Note 10 — A. PERSIUS FLACCUS

iamque liber: The distribution of these articles is not without its difficulty. According to some, liber is the author to be explained by the teacher; chartae, the papyrus for rough notes; membrana, the parchment for a more careful transcript. According to others, ‘liber is the author out of which the lesson or thesis is to be transcribed, and membrana the parchment wrapper for preserving the loose sheets, as the work progresses’ (Pretor).—bicolor: used either of the two sides of the skin—the one from which the hair had been scraped, yellow, the other white (Casaubon), or, more probably, of the custom of coloring the parchment artificially (Jahn).—capillis: is commonly taken for pilis, a rare use. The hair side of the skin was carefully smoothed with pumice-stone. Arida modo pumice expolitum, Cat., 1, 2; cui pumex tondeat ante comas, Tib., 3, 1, 10. The old explanation, according to which positis capillis = capillis ornatis sive pexis (Plum), has found an advocate in Schlüter. The young man is supposed to have dressed his hair before he goes to work.