CHAPTER II.

Greece.

THE literature of Greece has become the property of the world, but of

the existence of literary property in Greece--that is, of any system

or practice of compensation to writers from their readers or hearers,

either direct or indirect--the traces are very slight; so slight, in

fact, that the weight of authority is against the probability of such

practice having obtained at all.

It is fortunate for the literature of the world that the Greek poets,

dramatists, historians, and philosophers were content to do their work

for the approval of their own generation, for the chance of fame with

the generations to come, or for the satisfaction of the work itself, as

their rewards in the shape of anything more tangible than fame appear

to have been either nothing or something very inconsiderable.

Clement says: “After the most painstaking researches through the

records left us by the Greeks, we are compelled to conclude that

in none of the Greek states was any recognition ever given under

provision of law, to the right of authors to any control over their own

productions.”[18] Breulier writes: “Literary property, in any sense

in which the term is understood to-day, did not exist at Athens.”[19]

Wilhelm Schmitz concludes that “no such relation as that which to-day

exists between authors and booksellers (publishers) was known among the

Greeks. In none of the writings of the time, do we find the slightest

reference to any such publishing arrangements as Roman authors in

the time of Martial were accustomed to secure.”[20] This treatise of

Schmitz’s is a painstaking and interesting study of the conditions of

Greek literature in classic times and of the relations of Greek writers

to their public, and for certain portions of this chapter I am largely

indebted to the results of his investigations.

Géraud remarks that in the first development of written language and

literature among the Hebrews and Egyptians, it is easy to recognize

the “fatal influence of the spirit of priestly caste, an influence

from which the Greek peoples were comparatively free.”[21] The richest

literature of antiquity, he goes on to say, is that of Greece, and

it was also in Greece that the art of writing made the most rapid

advances. The teaching of the priests, whether given through the

oracles or not, was purely oral, so that the Greeks did not come into

possession of any body of sacred scriptures such as formed the original

literature of other peoples. On the other hand, the ardent nature,

inquiring and active intellect, and brilliant imagination of the

Greeks, gave an early and rapid development to the arts, to poetry, and

to speculative philosophy.

The old-time tradition credits the introduction of the alphabet

in Greece to Cadmus, and fixes the date of the first Hellenic

spelling-school at about the fifteenth century before Christ. I

believe the authorities are divided as to whether this mythical Cadmus

represents a Phœnician or an Egyptian influence, but this is a question

which need not be considered here. I understand the philologists are

in accord in the conclusion that the Cadmus story represents, not a

first instituting of a Greek alphabet, but merely certain important

modifications in the form of letters already in use. Birt asserts,

as if it were now a settled fact, that while the Greeks derived their

written characters from the Phœnicians, they were indebted to Egypt

for their first ideas in the making of books. There is a very distinct

family resemblance between the Greek characters as known in literature

and those of the Hebrew, Phœnician, and Syriac alphabets, while the

names of the Greek letters _Alpha_ and _Beta_ are found in all the

Semitic dialects. It seems further to be certain that the earlier

peoples of Greece, after for a time having written perpendicularly

according to the fashion of the Chinese, began later to write from

right to left according to the Oriental manner.

The so-called _Boustrophedon_, a term meaning “turning like oxen when

they plough,” was a method of writing from left to right, and from

right to left in alternate lines. Among the earlier specimens of

this method were the laws of Solon (about 610 B.C.) and the Sigean

inscription (about 600 B.C.). This system represents a period of

transition between the earliest style and that of which the invention

is credited to Pronapides, and is simply the modern European fashion

of writing from left to right. The inscriptions of the Etruscans are

largely written in _Boustrophedon_. Neither in Greece, however, nor

elsewhere, did this method remain in use for any writings which are to

be classed as literature.

While Greek literature, as far as known to us, must be considered as

beginning with the Homeric poems, the date of which is estimated by

the majority of the authorities at about 900 B.C., there appears to be

no trustworthy example of Greek writing earlier than about 600 B.C.

Curiously enough, this specimen was found not in Greece but in Egypt.

Jevons describes it as follows:

“On the banks of the Upper Nile, in the temple of Abu Simbel, are

huge statues of stone, and on the legs of the second colossus

from the south are chipped the names, witticisms, and records

of travellers of all ages, in alphabets known and unknown. The

earliest of the Greek travellers who have thus left their names

were a body of mercenaries, who seemed to have formed part of an

expedition which was led up the Nile by King Psammitichus.”[22]

Jevons goes on to give the grounds for the conclusion (based mainly

on the formation of certain of the letters, and in part, of course,

on the references to King Psammitichus) that the inscription was

written, or rather was cut, upon the statue between 620 B.C. and 600

B.C., according as we take the king mentioned to have been the first

or second of his name.[23] We have, then, a date fixing a time at

which the art of writing certainly existed among the Greeks, while it

is further evident that if in the year 600 the art of writing was so

well established that it was understood by a number of mercenaries,

it must have been quite generally diffused through certain classes of

society, and the date for its introduction into Greece must have been

considerably earlier than 600. Jevons knows, however, of no example of

Greek writing which can be ascribed to an earlier date than that above

quoted.

The conclusion, based upon this inscription, that in the year 600 B.C.

writing had for some time been known in Greece, enables us, however,

says Jevons, to accept as probably authentic a reference to writing

ascribed to an author who lived nearly a century earlier. Archilochus,

a poet who is believed to have flourished about 700 B.C., uses in one

of his fables the expression “a grievous _skytale_.”

“A _skytale_ was a staff on which a strip of leather for writing

purposes was rolled slant-wise. A message was then written on

the leather, and the latter being unrolled, was given to the

messenger. If the messenger were intercepted, the message could

not be deciphered, for only when the leather was rolled on a staff

of precisely the same size (_i. e._, thickness) as the proper one,

would the letters come right. Such a staff, the duplicate of that

used by the sender, was of course possessed by the recipient.”

This primitive method of cipher was for a long time in use with the

Spartans for conveying State messages. In the figure of speech used

by Archilochus, his fable was to outward appearance innocent of any

recondite meaning, but would prove a grievous “skytale” for the person

attacked.

It seems reasonable, continues Jevons, to accept this passage as

indicating a knowledge of writing in Greece as early as 700 B.C. This

date allows a century for the diffusion of the art and for the spread

of the Ionic alphabet which are implied by the Abu Simbel inscription.

And the passage does not prove too much. It does not imply even that

Archilochus himself could write. The invention or introduction was

sufficiently novel and admirable to furnish a poet with a metaphor;

and the _skytale_ was probably then, as in later times, a government

institution. This mention of it accords with the probable supposition

that writing was used for government purposes for some time before it

became common among the people.

The next date or period which in connection with my subject it is of

interest to fix, however approximately, is that when it is possible to

speak of the existence of a reading public. On this point also I take

the liberty of quoting one or two paragraphs from Jevons in which the

probabilities are clearly presented:

“Reading and writing were certainly taught as early as the year 500

B.C., and half a century later, to be unable to read or write was a

thing to be ashamed of. Herodotus speaks of boys’ schools existing

in Chios in the time of Histiæus, who lived about 500.”[24]

“Instruction of this kind does not, however, prove the existence

of a reading public. Enough education to be able to keep accounts,

to read public notices, to correspond with friends or business

agents, may have been in the possession of every free Athenian in

the period between 500 and 450 B.C., and the want of such education

may have caused a man to be sneered at; but this does not prove the

habit of reading literature.”

There are, however, various references which indicate that by the

year 450 B.C. the habit of reading was beginning to become general,

at least in certain circles of society. Jevons quotes a passage from

the _Tagenistæ_ of Aristophanes, in which, speaking of a young man

gone wrong, the dramatist ascribes his ruin to “a book, to Prodicus or

to bad company.”[25] Jevons also finds in fragments of an old comedy

such expressions as “an unlettered man,” “a man who does not know his

A B C.” A passage in the lyric fragments of the poet Theognis (who

lived 583-500) is of interest not merely as an evidence of some public

circulation of literature, but as possibly the earliest example of an

author’s attempting to control the circulation of his own productions.

Theognis says he has hit on a device which will prevent his verses

from being appropriated by any one else. He will put his name on them

as a seal (or trade-mark) and then “no one will take inferior work

for his when the good is to be had, but every one will say ‘These are

the verses of Theognis, the Megarian.’” As Jevons says: “This passage

certainly implies that Theognis committed his works to writing.” It

also appears to imply that there was likely to be sufficient literary

prestige attaching to the poetry of Theognis to tempt an unscrupulous

person to claim to be its author, while it is at least possible

to infer that the plan of Theognis had reference not only to his

prestige as an author, but also to certain author’s proceeds from the

sales of his works, which proceeds he desired to keep plagiarists

from appropriating. Clement does not, however, believe that there is

adequate ground for the latter supposition, but contends that if the

poet caused copies of his poems to be multiplied and distributed, it

was not for the purpose of having them sold, and not even in order that

they might be read, but to enable his friends to learn them and to sing

them at drinking parties or other social gatherings. In his opinion,

the nature of the poetry of Theognis shows that it was not composed for

a reading public.

