The pages in our manuscript are written in long lines,[4] in _scriptura continua_, with hardly any punctuation.

[Footnote 4: Many of our oldest Latin manuscripts have two and even three columns on a page, a practice evidently taken over from the roll. But very ancient manuscripts are not wanting which are written in long lines, _e.g._, the Codex Vindobonensis of Livy, the Codex Bobiensis of the Gospels, or the manuscript of Pliny's _Natural History_ preserved at St. Paul in Carinthia.]

A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger — Part 7

Each page begins with a large letter, even though that letter occur in the body of a word (cf. foll. 48r, 51v, 52r).[5]

A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger — Part 7

[Footnote 5: This is an ear-mark of great antiquity. It is found, for example, in the Berlin and Vatican Schedae Vergilianae in square capitals (Berlin lat. 2º 416 and Rome Vatic. lat. 3256 reproduced in Zangemeister and Wattenbach's _Exempla Codicum Latinorum_, etc., pl. 14, and in Steffens, _Lateinische Paläographie_{ 2}, pl. 12b), in the Vienna, Paris, and Lateran manuscripts of Livy, in the Codex Corbeiensis of the Gospels, and here and there in the palimpsest manuscript of Cicero's _De Re Publica_ and in other manuscripts.]

A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger — Part 7

Each epistle begins with a large letter. The line containing the address which precedes each epistle also begins with a large letter. In both cases the large letter projects into the left margin.

The running title at the top of each page is in small rustic capitals.[6] On the verso of each folio stands the word EPISTVLARVM; on the recto of the following folio stands the number of the book, _e.g._, LIB. II, LIB. III.

[Footnote 6: In many of our oldest manuscripts uncials are employed. The Pliny palimpsest of St. Paul in Carinthia agrees with our manuscript in using rustic capitals. For facsimiles see J. Sillig, _C. Plini Secundi Naturalis Historiae_, Libri XXXVI, Vol. VI, Gotha 1855, and Chatelain, _Paléographie des Classiques Latins_, pl. CXXXVI.]

To judge by our fragment, each book was preceded by an index of addresses and initial lines written in alternating lines of black and red uncials. Alternating lines of black and red rustic capitals of a large size were used in the colophon.[7]

[Footnote 7: In this respect, too, the Pliny palimpsest of St. Paul in Carinthia agrees with our fragment. Most of the oldest manuscripts, however, have the colophon in the same type of writing as the text.]