racter he had made upon it. The lots were then all put into a
helmet, and the helmet was given to a herald, who was to shake it
about in such a manner, if possible, as to throw out one of the lots
and leave the others in. The leader whose lot it was that should be
thus shaken out, was to be considered as the one designated by the
decision, to fight the Trojan champion.

Now, in executing this plan, the herald, when he had shaken out a lot,
and had taken it up from the ground, is represented, in the narrative,
as not knowing whose it was, and as carrying it around, accordingly,
to all the different leaders, to find the one who could recognize it
as his own. A certain chief named Ajax recognized it, and in this way
he was designated for the combat. Now it is supposed, that if these
men had been able to write, that they would have inscribed their own
names upon the lots, instead of marking them with unmeaning
characters. And even if they were not practiced writers themselves
some secretary or scribe would have been called upon to act for them
on such an occasion as this, if the art of writing had been at that
time so generally known as to be customarily employed on public
occasions. From these and similar indications which are found, on a
careful examination, in the Homeric poems, learned men have concluded
that they were composed and repeated orally, at a period of the world
when the art of writing was very little known, and that they were
handed down from generation to generation, through the memory of those
who repeated them, until at last the art of writing became established
among mankind, when they were at length put permanently upon record.

It seems that writing was not much employed for any of the ordinary
and private purposes of life by the people of Greece until the article
called _papyrus_ was introduced among them. This took place about the
year 600 before Christ, when laws began first to be written. Papyrus,
like the art of writing upon it, came originally from Egypt. It was
obtained from a tree which it seems grew only in that country. The
tree flourished in the low lands along the margin of the Nile. It
grew to the height of about ten feet. The paper obtained from it was
formed from a sort of inner bark, which consisted of thin sheets or
pellicles growing around the wood. The paper was manufactured in the
following manner. A sheet of the thin bark as taken from the tree, was
laid flat upon a board, and the