Giving the fullest possible weight to the evidences for the early

development of the knowledge of reading and writing, and the possible

facilities for the multiplication and distribution of books in

manuscript, it is certain that Greek literature between the ninth

and the sixth centuries B.C. cannot have been prepared for a reading

public. The epics which have come down to posterity from that period

must have been transmitted by word of mouth and memory. Mahaffy

and Jevons are in accord in pointing out that the effort of memory

required for the composition and transmission of long poems without

the aid of writing, while implying a power never manifested among

people possessing printed books, is not in itself at all incredible.

Memory was equal to the task, and the earlier Greek poems, memorized

by the authors as composed, were preserved by successive generations

of Bards. They were also evidently composed with special reference to

the requirements of the reciters whose recitations were in the earlier

periods usually given at the banquets of the royal courts or of great

houses to which the bards were attached. The practice of reciting

before public audiences can hardly have been begun before the year 600

B.C.

The early epics were as a rule much too long to be recited within

the limits of a single evening, and they must therefore have been

continued from banquet to banquet. The authors have apparently kept

this necessity in mind, and have provided for it by dividing their

narratives into clearly defined episodes, at the close of which the

reciters could leave their audiences with some such word as that given

at the close of a weekly installment in the “penny dreadful”--“to be

continued in our next.”

As the practice was introduced of entertaining larger audiences in

the open air with the recital of the Homeric and other epics, a class

of professional reciters arose, known as _Rhapsodists_, who declaimed

in a theatrical manner, with much gesture and varying inflection of

the voice. The term rhapsody is believed by Jevons to be derived from

ῥάπτω, to sew or stitch together. He quotes a line from Pindar, Ὁμηρίαι

ῥάπτων επέων ἀοιδοί, “sons of Homer, singers of stitched verses.”

Words are metaphorically said to be stitched together into verses, and

the word ῥαχ-ῳδός Jevons derives from ῥάπτω, to stitch, and ἀοιδός, a

singer.[26]

These rhapsodists travelled from place to place to compete for the

prizes offered by the different cities, and while the national poems

(carried in their memories) were probably common to all, each reciter

doubtless had his own special method of declaiming these. This practice

helps to account for the transmission and for the diffusion of the

earlier epics. The rhapsodists may, therefore, be said to have served

in a sense as the publishers of the period. The derivation of the word

comedy throws some light on the literary customs of the time. It means

literally “a song of the village,” from κώμη, a village, and ἀείδω, I

sing.

The purposes of Greek writers were either political or purely ideal.

The possibility of earning money by means of authorship seems hardly

ever to have occurred to them, and this freedom from any commercial

motive for their work was doubtless an important cause for the high

respect accorded in Greece to its authors. In the time of Plato, the

_Sophists_, who prepared speeches and gave instruction for gain, were

subject to more or less criticism on this account--a criticism which

Plato himself seems to have initiated.[27]

At the threshold of Greek literature stands the majestic figure of

Homer; and to Pisistratus, the Tyrant of Athens, is to be credited the

inestimable service of securing the preservation of the Homeric poems

in the form in which they have been handed down to posterity. The task

of compiling or of editing the material was confided to four men, whose

names, as predecessors of a long list of Homeric editors, deserve to be

recorded: Conchylus, Onomacritus, Zopyrus, and Orpheus, and the work

was completed about 550 B.C.[28]

Another creditable literary undertaking of Pisistratus was the

collection of the poems of Hesiod, which was confided to the Milesian

Cecrops. We have the testimony of Plutarch that by these means the

Tyrant did not a little towards gaining or regaining the favor of

the Athenians, which speaks well for the early interest of the city

in literature. There are no details on record as to the means by

which these first literary products were placed at the service of the

community, but there can be no question that the service rendered

by the Tyrant and the editors selected by him, consisted simply in

providing an authoritative text, from which any who wished might

transcribe such number of copies as they desired. This Pisistratus

edition of the Homeric books is said to have served as the standard

text for the copyists and for Homeric students not only in Greece but

later in Alexandria, and is, therefore, the basis of the Homeric

literature that has come down to modern days.

Prof. Mahaffy remarks that the writings of Hesiod differed from those

of the other early Greek authors in being addressed, not to “the powers

that were,” but to the common people.[29] Referring to the style of

Hesiod’s works, Simcox says, rather naïvely, “Hesiod would certainly

have written in prose, if prose had then existed.” _Works and Days_

(the only one of Hesiod’s poems which the later Greek commentators

accept as certainly genuine) consists of ethical and economic precepts,

written in a homely and unimaginative style, and setting forth the

indisputable doctrine that labor is the only road to prosperity.

Mahaffy is my authority for the statement that Hesiod’s poems came into

use “at an early period as a favorite handbook of education.”[30]

I wish this brilliant student of Greek life had given us some clue as

to the methods by which copies of this literature were multiplied and

brought into the hands of the country people and common people to whom

it was more particularly addressed. The difficulty of circulating books

among this class of readers must have been very much greater than that

of reaching the scholarly circles of the cities.

While it was a long time before authors were to be in a position to

secure any compensation from those who derived pleasure from their

productions, they began at an early date (as in the case before

mentioned of Theognis) to raise questions with each other on the score

of plagiarisms, and to be jealous of retaining undisturbed the full

literary prestige to which they might be entitled.

Clement remarks that “an enlightened public opinion helped to

defend Greek authors against the borrowing of literary thieves, by

stigmatizing plagiarism as a crime, and by expressing for a writer

detected in appropriating the work of another a well merited contempt

instead of the approbation for which he had hoped.”[31] It seems

probable, however, that this is too favorable a view to take as to the

effectiveness of public opinion in preserving among Greek writers a

spirit of exact conscientiousness, as the complaints in the literature

of the time concerning unauthorized and uncredited “borrowings” are

numerous and bitter.

Such terms as “accidental coincidence,” “identity of thought,”

“unconscious cerebration” (in absorbing the expressions of another),

were doubtless used in these earlier as in the later days of literature

to explain certain suspicious cases of “parallelisms” or similarities.

In fact, at least one Greek author, the sophist Aretades, wrote a

volume, unfortunately lost, on the similarity or identity of thought

creations.[32]

Clement gives some examples of borrowings or appropriations on the part

of writers and orators, and his list is so considerable as to leave the

impression that the public opinion to which he refers was either not

very active in discovering the practice, or was not a little remiss

in characterizing and in condemning it. Isocrates copies an entire

oration from Gorgias; Æschines makes free use in his discourses of

those of Lysias and Andocides. Even Demosthenes, the chief of orators,

occasionally yielded to the temptation; and among other instances,

Clement cites extracts from orations against _Aphobos_ and _Pantænetos_

which are identical with passages in the _Discourses on Ciron_ by the

old instructor of Demosthenes, Isæus.

Rozoir tells us that an anonymous work of six volumes (rolls) was

published under the title _Passages in the Writings of Menander which

are Not the Work of Menander_, and that Philostrates of Alexandria

accused Sophocles of having pillaged Æschylus, Æschylus of having

permitted himself to draw too much inspiration from Phrynichus, and,

finally, Phrynichus of having taken his material from the writers

who preceded him. Such charges become, of course, too sweeping to

be pertinent, and can probably in large part be dismissed with the

conclusion that each generation of writers ought to familiarize itself

with the work of its predecessors, and may often enough with propriety

undertake the reinterpretation for new generations of readers of themes

similar to those which have interested their fathers and grandfathers.

One evidence that the subject of plagiarism was a matter which in later

days engaged public attention is given by the Fable of Æsop on the Jay

masquerading in the plumes of the Peacock.

Clement points out that in connection with the fierce competition

between the poets of Athens for dramatic honors, no means were

neglected by the friends of each writer to bring discredit upon the

productions of his rivals, and that very many of the charges of

plagiarism can be traced to such an incentive. Aristophanes, who amused

himself by utilizing for his comedies the strifes between his literary

contemporaries, puts into the mouth of Euripides, whom he makes one of

the characters in _The Frogs_, the following biting words, addressed to

Æschylus:

“When I first read over the tragedy which you placed in my hands,

I found it difficult and bombastic; I at once made a severe

condensation, freeing the play from the weight of rubbish with

which you had overloaded it; I then enlivened it with bright

sayings, with pointed philosophic subtleties and with an abundance

of brilliant witticisms drawn from a crowd of other books; and

finally I added some pithy monologues, which are in the main the

work of Ctesiphon.”[33]

In the same comedy, Æschylus is made to accuse Euripides of having

carried on literary free-booting in every direction. Further on,

Bacchus, in expressing his admiration for some striking thought

expressed by Euripides, asks whether it is really his or Ctesiphon’s,

and the tragedian frankly admits that the credit for the idea properly

belongs to the latter. Clement concludes that there must have been

foundation for the raillery of the comedian, and refers, in this

connection, to the remarks of Plato that if one wished to examine

the philosophy of Anaxagoras, the simplest course was to read the

tragedies of Euripides, the choruses of which reproduced faithfully the

teachings of the philosopher. Aristophanes, while scoffing sharply at

the misdeeds of others, was himself not beyond criticism, being charged

with having made free use of the comedies of Cratinus and Eupolis.[34]

The philosophers and historians appear to have been little more

conscientious than the poets in their literary standard. The historian

Theopompus included, without credit, in the eleventh book of his

_Philippics_ a whole harangue of Isocrates, and with a few changes of

names and places, he was able to make use of passages from Androtion

and Xenophon. His appropriations were so considerable that they were

collected in a separate volume to which was given the fitting title

of _The Hunters_.[35] Lysimachus wrote a book entitled The _Robberies

of Ephorus_. Timon, in some lines preserved by Aulus Gellius, charges

Plato with having obtained from a treatise of the Pythagorean

philosopher Philolaus the substance of his famous dialogue the

_Timæus_.[36] The lines, from the version of Clement, read as follows:

“You also, Plato, being ambitious to acquire knowledge, first purchased

for a great sum a small book, and then with its aid proceeded yourself

to instruct others.”

