Page 89 - Manual of Roman Everyday Writing Volume 2: Writing Equipment

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Book box/bucket (capsa/scrinium/cista)

Volumina of papyrus were transported in usually cylindrical and
sometimes rectangular boxes. They are well known from iconographic
evidence and are depicted for example on funerary reliefs, as part
of statues and in mosaics (Feugère 2006, 233–237). Such buckets
were made of wood and generally do not survive, but metal lock-
plates with a characteristic design and shape have been preserved
and identified (Pugsley 2003, 95–99; Feugère 2006; Eckardt 2021).
Examples are known from across the northwestern provinces and
from Pompeii.

Fig. 65: Central panel of the Roman mosaic from Vichten
(Luxembourg) showing the Muse Calliope with Homer
and a book bucket with volumina at their feet, around 240
CE. Musée national d’histoire et d’art, inv. 1995-20/0. ©
Musée national d’histoire et d’art, Luxembourg.

Roman authors use three terms for book boxes (see literature
cited below), and it appears that only scrinium specifically meant
a cylindrical book bucket, while the terms cista and capsa were also
used for other containers, with cista being the least specific. In
depictions, such book boxes often have a lid, a lock and a strap or
straps for carrying them (Feugère 2006, 233). Mosaics from Vichten
(Luxembourg) and Hadrumetum (Tunisia) suggest that they had
a capacity of around a dozen volumina, a slightly smaller one is
shown next to a statue of Sophocles in the Lateran Museum (Rome).

In funerary monuments, book buckets are used to portray intellect, as
seen on Phrygian monuments, or to denote office as on monuments
Fig. 64: So-called Lateran Sophocles with a scrinium by his to local officials in Cremona (Italy, Feugère 2006). In mosaics, they
feet, Roman marble copy of a 4th-century BCE Greek bronze are often depicted next to a poet accompanied by a muse.
statue. Plaster cast at the Gallery of Classical Art, Hostinné,
Czech Republic. © Zde, Wikicommons, CC-BY-SA-4.0.