Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Palimpsestus

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

PALIMPSES'TUS (παλίμψηστος). Parchment from which former writings have been erased to make room for fresh ones. (Cic. Fam. vii. 18. Catull. xxii. 5.) Hence the name of palimpsest is given by learned to those manuscripts, which, though of themselves of a respectable antiquity, are found to have been written over others still older. It is probable that this practice of obliteration and rewriting upon the same skin was sometimes pursued by the Greek and Roman booksellers, in cases where the original composition was of little interest or value; but none of those now actually in existence are believed to possess a higher date than the ninth century; and it is often found that works of superior merit have been washed out, in order to receive other matter; the original writing underneath being still discoverable, and even legible. Thus Cicero's treatise de Repub. was found, and deciphered by A. Maio, under a commentary of St. Augustin on the Psalms.