Even our moral friend Plutarch does not escape from the general charge

of borrowing from others.

“In reading,” says Rozoir, “the text of many of the _Lives_, one cannot

but be struck with the very great differences of style and of forms of

expression, differences so marked, that it is difficult to avoid the

conclusion that many portions are extracts taken literally and without

credit, from other authors.”[37]

From these examples, out of many which might be cited, it seems evident

that during the centuries in which Greek literature was at its height,

the practice of plagiarism was very general, even among authors whose

originality and creative power could not be questioned. Emerson’s

dictum that “man is as lazy as he dares to be” was assuredly as true

two thousand years ago as at the time it was uttered.

We may further conclude that while plagiarism, when detected, called

forth a certain amount of criticism and raillery, especially when the

author appropriated from was still living, it did not bring upon the

“appropriators” any such final condemnation as would cause them to

lose caste in the literary guild or to forfeit the appreciation of

the reading public. This leniency of judgment could doubtless be more

safely depended upon by writers who had given evidence of their own

creative powers. The acknowledged genius could say with Molière: “_Je

prends mon bien où je le trouve_,” and such a claim would be admitted

the more readily as, when a genius does to the work of another the

honor of utilizing it, the material so appropriated must usually

secure in its new setting a renewed vitality, a different and a larger

value.

The case of a small writer venturing to appropriate from a greater one

was naturally judged much more harshly, and if a literary theft was

detected in a production which was submitted in open contest for public

honors, the verdict was swift and severe.

An instance of such public condemnation is referred to by

Vitruvius.[38] One of the Ptolemies had instituted at Alexandria some

literary contests in honor of Apollo and the Muses. Aristophanes, the

grammarian, who on a certain day acted as judge, gave his decision,

to the surprise of the audience, in favor of a contestant whose

composition had certainly not been the most able. When asked to defend

his decision, he showed that the competing productions were literal

copies from the works of well known writers. Thereupon the unsuccessful

competitors were promptly sentenced before the tribunal as veritable

robbers, and were ignominiously thrust out of the city.

“_Itaque rex jussit cum his agi furti, condemnatosque cum ignominia

dimisit._”

This was, however, certainly an exceptional case, as well in the

clumsiness of the plagiarism as in the swiftness of the punishment.

The weight of evidence is, I am inclined to believe, in favor of the

view, that in the absence of any protection by law for the author’s

“rights,” whether literary or commercial, in his productions, the

protection by public opinion, even for living writers, was very

incidental and inadequate; while it seems further probable that,

especially as far as the works of dead authors were concerned, but a

small proportion of the “borrowings” were ever brought to light at all

or became the occasion for any criticism. Much, of course, depended

upon the manner in which the appropriation was made. As Le Vayer

cleverly says: “_L’on peut dérober à la façon des abeilles sans faire

tort à personne; mais le vol de la fourmi, qui enlève le grain entier,

ne doit jamais être imité._”[39]

There is one ground for forgiving these early literary “appropriators”

even of _les grains entiers_--namely, that by means of such transmissal

by later writers of extracts borrowed from their predecessors, a good

deal of valuable material has been preserved for future generations

which would otherwise have been lost altogether.

In considering such examples of plagiarism as are referred to by Greek

writers and the general attitude of these writers to the practice, it

is safe to conclude that authors cannot depend upon retaining the

literary control of their own productions and cannot be prevented from

securing honor for the productions of others unless public opinion can

be supplemented with an effective copyright law.

Suidas, the lexicographer, relates that Euphorion, the son of Æschylus,

and himself also a writer, gave to the world as his own certain

tragedies which were the work of his father, but which had not before

been made known (_nondum in lucem editis_).[40] It does not appear that

any advantage other than a brief prestige accrued to Euphorion through

his unfilial plagiarism.

Such advantage was, however, more possible for the author of a drama

than for the author of any other class of literature, for seats in

the theatre, which had at first been free, were later sold to the

spectators at a drachme (Plato’s _Apology of Socrates_). The drachme

was equal in cash to about eighteen cents, and in purchasing power to

perhaps seventy-two cents of our money. This price was, according to

Barthelémi,[41] reduced by Pericles to an obolus, equal in cash value

to about three cents.

The expenses of the presentation of a drama were very slight, and even

this smaller payment by the audience should have afforded means, after

the actors had been reimbursed, for some compensation to the dramatist.

Instances of compensation to orators are of not infrequent occurrence,

and, as Paul Clement remarks, it seems reasonably certain that

experienced orators were not in the habit of writing gratuitously the

discourses so frequently prepared for the use of others. Isocrates is

reported to have received not less than twenty talents (about $21,500)

for the discourses sent by him to Nicocles, King of Cyprus.[42]

Aristophanes speaks of the considerable sums gained by the jurists, but

the service for which Isocrates was paid was of course of a different

character.

The intellectual or literary life of Athens, initiated by the

popularization (at least among the cultivated circles) of the poems

of Homer and Hesiod, was very much furthered through the influence of

Plato. Curiously enough, notwithstanding Plato’s great activity as

a writer, he placed a low estimate on the importance of written as

compared with that of oral instruction. This is shown in his reference

to the myth concerning the discovery of writing.[43]

The ten books of Plato’s _Republic_ were undoubtedly prepared in

the first place for presentation in the shape of lectures to a

comparatively small circle of students, and were through these students

first brought before the public. Plato’s hearers appear to have

interested themselves in the work of circulating the written reports

of his lectures, of which for some little time the number of copies

was naturally limited. We also learn that the fortunate possessors of

such manuscripts were in the habit of lending them out for hire. From

a comedy of the time has been quoted the following line: “Hermodoros

makes a trade of the sale of lectures.”[44]

Hermodoros of Syracuse was known as a student of Plato, and this

quotation is interpreted as a reference to a practice of his of

preparing for sale written reports of his instructor’s talks. Plato

had evidently not yet evolved for himself the doctrine established

over two thousand years later by Dr. Abernethy, that the privilege of

listening to lectures did not carry with it the right to sell or to

distribute the reports of the same. Abernethy’s student had at least

made payment to the doctor for his course of lectures, while if, as

seems probable, the teachings of Plato were a free gift to his hearers,

his claim to the control of all subsequent use of the material would

have been still better founded than that of the Scotch lecturer. But

the time when it was not considered incompatible with the literary

or philosophical ideal for the authors or philosophers to receive

compensation from those benefited by their instruction, had not yet

arrived. This reference to Hermodoros has interest as being possibly

the first recorded instance of moneys being paid for literary material.

The date was about 325 B.C.

Suidas calls Hermodoros a hearer (ἀκροατής) of Plato, and says,

further, that he made a traffic of his master’s teachings (λόγοισιν

Ἑρμόδωρος ἐμπορεύεται). Cicero, in writing to Atticus, makes a jesting

comparison of the relations of Hermodoros to Plato with those borne

by his publishing friend to himself, when he says: _Placetne tibi

libros “De Finibus” primum edere injussu meo? Hoc ne Hermodorus quidem

faciebat, is qui Platonis libros solitus est divulgare._[45] “Possibly

you may be inclined to publish my work _De Finibus_ without securing

the permission of the author. Even that Hermodorus, who was in the

habit of publishing the books of Plato, was not guilty of such a thing.”

The term _libros_, employed by Cicero, is of course not really

accurate, and ought properly to be interpreted as teachings, as

Hermodoros appears not to have had in his hands any of Plato’s

manuscripts, and to have used for his “publications” simply his own

reports of his instructor’s lectures. It seems probable from these

several references that Hermodoros secured from his sales certain

profits, but it was evidently not believed that he considered himself

under any obligation to divide such profits with Plato.

We have no word from Plato himself concerning the method by which

his writings were brought before the public, but we find references

in Aristotle to the “published works of Plato.”[46] Cephisodorus, a

pupil of Isocrates, makes it a ground for reproach against Aristotle

(considered at the time as a rival of his own instructor) that the

latter should have published a work on Greek proverbs, a performance

characterized as “unworthy of a philosopher.”[47]

The greater portions of the writings of Aristotle appear to have been

composed in the course of his second sojourn in Athens, during which

he was specially indebted to, and was possibly maintained by, the

affectionate liberality of his royal pupil Alexander the Great. A

curious claim was made by the latter to the ownership, or at least

to the control, of such of the philosopher’s lectures as had been

originally prepared for his own instruction. “You have not treated

me fairly,” writes Alexander to Aristotle, “in including with your

published works the papers prepared for my instruction. For if the

scholarly writings by means of which I was educated become the common

property of the world, in what manner shall I be intellectually

distinguished above ordinary mortals? I would rather be noteworthy

through the possession of the highest knowledge than by means of the

power of my position.”

Aristotle’s reply is ingenious. He says in substance: “It is true, O

beloved pupil, that through the zeal of over-admiring friends these

lectures, originally prepared for thy instruction, have been given

out to the world. But in no full sense of the term have they been

published, for in the form in which they are written they can be

properly understood only if accompanied by the interpretation of their

author, and such interpretation he has given to none but his beloved

pupil.”[48]

Alexander’s claim to the continued control of literary productions

prepared for him and for the first use of which he, or his father on

his behalf, had made adequate payment, raises an interesting question.

It is probable, however, that the principle involved is at the bottom

the same as that upon which have since been decided the Abernethy case

and other similar issues between instructors and pupils; such decisions

limiting the rights of the students in the material strictly to the

special use for which he has paid, and leaving with the instructor,

when also the author, all subsequent control and all subsequent benefit.

Aristotle made a sharp distinction between his “published works”

(ἐξωτερικοὶ or ἐκδεδομένοι λόγοι) and his Academic works (ἀκροάσεις).

The former, written out in full and revised, could be purchased by the

general public (outside of the Peripatos). The latter were apparently

prepared more in the shape of notes or abstracts, to serve as the basis

of his lectures. Copies of these abstracts, such as would to-day be

known in universities as _Précis_, were distributed among (and possibly

purchased by) the students,[49] and could not be obtained except within

the Peripatos.

From the bequests made by certain of the philosophers of their books,

it appears that such a distinction between the two classes of books

was general. In these legacies the copies of current publications,

purchased for reading (Τὰ ἀνεγνωσμένα), are distinguished from

the unpublished works (ἀνέκδοτα). It was from such an unpublished

manuscript (ἀνέκδοτον)[50] that in the _Theætet._ of Plato a reading is

given.

It is easy to understand that the more abstruse works of Plato and

Aristotle were not fitted for any such general distribution as was

secured for the then popular treatises of Democritus on the _Science

of Nature_, or for the writings of the Sophist Protagoras. It is by no

means clear by what channels were distributed these works, which appear

very shortly after their production to have come into the hands of a

large number of readers not only in Greece itself, but throughout the

Greek colonies. The sale of copies, made by students and by admiring

readers, seems hardly to furnish a sufficiently adequate publishing

machinery, but of publishers or booksellers, with staffs of trained

copyists, we have as yet no trustworthy record.

Protagoras, who came from Abdera, was said to have been intimate with

Pericles. He was the first lecturer or instructor who assumed the title

of Sophist, and what is more important for our subject, was said to

be the first who received pay for his lessons. Plato, whose view of

the responsibilities of a literary or philosophical worker seems to

have been extremely ideal, makes it a charge against Protagoras that

during the forty years in which he taught, he received more money than

Phidias. And why not, one is tempted to enquire, if his many hearers

felt that they received a fair equivalent in the services rendered? The

receipts of Protagoras appear to have come entirely from the listeners

or students who attended his lectures; at least there is nothing to

show that he himself derived any business benefit from the large sales

of the copies of these lectures. His remunerated work is therefore an

example of property produced from an intellectual product but not yet

of property resulting for the producer of a work of literature.

The history, or histories of Herodotus were first communicated to the

world in the shape of lectures or readings of the separate chapters

of the earlier portions. We find references to four such lectures

delivered respectively at Olympia,[51] Athens,[52] Corinth,[53] and

Thebes[54] between the years 455 and 450, B.C. In 447 B.C. Herodotus

was sojourning in Athens, still engaged in the work of his history, and

becoming known, through his public readings, to Pericles, Sophocles,

and other leaders of Athenian thought and culture. In 443 he joined

the colonists whom Pericles was sending out to Italy, and became one

of the first settlers at Thurium, where he remained until his death

in 424. It was at Thurium that the great work, in the shape in which

we now know it, was finally completed, about 442. The promptness

with which the _History_ became known in Greece and the very general

circulation secured for it, seems to have been in large part due to the

personal interest in it of Pericles and Sophocles and possibly also to

the financial aid of the former in providing funds for the copyists.

It is related, on uncertain authority, says Clement, that in 446, the

Athenian Assembly decreed a reward to Herodotus for his _History_,

after certain chapters of it had been read publicly. There appears to

be no other reference to any compensation secured by the author for

this great work to the preparation of which he had devoted his life and

which had cost him so many toilsome and costly journeys. The _History_

of Herodotus, the first work of any lasting importance of its class in

point of time, and in the estimate of twenty-three centuries not far

from the first by point of excellence, was practically a free gift from

the historian to his generation and to posterity.

The system of instruction or literary entertainment by means of

readings or lectures became one of the most important features of

intellectual life in Greece. Mahaffy speaks of the culture and

quickness of intellect of an Athenian audience as being far in advance

of that of a similar modern assembly. Freeman says: “The average

intelligence of the assembled Athenian citizens was unquestionably

higher than that of the House of Commons.”[55]

It is stated by Abicht[56] that the young Thucydides, then a boy of

twelve, was one of the listeners to a recital of Herodotus at the great

Olympian festival, and, moved to tears, resolved that he would devote

himself to the writing of history. Later, when he had entered upon his

own historical work, Thucydides remarks with a confidence which later

centuries have justified, that he “was not writing for the present

only, but for all time.”[57]

His _History_ was left unfinished, apparently owing to the sudden

death of the author, although the exact date of this death is not

known. It does not appear who assumed the responsibility for the first

publication of the _History_. Marcellinus speaks of a daughter of

Thucydides having undertaken the transcribing of the eighth book, and

having provided means for the issue of the same.[58] If this daughter

inherited the gold mine in Thrace which her father tells us he owned,

there should have been no difficulty in finding funds for the copyists.

According to others the work was cared for by Xenophon and Theopompus.

Demosthenes is reported to have transcribed the eight books with

his own hand eight times, and there were doubtless many other

admiring readers who contributed their share of labor in copying and

distributing the eloquent chronicles of the Peloponnesian war. In the

fourth century B.C. the dedication of literature to the public seems

to have been emphatically a labor of love. Xenophon had at one time

thought of writing a continuation of the narrative of Thucydides,

but until the time of his withdrawal to Scillus, he had neither the

leisure nor the service of the skilled slaves requisite for the work.

Xenophon takes to himself the credit of having brought into fame

the previously unknown books of Thucydides which he had been in a

position to suppress (or to supplant).[59] Xenophon’s own literary

activity, resulting in a considerable list of narratives and treatises,

was comprised between the years 387 and 355 B.C., that is during the

last thirty years of his long life. He died in 355, at the age of

ninety-eight. On the estate at Scillus which the Spartans had presented

to him, for services rendered against his native state of Athens, he

had gathered a large staff of slaves skilled as scribes, by whom were

prepared the copies of his works distributed amongst his friends. He

speaks of having taken some of the scribes with him to Corinth, where

the _Cyropædia_ was completed.

In Xenophon’s _Anabasis_ we find that each chapter or book is preceded

by a summary in which are repeated the contents of the preceding

chapter. The work was, as was customary, divided into books of suitable

length for reading aloud from evening to evening, and such summaries

were, says Isocrates, of decided convenience in recalling to the

hearers the more important occurrences related in the previous reading,

and in this manner sustained the interest in the narrative. The

dialogues of Aristotle were said to have contained proems presenting

summaries of the preceding conclusions together with an outline of the

new situation. The similar proems in the _Tusculan Disputations_ of

Cicero are not prefaces to books but to situations, and occur only in

those books in which a new situation is introduced.[60]

For the preservation of the writings of the earlier Greek authors,

we are indebted to the first book collectors or bibliophilists.

Athenæus[61] names as founders of some of the more important earlier

libraries, Polycrates of Samos (570-522 B.C.), Pisistratus of Athens

(612-527), Euclid of Megara (about 440-400), Aristotle (384-321),

and the kings of Pergamum (350-200). Pisistratus, who died 527 B.C.,

bequeathed his books to Athens for a public library, and the Athenians

interested themselves later in largely increasing the collection. This

is possibly the earliest record there is of a library dedicated to the

public. On the capture of Athens by Xerxes, the collection was taken

to Persia, to be restored two centuries later by Seleucus Nicator.[62]

The library of the kings of Pergamum, which Antony afterward presented

to Cleopatra, is said by Plutarch[63] to have grown to 200,000 rolls,

which stands of course for a much smaller number of works.

