What is "paragraphos"

n. In Ancient Greek papyri, anything written beside the main text, such as a marginal note or sign to mark the close or beginning of a sentence, or (in a drama) to indicate a change of speaker.

A paragraphos (, parágraphos, from para-, “beside”, and graphein, “to write”) was a mark in ancient Greek punctuation, marking a division in a text (as between speakers in a dialogue or drama) or drawing the reader's attention to another division mark, such as the two dot punctuation mark . There are many variants of this symbol, sometimes supposed to have developed from Greek gamma , the first letter of the word graphos. It was usually placed at the beginning of a line and trailing a little way under or over the text.

It was referenced by Aristotle, who was dismissive of its use.

Unicode encodes multiple versions: