_ANCIENT FORMS OF ADVERTISING._
Though it would be quite impossible to give any exact idea as to the
period when the identical first advertisement of any kind made its
appearance, or what particular clime has the honour of introducing a
system which now plays so important a part in all civilised countries,
there need be no hesitation in ascribing the origin of advertising to
the remotest possible times--to the earliest times when competition,
caused by an increasing population, led each man to make efforts in that
race for prominence which has in one way or other gone on ever since. As
soon as the progress of events or the development of civilisation had
cast communities together, each individual member naturally tried to do
the best he could for himself, and as he, in the course of events, had
naturally to encounter rivals in his way of life, it is not hard to
understand that some means of preventing a particular light being hid
under a bushel soon presented itself. That this means was an
advertisement is almost certain; and so almost as long as there has been
a world--or quite as long, using the term as it is best understood
now--there have been advertisements. At this early stage of history,
almost every trade and profession was still exercised by itinerants, who
proclaimed their wares or their qualifications with more or less flowery
encomiums, with, in fact, the advertisement verbal, which, under some
circumstances, is still very useful. But the time came when the
tradesman or professor settled down, and opened what, for argument’s
sake, we will call a shop. Then another method of obtaining publicity
became requisite, and the crier stepped forward to act as a medium
between the provider and the consumer. This is, however, but another
form of the same system, and, like its simpler congener, has still an
existence, though not an ostentatious one. When the art of writing was
invented, the means of extending the knowledge which had heretofore been
simply cried, was greatly extended, and advertising gradually became an
art to be cultivated.
Very soon after the invention of writing in its rudest form, it was
turned to account in the way of giving publicity to events in the way of
advertisement; for rewards for and descriptions of runaway slaves,
written on papyri more than three thousand years ago, have been exhumed
from the ruins of Thebes. An early but mythical instance of a reward
being offered in an advertisement is related by Pausanias,[7] who,
speaking of the art of working metals, says that the people of Phineum,
in Arcadia, pretended that Ulysses dedicated a statue of bronze to
Neptune, in the hope that by that deity’s intervention he might recover
the horses he had lost; and, he adds, “they showed me an inscription on
the pedestal of the statue offering a reward to any person who should
find and take care of the animals.”
The Greeks used another mode of giving publicity which is worthy of
remark here. They used to affix to the statues of the infernal deities,
in the _temenos_ of their temples, curses inscribed on sheets of lead,
by which they devoted to the vengeance of those gods the persons who had
found or stolen certain things, or injured the advertisers in any other
way. As the names of the offenders were given in full in these singular
inscriptions, they had the effect of making the grievances known to
mortals as well as immortals, and thus the advertisement was attained.
The only difference between these and ordinary public notices was that
the threat of punishment was held out instead of the offer of reward. A
compromise was endeavoured generally at the same time, the evil invoked
being deprecated in case of restitution of the property. A most
interesting collection of such imprecations (_diræ defixiones_, or
κατάδεσμοι) was found in 1858 in the _temenos_ of the infernal deities
attached to the temple of Demeter at Cnidus. It is at present deposited
in the British Museum, where the curious reader may inspect it in the
second vase-room.
A common mode of advertising, about the same time, was by means of the
public crier, κήρυξ. In comparatively modern times our town-criers have
been proverbial for murdering the king’s English, or, at all events, of
robbing it of all elecutionary beauties. Not so among the Greeks, who
were so nice in point of oratorical power, and so offended by a vicious
pronunciation, that they would not suffer even the public crier to
proclaim their laws unless he was accompanied by a musician, who, in
case of an inexact tone, might be ready to give him the proper pitch and
expression. But this would hardly be the case when the public crier was
employed by private individuals. In Apuleius (“Golden Ass”) we are
brought face to face with one of these characters, a cunning rogue, full
of low humour, who appears to have combined the duties of crier and
auctioneer. Thus, when the slave and the ass are led out for sale, the
crier proclaims the price of each with a loud voice, joking at the same
time to the best of his abilities, in order to keep the audience in good
humour. This latter idea has not been lost sight of in more modern days.