The most comprehensive of the earlier private collections of books

was undoubtedly that of Aristotle, to whose house Plato gave the name

of “the house of the reader.”[64] Diogenes Laërtius speaks of his

possessing a thousand συγγράμματα and four hundred βιβλία. According to

one account, the books of Aristotle were bequeathed to or secured by

Neleus, and by him were sold to Ptolemy Philadelphus, who transferred

them to Alexandria, together with a collection of other manuscripts

bought in Athens and in Rhodes.[65] Strabo says that the heirs of

Neleus, ignorant people, buried the manuscripts in order to keep them

from falling into the hands of the kings of Pergamum, and that they

were seriously injured through damp and worms. When again dug up, they

were, however, sold for a high price to Apellicon, who had certain of

the works reproduced, in very defective editions, from the imperfect

manuscripts. On the capture of Athens, Sulla took possession of such of

the books as still remained and carried them off to Rome, where they

were arranged by the grammarian Tyrannion, and served as the text for

the later editions issued by the Roman publishers.[66]

It is probable, says Schmitz, that Ptolemy secured only a portion

of the collection, while a number of the manuscripts came into the

possession of Apellikon, and reached Rome through Sylla. Another large

library, according to Memnon, one of the largest of the time, was that

of Clearchus,[67] Tyrant of Heraclea, who had been a student of Plato

and Isocrates.

From the instances above quoted, it appears that it was as a rule

only persons of considerable wealth who were able to bring together

collections of books. An exception to this is the case of Euripides,

who possessed no great fortune, but who had in his slave, Cephisophon,

a perfect treasure. Cephisophon not merely took charge of the household

affairs, but, as a skilled scribe, prepared for his master’s library

copies of the most noteworthy literary works of the time.[68] Educated

slaves were in the time of Euripides still scarce among the Greeks,

while later it was principally from Greece that the Roman scholars and

publishers secured the large number of copyists who were employed on

literary work in Rome.

These references to the earlier collections of books are of interest

in indicating something of the value in which literature was held as

property, and of the estimates placed on books by their readers, while

it must be admitted that they do not throw much light on the relations

of these readers with the authors to whom they were indebted, and they

are absolutely silent as to any remuneration coming to the authors for

their labors. The earlier collections were comprised almost exclusively

of works of poetry, and it is only when we get to the time of Aristotle

that we begin to find in the libraries a fair proportion of works of

philosophy and science, although Boeckh[69] mentions references to

works on agriculture as early as the lifetime of Socrates. For a long

period, however, poetry formed by far the most important division of

the libraries, indicating the great relative importance given in the

earlier development of Greek culture to this branch of literature. It

is interesting to bear in mind that at a somewhat similar stage of

their intellectual development, the literature of the Egyptians was

almost exclusively religious and astronomical, that of the Assyrians

religious and historical (provided the rather monotonous narratives of

the royal campaigns are entitled to the name of history), while that

of the Hebrews was limited to the sacred chronicles and the law.

It appears from such references as we find to the prices paid that, as

compared with other luxuries, books remained very costly up to the time

of the Roman occupation of Greece, or about 150 B.C. This is a negative

evidence that there was as yet no effective publishing machinery

through which could be provided the means required for keeping up a

staff of competent copyists, and that the multiplication of books was

therefore practically dependent upon the enterprise of such individual

owners as may have been fortunate enough to be able to secure slaves

of sufficient education to serve as scribes. Plato is reported to

have paid for three books of Philolaüs, which Dion bought for him in

Sicily, three Attic talents,[70] equal in our currency to $3240,--and

the equivalent, of course, of a much larger sum, estimated in its

purchasing power for food. Aristotle paid a similar sum for some few

books of Speusippus, purchased after the death of the latter.[71]

If such instances can be accepted as a fair expression of the market

value of literature, it is evident that the ownership of books must

have been limited to a very small circle. The cost of books depended,

of course, largely upon the cost of papyrus, for which Greece was

dependent upon Egypt. An inscription of the year 407 B.C., quoted

by Rangabé, gives the price of a sheet of papyrus (ὁ χάρτης) at one

drachme and two oboli, the equivalent of about twenty-five cents.

On the other hand, Aristophanes, in his comedy of _The Frogs_,

represented in 405 B.C., or about fifty years before the above purchase

of Aristotle, uses some lines which have been interpreted as evidence

of some general circulation, at least of dramatic compositions.

According to the scheme of the play, Æschylus and Euripides,

contestants for the public favor, have set forth each for himself the

beauties and claims of their respective masterpieces. The _Chorus_ then

speaks, cautioning the poets that it will be proper for them to present

more fully the distinctive features of their tragedies, and to explain

the same for the judgment of the audience. That the audience is capable

of such judgment is asserted in the following words (paraphrased by

Müller[72]):

“Are you troubled with the fear that your hearers lack the

intelligence to appreciate the fine points of your analyses? Let

such fear vanish, for there can be no lack of understanding with

these hearers. Some of them are men of experience in campaigns;

others are in the habit of instructing themselves from books,

and have come to the performance each furnished with a scroll

with which to freshen his memory, while each also is fully armed

with mother-wit. Have no fear therefore. They will have full

understanding of all that you may wish to discuss before them.”

Müller proceeds to make an analysis of the purport of the references in

this passage, pointing out that the experience of old campaigners would

help them to the appreciation of the robust and stirring compositions

of Æschylus, while the scholarly habits of the lovers of books would

keep them in close sympathy with the complex intellectual problems

considered by Euripides.

The sharper edge of the comparison is directed against Euripides, who

is always referred to by Aristophanes as a book-worm. Müller further

contends that the references to each hearer being “provided with his

little book” (or book of the play) must be understood as merely a piece

of humorous exaggeration, as during the last years of the Peloponnesian

war, when the resources of Athens had been seriously diminished, when

poverty was general, and men’s minds were agitated with the excitement

of the campaign, few people could have had the money for the buying, or

the leisure for the reading, of books.

Athenæus concludes, from a fragment of the comedy writer Alexis (a

contemporary of Alexander), that it was not until the time of Alexander

that the reading of books played any important part in the intellectual

life of the Greeks.[73] In the comedy of Prodicus, entitled _The

Choice of Hercules_, portions of which have been preserved in the

_Memorabilia_ of Xenophon, Linus, the instructor of Hercules, is

represented as directing his pupil to select for his reading one out of

a number of books which are lying before him. Among the authors whose

works are specified in the list are Orpheus, Hesiod, Homer, Chœrilus,

and Epicharmus. (The last named is the first Greek writer of comedy

of whom we have any trustworthy account. His first work was produced

about 500 B.C.)[74] Hercules, passing by the poetry, seizes a volume

on cookery, the work of an actor named Simos, who was also famous as a

cook.[75]

Artemon, a grammarian of Cassandria in Macedonia, who wrote shortly

after the death of Aristotle and who made a collection of the letters

of Aristotle, published a dissertation on the collecting and the use of

books, which gives ground for the impression that in his time there was

already in Macedonia or Northern Greece a circle of bibliophilists,

ready to give attention to the counsels of this forerunner of Dibdin,

and possibly able also to pay for the books.

A piece of evidence against the contention that the price of books

was high in the time of Plato, is supplied, according to certain

commentators, by Plato himself. From a paragraph in the _Apology_

Boeckh[76] understands that some kind of book-trade must have been

carried on in the orchestra of the theatre (during the time, of course,

when no performance was going on), and that the writings of Anaxagoras

were offered for sale for one drachme; and Buchsenschutz[77] takes

the same view of Plato’s reference. The words used by Plato are put

into the mouth of Socrates, who is represented as contending; first,

that the opinions for the utterance of which he has been charged with

heresy or impiety, are in substance the same as those already given

to the world by Anaxagoras and others; second, that these views have

been so widely published that they have become public property, for the

quoting of which no single person can properly be held responsible;

and thirdly, that they can be obtained in the theatre for a drachme.

The particular writings of Anaxagoras to which Socrates here refers,

contain his theories concerning the nature of the sun, the moon,

the earth, and the creating power of divinity. Schmitz is, however,

inclined to believe not that the books containing these doctrines

could be purchased in the theatre, but that the theories of Anaxagoras

were at the time freely quoted in the popular dramas (such as those of

Euripides), and that it was in listening to these plays in the theatre

that the public could without difficulty obtain a knowledge of the new

views.[78]

The usual price of admission to the Athenian theatres was, in the time

of Pericles, two oboli, or about six cents, but on special holidays,

when the performance continued three days, this price was often raised

to a drachme, or eighteen cents.[79] In the absence of any other

references to this supposed practice of turning orchestra stalls into

book-stalls, the weight of probability appears to favor the conclusions

of Schmitz rather than those of Boeckh.

