There is one thing the Romans definitely invented: the book

There is one thing the Romans definitely invented: the book

After all these examples of the Romans enhancing existing ideas rather than inventing new ones, here’s one that was genuinely original.

The first recognisable alphabet, and therefore writing, was developed in ancient Babylon around 3100 BC. This writing was done on clay tablets – not the most portable of formats for written literature. The Egyptians made a leap forwards with papyrus, thin sheets made from the pith of the papyrus plant. Now knowledge could be preserved on scrolls, which were easier to transport, but still bulky. Paper itself was invented in China around the end of the first century AD but didn’t reach Europe until after the fall of the western Roman empire.

Around the same time that paper was being invented in China, the Romans invented the codex. For the first time, sheets of a uniform size were bound together along one edge, in between two larger, stronger protective covers. And again for the first time, large amounts of written information could be concentrated in one highly transportable volume. This would become the standard way to write and store information until the rise of the e-book 1,900 years later. Across the empire (both during and after the Roman era), the book became the standard format for writing. Most famously, the word ‘bible’ is a variation of the Greek word for ‘the books’ (ta biblia). The invention of the book enabled much easier sharing of complex ideas, including everything from Christianity to annals about emperors.

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