“The crier, bawling till his throat was almost split, cracked all sorts
of ridiculous jokes upon me [the ass]. ‘What is the use,’ said he, ‘of
offering for sale this old screw of a jackass, with his foundered hoofs,
his ugly colour, his sluggishness in everything but vice, and a hide
that is nothing but a ready-made sieve? Let us even make a present of
him, if we can find any one who will not be loth to throw away hay on
the brute.’ In this way the crier kept the bystanders in roars of
laughter.”[8]
The same story furnishes further particulars regarding the ancient mode
of crying. When Psyche has absconded, Venus requests Mercury “to
proclaim her in public, and announce a reward to him who shall find
her.” She further enjoins the divine crier to “clearly describe the
marks by which Psyche may be recognised, that no one may excuse himself
on the plea of ignorance, if he incurs the crime of unlawfully
concealing her.” So saying, she gives him a little book, in which is
written Psyche’s name and sundry particulars. Mercury thereupon descends
to the earth, and goes about among all nations, where he thus proclaims
the loss of Psyche, and the reward for her return:--“If any one can
seize her in her flight, and bring back a fugitive daughter of a king, a
handmaid of Venus, by name Psyche, or discover where she has concealed
herself, let such person repair to Mercury, the crier, behind the
boundaries of Murtia,[9] and receive by way of reward for the discovery
seven sweet kisses from Venus herself, and one exquisitely delicious
touch of her charming tongue.” A somewhat similar reward is offered by
Venus in the hue and cry she raises after her fugitive son in the first
idyl of Moschus, a Syracusan poet who flourished about 250 years before
the Christian era: “If any one has seen my son Eros straying in the
cross roads, [know ye] he is a runaway. The informer shall have a
reward. The kiss of Venus shall be your pay; and if you bring him, not
the bare kiss only, but, stranger, you shall have something more.”[10]
This something more is probably the “quidquid post oscula dulce” of
Secundus, but is sufficiently vague to be anything else, and certainly
promises much more than the “will be rewarded” of our own time.
So far with the Greeks and their advertisements. Details grow more
abundant when we enter upon the subject of advertising in Rome. The
cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, buried in the midst of their sorrows
and pleasures, their joys and cares, in the very midst of the turmoil of
life and commerce, and discovered ages after exactly as they were on the
morning of that ominous 24th of August A.D. 79, show us that the benefit
to be derived from publicity was well understood in those luxurious and
highly-cultivated cities. The walls in the most frequented parts are
covered with notices of a different kind, painted in black or red. Their
spelling is very indifferent, and the painters who busied themselves
with this branch of the profession do not appear to have aimed at
anything like artistic uniformity or high finish. Still these
advertisements, hasty and transitory as they are, bear voluminous
testimony as to the state of society, the wants and requirements, and
the actual standard of public taste of the Romans in that age. As might
be expected, advertisements of plays and gladiators are common. Of these
the public were acquainted in the following forms,--
AEDILIS . FAMILIA . GLADIATORIA . PUGNABIT
POMPEIS . PR . K . JUNIAS . VENATIO ET VELA
ERUNT.
or,
N . FESTI AMPLIATI
FAMILIA GLADIATORIA . PUGNA ITERUM
PUGNA . XVI . K . JVN . VENAT . VELA.[11]
Such inscriptions occur in various parts of Pompeii, sometimes written
on smooth surfaces between pilasters (denominated _albua_), at other
times painted on the walls. Places of great resort were selected for
preference, and thus it is that numerous advertisements are found under
the portico of the baths at Pompeii, where persons waited for admission,
and where notices of shows, exhibitions, or sales would be sure to
attract the attention of the weary lounger.
Baths we find advertised in the following terms,--
THERMAE
M . CRASSI FRUGII
AQUA . MARINA . ET . BALN.