Schmitz admits that it is not practicable to find in the existing

dramas of Euripides examples of such presentation of the Anaxagorian

theories of the universe, but he points out that a large portion of

the writings of this author was undoubtedly lost in the destruction of

the great war, and that this same war prevented any wide distribution

of the authenticated copies, although many of the tragedies were so

popular that the songs from them were sung throughout the land. By the

end of the war the fame of the tragedies had reached Sicily, although

very few of the manuscripts could yet have got across the sea. After

the defeat of the Athenians before Syracuse, some of those who had been

captured or who, escaping from the Syracusans, had wandered over the

island, found a temporary livelihood or even purchased their freedom

by reciting the plays of Euripides, and on their return to Athens they

took occasion to express to the poet their gratitude for the timely

service rendered by his genius.[80]

To the coast cities of Asia Minor, as well as throughout the Greek

colonies of the Mediterranean, had come the fame of the new tragedian,

although here also copies of the plays themselves appear to have been

very scarce. Plutarch relates[80] that the inhabitants of Caunus (a

city of Caria), when besought for shelter by an Athenian vessel chased

by pirates, wanted first to know whether the Athenians could recite

for them the songs of Euripides.[81] It is to be hoped that the

Caunusians did not insist upon being paid in advance, and upon having

the recitations made before they permitted the hard-pressed vessel to

gain the shelter of the harbor. In all places and among all classes

where Greek was the language, the songs of Euripides appear to have

secured an immediate popularity, while by the scholars also was given

an appreciation no less cordial. Both Plato[82] and Aristotle[83]

ranked Euripides above Sophocles and Æschylus.

Alexander the Great entertained the guests at his banquets by reciting

long passages from Euripides.[84] Throughout Greece these tragedies

appear for many years to have been the compositions most frequently

selected for public readings. Lucian relates[85] that the Cynic

Demetrius, who lived in Corinth in the first century, and whom Seneca

refers to as a new friend, heard an “uneducated man” read before an

audience _The Bacchantes_ of Euripides. As the reader came to the lines

in which the messenger announces the “terrible deed” of Agave and the

fearful fate of Pentheus, Demetrius snatched the book from his hands

with the words: “It is better for poor Pentheus to be murdered by me

than by you.” The point of interest for Lucian (who wrote about 150

A.D.) was the play on the term “murdered,” and for us the example of

the practice, in the first century, of the public reading of standard

literature, so general that an audience (rather than not to hear the

composition) would listen even to an “ignorant reader.”

Returning to the question of the distribution and price of books, we

find a reference by Xenophon[86] to some “chests full of valuable

books” having been saved “with other costly articles” from the cargo of

an Athenian vessel shipwrecked at Salmydessus, a city on the Euxine.

This appears to be the earliest reference on record to any sending of

supplies of books from Greece to the colonies, but even here there

is no evidence that the volumes were forwarded by dealers, and it

is probable that the “chests” contained the private library of some

wealthy Athenian collector who had migrated to Pontus. There is no

question, however, but that in the time of Xenophon (445-355 B.C.)

Athens was the centre not only of the literary activity of Greece, but

of any book-trade that existed.

It seems evident that in Greece, as later in Rome, the earliest

booksellers were the scribes, who with their own labor had prepared the

parchment or papyrus scrolls which constituted their stock in trade.

The next step in the development of the business was a very natural

one, namely, the introduction of the capitalist, who, instead of

working with his own hands, employed a staff of copyists and sold the

products of their labor. It is only surprising that the continued high

price paid for fair copies of noted works and the steady demand for

such copies, should not have tempted dealers more rapidly into the

business. The principal obstacle was for many years the difficulty of

securing a sufficiency of skilled copyists the accuracy of whose work

could be trusted. According to Schmitz, there is no mention of the

appearance of booksellers in Athens earlier than the fifth century B.C.

The Athenian comedy, which touched with its keen raillery every phase

of life, whether public or private, did not overlook this new mode

of occupation. The references are as a rule not complimentary, but,

as the comedians spared nothing in their mockery, the fact need not

stand to the discredit of the first booksellers. Possibly the earliest

mention of the trade is by Aristomenes, who, in a comedy entitled

_The Deceivers_ (performed about 470 B.C.), speaks of a “Dealer in

Books.” Cratinus, in his play _The Mechanics_ (written about 450

B.C.), mentions a copyist (βιβλιογράφος)[87]; Theopompus, writing

about 330 B.C., uses the term “bookseller”[88] (βιβλιοπώλης); Nicophon

gives a list of “men who support themselves with the labor of their

hands” (χειρογάστορες), and in this list groups the bibliopoles in

with the dealers in fish, fruit, figs, leather, meal, and household

utensils.[89] It would seem as if in this instance the term βιβλιοπώλης

must have been used as synonymous with or at least as including

βιβλιογράφος, the scribe and the seller of the manuscripts being one

and the same person. Antiphanes, born in Rhodes B.C. 408, who is

credited by Suidas with having written over three hundred dramas,

which were very popular in Athens, refers to “book-copyists,” and

also to books which had been “sewed and glued.”[90] The comic writer,

Plato, who was a contemporary of Socrates, makes first mention of

“written leaves,” _i. e._, papyrus. The term used by him, χάρται, was,

according to Birt, when standing alone, more usually applied to leaves

of papyrus prepared for writing, but still blank; χάρται γεγραμμένοι

standing for the inscribed leaves.

We may conclude from Nicophon’s having included the booksellers

in his list of traders that they had their shops or stalls on the

market-place. Eupolis also speaks of the “place where books are sold,”

(οὗ τὰ βιβλία ὤνια),[91] and it appears therefore that as early as 430

B.C. a special place in the market must have been reserved for the

book-trade--an Athenian Paternoster Row, or, more nearly perhaps, a

Quai Voltaire. It was, however, not until the time of Alexander the

Great that the business of making and selling books--that is, attested

copies of the works of popular writers--appears to have developed into

importance.

Until the business of book-making had become systematized, the admirers

of a poet or philosopher were obliged to supply themselves with his

works through their own handiwork, unless they were fortunate enough

to possess slaves educated as scribes. This test of the reader’s

admiration was assuredly rather a severe one. It is certain that the

number of disciples of modern authors would be enormously limited if,

as a first condition for the enjoyment of their writings, the would-be

readers were under the necessity of transcribing the copies with their

own hands. Imagine the extent of the task for the admirers of Clarissa

Harlowe, or for those who absorbed their history through the ninety odd

romances of G. P. R. James!

As the supply of educated slaves increased, there was, of course, less

need for individual scholars to devote their own handiwork to copying

of manuscripts for their libraries. It was cheaper to employ the labor

of slaves, and to use their own time for more important work. The

names of some of the slaves who did good service as scribes have been

preserved in history. Mention has already been made of Cephisophon,

the slave, secretary, and personal friend of Euripides. One of Plato’s

dialogues is distinguished by the name of _Phædon of Elis_, who had

been sold as a slave in his youth and had been employed as a scribe.

The attention of Socrates was attracted by his capable work, and he

persuaded Crito to purchase his freedom.[92]

The poet Philoxenus of Cythera was sold as a slave to Melanippides (the

younger), whom he served as a scribe, and whose poetry he was said

to have surpassed with his own productions. There are many similar

instances both of slaves who succeeded in securing an education and

in doing noteworthy literary work, and of men of education who had,

through the fortunes of war or through the loss of their property,

fallen into the position of slaves, and who were then utilized by their

masters for literary work.

There is also evidence that the state caused intelligent slaves to be

instructed in writing in order to be able to use them for work on the

public records or as clerks for the officials.[93]

It is to be borne in mind that the (to us) extraordinary extent to

which the Greeks were able to develop their power of memorizing enabled

them often to trust to their memory where modern students would be

helpless without the written (or the printed) word. “My father,” says

Niceratus in _The Banquet_ of Xenophon, “compelled me to learn by heart

all the poetry of Homer, and I could repeat without break the entire

_Iliad_ and _Odyssey_.”[94] The boys in school were given as their

daily task the memorizing of the works of the poets, and what was begun

under compulsion appears to have been continued in later life as a

pleasure.

Such an exceptional development of the power of memory, making of it

almost a distinct faculty from that which the present generation knows

under the name, may properly be credited with some influence upon the

slowness of the growth among the ancients of any idea of property in an

intellectual production. As long as men could carry their libraries in

their heads, and when they desired to entertain themselves with a work

of literature, needed only to think it to themselves (or even to recite

it to themselves) instead of being under the necessity of reading it

to themselves, they could hardly have the feeling that comes to the

modern reader (if he be a conscientious person) of an indebtedness to

the author, an indebtedness which is in large part connected with the

actual use of the copy of the work. In the early Greek community, a

very few copies (or even a single copy) of a great poem were sufficient

in a short space of time to place the work of the poet in the minds of

all the active-minded citizens, such men as would to-day be frequenters

of the bookstores. In the Homeric times it proved, in fact, to be

possible to permeate a community with the inspiration of the national

epics without the aid of any written copies whatever. For the service

rendered by these early bards, the community might, and very possibly

did, feel under an obligation of some kind, but the individual reciter

who had absorbed the poems into the possession of his memory, and the

readers to whom he transmitted the enjoyment of these poems, could not

have suggested to them any such feeling of personal obligation to the

poet as is experienced by the reader of to-day who is called upon to

buy from the author, through the publisher, the text of any work of

which he desires the enjoyment. The Greek of these earlier times needed

no texts and dreamed of no bookseller. He inherited from his ancestors

the poetry of the preceding generation with the same sense of natural

right as that with which he took possession of his ancestral acres; and

he absorbed into his memory for his daily enjoyment the poetry of his

own day with the same freedom and almost the same unconsciousness as

that with which he took into his lungs the air about him. In this way

the literature with which he had to do became really a part of himself,

and he may be said to have become possessed of it in a way which would

hardly be possible for one who was simply a reader of books. It is not

easy to realize how much we have lost in these days of printed books in

losing this magnificent power of memorizing our literature and carrying

it about with us, instead of going to our libraries for it and taking

it in by scraps. How much more to us, for instance, would Shakespeare’s

plays stand for, if they could be stored in our heads ready for use

when wanted, instead of being available, as at present, only in the

occasional reading circle, or the still less frequent Shakespearian

revival.

