may be consulted as a specimen of the kind of ornament then adopted. An old writer says, that about the time of the Christian era the books of the Romans were covered with red, yellow, green, and purple leather, and decorated with gold and silver.