AQUA . DULCI . JANUARIUS . L.
which of course means “warm, sea, and fresh water baths.” As provincials
add to their notices “as in London,” or “à la mode de Paris,” so
Pompeians and others not unfrequently proclaimed that they followed the
customs of Rome at their several establishments. Thus the keeper of a
bathing-house near Bologna acquainted the public that--
IN . PRAEDIS
C . LEGIANNI VERI
BALNEUM . MORE . URBICO . LAVAT.
OMNIA COMMODA . PRAESTANTUR.
At his establishments there were baths according to the fashion of “the
town,” besides “every convenience.” And a similar inscription occurred
by the Via Nomentana, eight miles from Rome--
IN . PRAEDIS . AURE
LIAE . FAUSTINIANAE
BALINEUS . LAVAT . MO
RE . URBICO . ET OMNIS.
HUMANITAS . PRAESTA
TUR.
[Illustration: _WALL INSCRIPTIONS IN POMPEII.--Antigonus, the hero of
2112 victories. Superbus, a comparatively unknown man. Casuntius, the
master of the latter, is supposed to be in the act of advising him to
yield to the invincible retiarius. The other figure represents Aniketos
Achilles, a great Samnite gladiator, who merited the title of
invincible._]
Those who had premises to let or sell affixed a short notice to the
house itself, and more detailed bills were posted at the “advertising
stations.” Thus in Plautus’s “Trinummus,” Act v., the indignant
Callicles says to his spendthrift son, “You have dared to put up in my
absence, and unknown to me, that this house is to be sold”--(“Ædes
venales hasce inscribit literis”). Sometimes, also, the inscription,
“Illico ædes venales” (“here is a house for sale”) appears to have been
painted on the door, or on the _album_. An auctioneer would describe a
house as “Villa bona beneque edificata” (a good and well-built house),
and full details of the premises were given in the larger placards
painted on walls. In the street of the Fullers in Pompeii occurs the
following inscription, painted in red, over another which had been
painted in black and whitewashed over,--
IN . PRAEDIS . JULIAE . S . P . F . FELICIS
LOCANTUR
BALNEUM . VENEREUM . ET . NONGENTUM . PERGULAE
CENACULA . EX . IDIBUS . AUG . PRIORIS . IN . IDUS . AUG .
SEXTAS . ANNOS . CONTINUOS . QUINQUE.
S . Q . D . L . E . N . C.
Which has been translated, “On the estate of Julia Felix, daughter of
Spurius Felix, are to let from the 1st to the 6th of the ides of August
(_i.e._, between August 6th and 8th), on a lease of five years, a bath,
a venereum, and nine hundred shops, bowers, and upper apartments.”[12]
The seven final initials, antiquaries, who profess to read what to
others is unreadable, explain, “They are not to let to any person
exercising an infamous profession.” But as this seems a singular clause
where there is a _venereum_ to be let, other erudites have seen in it,
“Si quis dominam loci eius non cognoverit,” and fancy that they read
underneath, “Adeat Suettum Verum,” in which case the whole should mean,
“If anybody should not know the lady of the house, let him go to Suettus
Verus.” The following is another example of the way in which Roman
landlords advertised “desirable residences,” and “commodious business
premises”--
INSULA ARRIANA
POLLIANA . GN . ALIF I . NIGID I MAI
LOCANTUR . EX . I . JULIS . PRIMIS . TABERNAE
CUM . PERGULIS . SUIS . ET COENACULA
EQUESTRIA . ET . DOMUS . CONDUCTOR
CONVENITO . PRIMUM GN . ALIF I
NIGID I . MAI SER.
Said to mean, “In the Arrian Pollian block of houses, the property of
Cn. Alifius Nigidius, senior, are to let from the first of the ides of
July, shops with their bowers, and gentlemen’s apartments. The hirer
must apply to the slave of Cn. Alifius Nigidius, senior.”
