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Now the Phoenicians who came with Cadmus, and to whom the Gephyraei
belonged, introduced into Greece upon their arrival a great variety of
arts, among the rest that of writing, whereof the Greeks till then
had, as I think, been ignorant. And originally they shaped their
letters exactly like all the other Phoenicians, but afterwards, in
course of time, they changed by degrees their language, and together
with it the form likewise of their characters. Now the Greeks who
dwelt about those parts at that time were chiefly the Ionians. The
Phoenician letters were accordingly adopted by them, but with some
variation in the shape of a few, and so they arrived at the present
use, still calling the letters Phoenician, as justice required,
after the name of those who were the first to introduce them into
Greece. Paper rolls also were called from of old "parchments" by
the Ionians, because formerly when paper was scarce they used,
instead, the skins of sheep and goats - on which material many of the
barbarians are even now wont to write.
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