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writing with a pen on papyrus and tabulae were heavy to carry and awkward to store. So the frequent Roman choice of the tab- let as a medium for writing is a curious one. . . (Meyer, p. 1).
Like the Greeks, the Romans perceived writings on wax tablets as more per- manent, or at least more difficult to falsify, than writings on papyri:
As a medium for writing tablets had practical attractions, espe- cially for preserving important documents and preventing fraud: writing on wax showed evidence of tampering; folded together, wax tablets were hard to damage; sealed up with string they were difficult for malefactors to break into unnoticed (Meyer p. 2).
The important role of tablets in Roman law and culture was, along with other elements of “romanization,” gradually transferred to the wide reaches of the Roman Empire:
As the power of Romans grew, they took their characteristic ways of doing things—and so their tablets—with them out into the provinces of the empire and used them not only between each other but as the perceptible voice of government. Provincials who sought the ear of Roman officials in some places hastened to mimic this Roman form-even if only by writing on and folding their papyrus differently-and in others left it strictly alone. This significantly uneven pattern of cultural influence illuminates the process by which subjects were introduced to, and adopted, the ways of their Roman overlords, and so helps us to understand the complex process of exchange and acculturation we have come to know as romanization. At the same time it allows insight into the impact of the Roman government in the provinces: Roman officials, for example, interested themselves acutely in the treat- ment and preservation of documents, an exception to the other- wise hands-off Roman style of ruling. And whatever the effect of their furious edicts it is possible to trace indirect influence out from Rome (what the emperor did) to the provinces (what the
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