An author who seems to have taken exceptional pains to secure a

circulation for his productions was Demosthenes, but it is to be borne

in mind that his interest as a politician, or perhaps it is fairer to

say as a statesman, desiring to arouse public opinion in behalf of

his policy, was probably even keener than his ambition as an author

hoping for a popular appreciation of his eloquence. Whatever the motive

or combination of motives, it appears that after the delivery of an

oration he would act as his own reporter, writing out revised copies

and distributing the same among his friends for distribution.[95] He

had a special interest in securing a wide popular circulation for his

speeches in the matter of the guardianship, and for those against

Æschines and in behalf of Phormion, and the copies of these,[96]

prepared by his own hand or under his orders, certainly came into

the hands of many readers. Copies of the speeches made by Demosthenes

against Philip must have been brought to the latter by some of the

orator’s opponents. Such at least is the interpretation given by

Schmitz to the well known exclamation of Philip: “If I had heard him

speak these words, I should myself have been compelled to lead the

campaign against Philip.”[97]

An early reference to the practice of making publication of a book

in any formal manner (as distinguished from the permission accorded

to friends to make transcripts for their own use) is given by

Isocrates, writing about 400 B.C. He speaks of hesitating to publish

his _Panathenaicus_ (φανερὰν ποιῆσαι, διαδιδόναι). He began the work,

says Birt, when he was already ninety-four, was obliged to leave it on

account of illness, but took it up again three years later, and it was

then that (conscientious author as he was) he hesitated to give the

volume to the public, because some friend to whom he had read it was

not fully in accord with its conclusions.[98]

The development of the trade of making and selling books came but

slowly, but received no little impetus through the taste for literature

implanted by Aristotle in his royal pupil Alexander. The latter

appears to have given frequent commissions to his friend Harpalus for

the purchase of books. From the mention by Plutarch[99] it has been

thought Harpalus must have been sent from Asia with instructions to

procure for Alexander a long series of works whose titles are given.

Schmitz points out, however, that Alexander could hardly have been in

a position during his Asiatic campaigns and journeyings to collect a

library, and these commissions to Harpalus must have been made at an

earlier date, before Alexander had left Macedonia and while the “friend

of his youth” was sojourning in Athens.

The one point that is clear and that is of interest to us in this

connection is that, at about 330 B.C., Harpalus was able to purchase in

Athens, which was already referred to as the centre of the book-trade

of Greece, “many tragedies of Euripides, Æschylus, and Sophocles,

dithyrambic poems by Telestes and Philoxenus, the historical writings

of Philistus of Syracuse, together with a number of rare works.” From

Athens also, at about the same time, Mnaseas, the father of Zeno,

brought to his son, in the course of “various business journeys,”

copies of all the “published writings of Socrates.”[100] There is also

a reference in Dionysius of Halicarnassus[101] to the many volumes

of Isocrates which had been published (literally “placed among the

people”) by the Athenian booksellers. Schmitz speaks of the great

impetus given to the production of books, that is, to the reproduction

of copies of the works of the writers accepted as standard, by the

literary taste and ambition of many of the successors of Alexander,

notably the Ptolemies in Alexandria and the Attali of Pergamum. He

mentions further that as one result of the greater and more rapid

production of manuscripts there was a considerable deterioration in

the quality and standard of accuracy of the copies. The complaints

of readers and collectors concerning the errors and omissions in

the manuscripts begin from this time to be very frequent. It would,

in fact, have been very surprising if the larger portion of the

manuscripts that came into the market had not been more or less

imperfect. As soon as their production became a matter of trade instead

of, as at first, a labor of love on the part of scholars, the work of

copying came into the hands of scribes working for pay, or of slaves,

and partly from lack of literary interest, partly also doubtless from

pure ignorance, the many opportunities for blunders appear to have

been taken full advantage of. Fortunately it was only the readers who

suffered, and the authors, long since dead, were spared the misery of

knowing how grievously their productions were mutilated. Different sets

of copyists naturally came to have varying reputations for accurate

or inaccurate manuscripts. Diogenes Laërtius[102] speaks of skilled

scribes sent from Pella by Antigonus Gonatas to Zeno, the Stoic, to

be employed in making trustworthy transcripts of that philosopher’s

works, for which the Macedonian king had a great admiration. Diogenes

tells us further that when Zeno, who came from Citium in Cyprus, first

arrived in Athens, he had suffered shipwreck and had lost near the

Piræus, just as he was reaching his journey’s end, both his vessel and

the Phœnician wares which constituted its cargo. Discouraged by his

misfortune, he strolled gloomily along the avenue from the harbor (“by

the dark rows of the olive trees”) toward the city in which he was now

a poverty-stricken stranger. As he reached the market-place and passed

a bookseller’s shop, he heard the bookseller read aloud. He stopped to

listen, and there came to him words of good counsel from the _Memoirs_

of Xenophon. “Cultivate a cheerful endurance of trouble and an earnest

striving after knowledge, for these are the conditions of a useful

and happy life.” Cheered by this hopeful counsel, Zeno entered the

bookseller’s shop and inquired where he should find the teachers from

whom he could learn such wise philosophy. In reply, the bookseller,

evidently well informed as to the literary life of his city, pointed

out the cynic Crates who happened to be passing at the moment.[103]

The intellectual life of Athens, which a century before had centred

about the dramatic poets, appears at this time to have been principally

devoted to the study of philosophy. Among the other noteworthy changes

that had been brought about during the hundred odd years since the

death of Euripides, was the evolution of the bookseller or publisher

who had now evidently become a permanent institution, and whose shop is

recognized as a centre of literary information.

We can imagine some European student landing, two thousand years later,

in Boston and applying, with an inquiry similar to that put by Zeno,

at the corner shop of Ticknor & Fields. How easy would have been the

answer if at the moment had passed along Washington Street the slender

figure of Emerson!

The question has been raised whether the passage from Diogenes,

above quoted, might not indicate that booksellers or others, owning

manuscript copies of popular works, made a regular business of reading

aloud to hearers paying for the privilege. Such a practice would

apparently have fitted in very well with the customs of the time, and

would have met the needs of many of the poorer students for whom the

purchase of manuscripts was still difficult. It would also have formed

a very natural sequence to the long-standing custom of the recital from

memory of the works of the old poets. While it seems very possible from

the conditions that public readers found occupation in this way, there

is no trustworthy evidence to such effect.

While Zeno was teaching in Athens, a certain Callinus appears to have

won distinction among the scribes of Athens for the accuracy and beauty

of his manuscripts. The Peripatetic philosopher Lycon, who died about

250 B.C., bequeathed to his slave Chares such of his writings as had

already been “published,” while the unpublished works were left to

Kallinus “in order that accurate transcripts of the same might be

prepared for publication.”[104]

As the rivalry which continued for some time between the Ptolemies and

the Attali in the collecting of libraries caused the price of books in

Athens to remain high, a further result was the establishing of other

centres of book-production, of which for a long time the island of

Rhodes was the most important. By about 250 B.C., the literary activity

of the Alexandrian scholars, encouraged by Ptolemy Philadelphus,

to whom the founding of the great library was probably due, caused

Alexandria to become one of the great book-marts of the world.

After the first conquest of Greece by the Romans had been practically

completed by the capture of Corinth in 146 B.C., there appears to have

been a revival in Athens of the trade in books, owing to the increased

demand from the scholars of Rome, where Greek was accepted as the

language of refined literature and where Greek authors were diligently

studied. Lucullus is said by Plutarch[105] to have brought from Rome

(about 66 B.C.) many books gathered as booty from the cities of Asia

Minor, and many more which he had purchased in Athens, together with a

great collection of statues and paintings.

