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The Scroll-From the Life of Lysander
The scroll is made up thus: when the Ephors send an admiral or
general on his way, they take two round pieces of wood, both
exactly of a length and thickness, and cut even to one another;
they keep one themselves, and the other the give to the person
they send forth; and these pieces of wood they call Scytales.
When, therefore, they have occasion to communicate any secret or
important matter, making a scroll of parchment long and narrow
like a leathern thong, they roll it about their own staff of wood,
leaving no space void between, but covering the surface of the
staff with the scroll all over. When they have done this, they
write what they please on the scroll, as it is wrapped about the
staff; and when they have written, they take off the scroll, and
send it to the general without the wood. He, when he has received
it, can read nothing of the writing, because the words and letters
are not connected, but all broken up; but taking his own staff, he
winds the slip of the scroll about it, so that this folding,
restoring all the parts into the same order that they were in
before, and putting what comes first into connection with what
follows, brings the whole consecutive contents to view round the
outside. And this scroll is called a _staff_, after the name of
the wood, as a thing measured is by the name of the measure.
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