The laws of the twelve tables, which the Romans chiefly copied from the
Grecian code, were, after they had been approved by the people, engraven
on brass: they were melted by lightning, which struck the Capitol; a
loss highly regretted by Augustus. This manner of writing we still
retain, for inscriptions, epitaphs, and other memorials designed to
reach posterity.

These early inventions led to the discovery of tables of _wood_; and as
_cedar_ has an antiseptic quality from its bitterness, they chose this
wood for cases or chests to preserve their most important writings. This
well-known expression of the ancients, when they meant to give the
highest eulogium of an excellent work, _et cedro digna locuti_, that it
was worthy to be written on _cedar_, alludes to the _oil of cedar_, with
which valuable MSS. of parchment were anointed, to preserve them from
corruption and moths. Persius illustrates this:--

Who would not leave posterity such rhymes
As _cedar oil_ might keep to latest times!

They stained materials for writing upon, with purple, and rubbed them
with exudations from the cedar. The laws of the emperors were published
on _wooden tables_, painted with ceruse; to which custom Horace alludes:
_Leges incidere ligno_. Such _tables_, the term now softened into
_tablets_, are still used, but in general are made of other materials
than wood. The same reason for which they preferred the _cedar_ to other
wood induced to write on _wax_, as being incorruptible. Men generally
used it to write their testaments on, the better to preserve them; thus
Juvenal says, _Ceras implere capaces_. This thin paste of wax was also
used on tablets of wood, that it might more easily admit of erasure, for