Epigraphy: the study of inscriptions, found on buildings, altars, bricks, plaques or tablets of various materials, tiles, mosaics, pottery--anything you can think of that people write on
From the first three centuries of the Roman Republic (500-200 B.C.), relatively few inscriptions survive. There is no way of knowing what type of role and how big writing/inscribing things played in Romans' lives at that time, but we can assume that what we do have only represents a small fraction of what they used. Ancient literature we have today refers to other works of literature and inscriptions that no longer exist, so it's easy to imagine that we have a limited portion of what ancient people had.
"An impressive variety of texts," however, has survived from the centuries that followed (200-100 B.C.)1 . We have many more inscriptions from this particular time period in the Roman Republic, including calendars!