The great hall or library in which his collections were stored

became the resort of the scholarly and cultivated society of the

city, and its treasures of art and literature were, according to

Plutarch, freely placed at the disposal of any visitors fitted to

appreciate them. Sulla, without claiming to be a scholar, was also

a collector of Greek books. He secured in Athens the great library

of Apellicon of Teos, which included the writings of Aristotle and

of Theophrastus. Apellicon, who died in Athens in the year 84 B.C.,

had a mania for collecting books, and was reputed to be by no means

scrupulous as to the means by which he acquired them. If he saw a

rare work which he could not purchase, he would, if possible, steal

it; and once he was near losing his life in Athens in being detected

in such a theft. His Aristotle manuscripts, which were said to be

the work of the philosopher’s own hand, had been found in a cave at

Troas where they had suffered greatly from worms and dampness.[106]

After the manuscripts reached Rome they were transcribed by Tyrannion

the grammarian. He sent copies to Andronicus of Rhodes, which became

the basis of that philosopher’s edition of Aristotle’s works.[107]

Pomponius Atticus utilized his sojourn in Athens (in 83 B.C.) not only

to familiarize himself with the great works of Greek literature,

but to cause to be made a number of copies of some of the more

popular of these, which copies he afterwards sold in Rome “to great

advantage.”[108]

There is a reference in Pliny to a miniature copy of the _Iliad_

prepared about this time, which was so diminutive that it could

be contained in a nutshell. He speaks of it as _Ilias in nuce_.

Pliny refers to Cicero as his authority for the existence of this

manuscript, in which he is interested principally as an evidence of

the possibilities of human eyesight. Its interest in connection with

our subject is of course as an example of the perfection which had

been attained in the first century before Christ in the art of book

production.[109]

Notwithstanding the stimulus given to the production of manuscripts by

the increasing demand for these in Italy, books continued to be dear,

even through the greater part of the first century. The men of Ephesus

who were induced under the teachings of Paul to burn their books

concerning “curious arts” counted the price of them and found it to be

fifty thousand pieces of silver.

The history of Greek literature presents few other instances of the

destruction of books, whether for the sake of conscience or for the

good of the community, or under the authority of the state. There are,

however, occasional references to the exercise on the part of the

rulers of a supervision of the literature of the people on the ground

of protecting their morals or religion. Probably the earliest instances

in history of the prosecution of a book on the ground of its pernicious

doctrines is that of the confiscation, in Athens, of the writings of

Protagoras, which were in 411 B.C. condemned as heretical.

All owners of copies of the condemned writings were warned by heralds

to deliver the same at the Agora, and search was made among the private

houses of those believed to be interested in the heretical doctrines.

The copies secured were then burned in the Agora. Diogenes Laërtius,

by whom the incident is narrated, goes on to say that the destruction

was by no means complete, even of the copies in Athens, while no

copies outside of Athens were affected.[110] The attempt to suppress

the doctrines of the philosopher by means of putting his books on an

_index expurgatorius_ was probably as little successful as were similar

attempts with the doctrines of other “heretics” in later centuries.

The fact that high prices could be depended upon for copies of

standard works ought to have insured a fair measure of accuracy in the

manuscript. Complaints, however, appear repeatedly in the writing of

the time (_i. e._, the century before and that succeeding the birth

of Christ) of the bad work furnished by the scribes. Much of the

copying appears to have been done in haste, and with bad or careless

penmanship, so that words of similar sound were interchanged and

whole lines omitted or misplaced, and the difficulties of obtaining

trustworthy texts of the works of older writers were enormously and

needlessly increased. In order to enable a number of copyists to work

together from one text, it appears that the original manuscript was

often read aloud, the work of the scribes being thus done by ear. This

would account for the interchanging of words resembling each other in

sound.

Strabo, writing shortly before the birth of Christ, refers to an

example of this unsatisfactory kind of bookmaking.

The grammarian Tyrannion, in publishing in company with certain Roman

booksellers his edition of the writings of Aristotle, confided the work

to scribes, whose copies were never even compared with the original

manuscript. And, says Strabo, editions of other important classics,

offered for sale in Alexandria and Rome, had been prepared with no more

care.[111] The reputation of the manuscripts transcribed at this period

in Athens appears to have been but little better. The making, that is

to say the duplication and publishing of books, had come to be a trade,

and a trade of considerable importance, but the men who first engaged

in it appear to have had little professional or literary standard, and

not to have realized that profits could be secured from quality of work

as well as from quantity, and that for a publisher a reputation for

accurate and trustworthy editions could itself be made valuable capital.

The publishers of Greece appear to have been characterized by modesty,

for not one of those who did their work at the time of the greatest

prosperity of the book-trade in Greece has left his name on record for

posterity. The days were still to come when every book would bear its

imprint bringing into lasting association the name of its publisher

with that of the author. The Greek publishers appear not to have

assumed, like the later Tonson, an ownership in their poets, nor do we,

on the other hand, find in the utterances of the poets any expressions

corresponding to the famous “My Murray” of Lord Byron. Curtius speaks

of a reference in an inscription to the “Ptolemy” or “Ptolemaic”

bookstore, but the name of the bookseller is not given. It is only

later, when the Greek book-trade was in its decline, that we come

across the names of two dealers in books, Callinus and Atticus. They

are mentioned as famous during the lifetime of Lucian (about 120 to 200

A.D.), the former for the beauty and the latter for the accuracy of

his manuscripts. It is an interesting coincidence that this Callinus,

noted for the beauty of his texts, bears the same name as the scribe

commended three centuries before by Zeno for the beauty and accuracy of

his manuscripts. Their copies were much prized and brought high prices,

not in Athens only, but in scholarly circles elsewhere. It is evident

that each of these booksellers began business as a scribe, selling

only the work produced by his own hands, but that as their orders

increased it became necessary for them to employ a number of copyists,

whose script, receiving a personal supervision and doubtless a careful

collation with the original texts, could be guaranteed as up to the

standard of their own handiwork. Of the other booksellers who were in

Athens in his time Lucian speaks very contemptuously. “Look,” he says,

“at these so-called booksellers, these peddlers! They are people of no

scholarly attainments or personal cultivation; they have no literary

judgment, and no knowledge how to distinguish the good and valuable

from the bad and worthless.”[112] Lucian had evidently a high standard

of what a publisher ought to be.

Some of these Athenian booksellers whom Lucian thus berates for

stupidity, appear also to have borne a poor reputation for honesty.

Among other misdeeds charged against them was one, the ethics of which

might have belonged to a much later period of bookmaking. In order to

give to modern manuscripts the appearance of age, and to secure for

them a high price as rare antiquities, they would bury them in heaps

of grain until the color had changed and they had become tattered and

worm-eaten. Lucian also satirizes the ambition of certain wealthy

and ignorant individuals to keep pace with the literary fashion of

the time, and to secure a repute for learning by paying high prices

for great collections of costly books, which, when purchased, gave

enjoyment “to none but the moths and the mice.”[113] It was partly

due to the competition of wealthy collectors of this kind that,

notwithstanding the great increase in the production of copies, the

price of books remained high, much to the detriment of all impecunious

students.

The beauty of the calligraphy of the manuscripts of Callinus is known

to us only through Lucian, but there are several writers who bear

testimony to the accuracy of the transcripts prepared by his rival

Atticus, who must, by the way, not be confused with the Roman Atticus,

the friend of Cicero. Harpocration of Alexandria, known principally

as the author of one of the first Greek dictionaries, makes several

references to the authority of the Atticus editions of the speeches of

Æschines and Demosthenes. The famous _Codex Parisinus_ of Demosthenes

is believed by Sauppe to be based upon the excellent textual authority

of a manuscript of Atticus, and Sauppe further contends that, if

Atticus did not work from an absolute original, he must have had

before him a very well authenticated copy. In the fragment of a work

by Galen (who wrote in Rome about 165 A.D.) upon certain passages

in the _Timæus_ of Plato which had to do with medicine, Galen makes

Atticus his authority for the passages quoted by him, as if we were

indebted to this bookseller for the text of the _Timæus_ that has been

preserved.[114]

From the time of Lucian the interest in books steadily increased,

book-collecting became fashionable, especially in Rome, and

bibliophiles and bibliomaniacs were gradually evolved. At this time the

beautifully written and carefully collated manuscripts which emanated

from Athens bore a high reputation as compared with the much cheaper

but less attractive and less trustworthy copies, which were produced

in Alexandria and in Rome. In the book-shops of these two cities,

during the first two centuries, a swifter and less accurate system

of transcribing appears to have prevailed, the work being largely

done by slaves or by scribes who did not have accurate knowledge of

the literature on which they were engaged, while the necessity of a

careful collating of each copy with the original appears frequently

to have been overlooked. Origen, writing about 190 A.D., speaks of

confiding his works to the “swift writers of Alexandria” in order to

secure for them a speedy and a wide circulation. He was looking for no

other return for his labors than a large circle of readers, and a large

influence for his teachings, and the proceeds of the sales of these

“swiftly written copies” were in all probability entirely appropriated

by the booksellers who owned or who employed the scribes.

After the conquest of Greece by the Romans the centre of book

production passed from Athens first to Alexandria and later to Rome.

For centuries to come, however, the book production of the world was

chiefly concerned with the works of Greek authors, and the literary

activity of successive generations drew its inspirations from Greek

sources; and the writers of Greece, whose brilliant labors brought no

remuneration for the laborers, gave to their country and to the world a

body of literature which at least in one sense of the term can properly

be called a magnificent literary property.

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