[Illustration: _WALL INSCRIPTIONS IN POMPEII.--Apparently remarks and
opinions expressed by inhabitants, with reference to their fancies and
favourites, in the circuses and at other public exhibitions._]
Both the Greeks and the Romans had on their houses a piece of the wall
whitened to receive inscriptions relative to their affairs. The first
called this λεύκωμα, the latter _album_. Many examples of them are found
in Pompeii, generally in very inferior writing and spelling. Even the
schoolmaster Valentinus, who on his album, as was the constant practice,
invoked the patronage of some high personages, was very loose in his
grammar, and the untoward outbreak of Vesuvius has perpetuated his
blundering use of an accusative instead of an ablative: “Cum discentes
suos.” All the Pompeian inscriptions mentioned above were painted, but a
few instances also occur of notices being merely scratched on the wall.
Thus we find in one place, “Damas audi,” and on a pier at the angle of
the house of the tragic poet is an Etruscan inscription scratched in the
wall with a nail, which has been translated by a learned Neapolitan,
“You shall hear a poem of Numerius.” But these so-called Etruscan
inscriptions are by no means so well understood as we could wish, and
their interpretation is far from incontestable. There is another on a
house of Pompeii, which has been Latinised into, “Ex hinc viatoriens
ante turri xii inibi. Sarinus Publii cauponatur. Ut adires. Vale.” That
is, “Traveller, going from here to the twelfth tower, there Sarinus
keeps a tavern. This is to request you to enter. Farewell.” This
inscription, however, is so obscure that another _savant_ has read in it
a notification that a certain magistrate, Adirens Caius, had brought the
waters of the Sarno to Pompeii--a most material difference certainly.
We are made acquainted with other Roman bills and advertisements by the
works of the poets and dramatists. Thus at Trimalchion’s banquet, in the
“Satyricon,” Pliny mentions that a poet hired a house, built an oratory,
hired forms, and dispersed prospectuses. They also read their works
publicly,[13] an occupation in which they were much interrupted and
annoyed by idlers and impertinent boys. Another mode of advertising new
works more resembled that of our own country. The Roman booksellers used
to placard their shops with the titles of the new books they had for
sale. Such was the shop of Atrectus, described by Martial--
Contra Cæsaris est forum taberna
Scriptis postibus hinc et inde totis
Omnes ut cito perlegas poetas
Illinc me pete.
[7] Pausanias Græc., lib. viii. c. 14, Arcadia.
[8] Apuleius, Golden Ass, Book viii., Episode 8.
[9] The spot here mentioned was at the back of the Temple of Venus
Myrtia (the myrtle Venus), on Mount Aventine in Rome.
[10] Apuleius, Book vi.
[11] That is, “The troop of gladiators of the ædil will fight on the
31st of May. There will be fights with wild animals, and an awning to
keep off the sun.” Wind and weather permitting, there were awnings
over the heads of the spectators; but, generally, there appears to
have been too much wind in this breezy summer retreat to admit of this
luxury. “Nam ventus populo vela negare solet,” says Martial, and the
same idea occurs in three other places in this poet’s works (vi. 9;
xi. 21; xiv. 29). Sometimes, also, the bills of gladiators promise
_sparsiones_, which consisted in certain sprinklings of water perfumed
with saffron or other odours; and, as they produced what was called a
nimbus, or cloud, the perfumes were probably dispersed over the
audience in drops by means of pipes or spouts, or, perhaps, by some
kind of rude engine.
[12] Nine hundred shops in a town which would hardly contain more than
about twelve hundred is rather incredible--perhaps it should be
ninety. _Pergulæ_ were either porticos shaded with verdure, lattices
with creeping plants, or small rooms above the shops, bedrooms for the
shopkeepers. _Cœnacula_ were rooms under the terraces. When they were
good enough to let to the higher classes they were called _equestria_
(as in the following advertisement). Plutarch informs us that Sylla,
in his younger days, lived in one of them, where he paid a rent of £8
a year.
[13] A. L. Millin, Description d’un Mosaique antique du Musée Pio.
Clementin, à Rome, 1819, p. 9.