materially increased if in the larger publishing establishments the
practice was followed of writing from dictation, one “reader” supplying
simultaneous “copy” to a number of scribes. It seems probable that in
no other way would it have been practicable to produce with sufficient
speed and economy the editions required, and I find myself in accord
with Birt in the conclusion that dictating was the method generally
followed, at least in the more important establishments and for the
larger editions. The scribes must of necessity have had a scholarly
training, and ought also to have possessed some familiarity with the
texts to which they were listening; while with the most skilful and
scholarly scribes a careful revision of their copies would have been
essential.
Haenny is of opinion that dictation was rarely if ever employed. He
lays stress on the fact that the term employed by Cicero in referring
to the multiplication of copies was _describere_, and he contends that
this stands simply for copying and cannot be translated as writing from
dictation.[210]
One indication of the size of the editions prepared of new books
is given in the many references to the various uses found for the
“remainders” or unsold copies. The most frequent fate of unsuccessful
poetry was for the wrapping of fish and groceries, while large supplies
of surplus stock found their way from the booksellers to the fires
of the public baths.[211] Cooks also were large buyers of remainders
of editions. An author who was voluminous and who had not been able
to secure a publisher, might even, as the wags suggested, find it
convenient to be burned upon a pile of his own manuscripts. It is
evident that in these earlier days of publishing it was no easier than
at present for authors or publishers to calculate with accuracy the
extent of the public interest in their productions, while it is also
probable that then as now an author would rather pay for the making of
an abundant supply than incur the dreadful risk of not having enough
copies to meet the immediate demand.
While the Augustan age witnessed a decided development in the literary
interests of the Roman community, and while the organization of
such bookselling establishments as those of Atticus, Tryphon, and
the Sosii gave to authors the needed machinery for bringing their
writings before the public, it is probable that for the larger number
of the writers of the time the receipts from the books were very
inconsiderable.
As before pointed out, question has in fact been raised by more than
one student of the subject as to whether the Roman authors secured
from the sales of their books any money return at all. Of the writers
who find no satisfactory evidence for such returns, Haenny is by far
the most important. I am myself, however, inclined to accept the
conclusions of Birt, Schmitz, Géraud, and others to the effect that
Roman authors, from the time of Cæsar down, were able to secure from
the publishers or booksellers through whom their books were sold some
portion of the proceeds of such sales. The absence of any protection
under the law for either author or publisher, the competition of
unauthorized editions, the competition (of a different kind) of books
published solely for the amusement or the literary satisfaction of
their wealthy or fashionable authors, and written without any desire
for money return, and the lack of adequate publishing and distributing
machinery, unquestionably all operated to make the compensation of
such Roman authors as, like Martial, needed the money, fragmentary,
uncertain, and at best but inconsiderable. The weight of the
evidence, however, seems to me certainly to favor the conclusion that
compensation there was, and that it served as one of the inducements
for authorship as a career (or as a partial occupation), and served
also to attract to the capital (where alone publishing facilities could
be secured) literary aspirants from the rest of Italy and from the
provinces. Schmitz gives his views as follows[212]:
_Mihi quoque persuasum est, plurimos auctores Romanos gloriæ tantum ac
honoris causa scripta sua bibliopolis divulganda tradidisse, quod tamen
non impedit, quominus illi interdum pretium a bibliopolis acceperint.
Et vere acceperunt._
In Rome, as centuries before in Greece, the compensation for
stage-rights and the rewards for playwrights were much more assured and
more satisfactory than any that could be secured by writers of books.
Comedy writers like Plautus and Terence were able to sell their plays
to the Ædiles. Haenny contends that the payments made by the Ædiles
ought not strictly to be described as given for the purchase of the
plays, but as a recognition on the part of the community, made through
its official representatives, of a service rendered--a recognition
that took the shape of an _honorarium_. I imagine the playwrights cared
very little what the arrangement was called as long as they got the
money. As a fact, however, it was the business of the Ædiles to provide
plays for the public theatres, and I do not see why the arrangements
made by them with Plautus and Terence did not constitute as definite
an acknowledgment on the part of the State of the rights of dramatic
authors as was the case with similar arrangements made fifteen hundred
years later with Molière or Beaumarchais by the State manager of the
Théâtre Français.
Schmitz goes on to say:
_Sin autem scripta ab auctoribus cuiusvis generis vendebantur, non
video cur non bibliopolæ quoque huic illive auctori pro scriptis certam
mercedem solverint._
Is it likely, he contends, that Plautus and Terence, having been paid
for their stage-rights (which they practically transferred or sold to
the State), would have been satisfied to hand over to the publishers,
without compensation, the book-rights of these same plays, the
popularity of which had already been tested?
It seems to me possible, however, that in this contention Schmitz
proves too much. The publisher might take the ground that a play which
had been paid for by the Ædiles for the public welfare had become
public property and belonged to the common domain, and that the author
had surrendered or assigned to the State such rights in it as he had
possessed. Such a theory would have given to the publisher a fair
pretext for declining to pay compensation or _honorarium_ for any play
that had already been paid for by the Ædiles.
A similar suggestion was made as late as 1892 in the case of the
official poems written by Tennyson as poet-laureate. It was contended
that the nation paid to the laureate an annual stipend as a specific
consideration for the production of poems on certain official
occasions, and that the poems thus paid for were the property of the
nation. This theory did not prevent the laureate from securing, first
from the publication in a monthly, and later from a reissue (with other
pieces) in book-form, a large compensation for his royal birthday
odes and jubilee hymns. I am inclined to think, however, that if the
question had been put to the test, the courts would have decided that
the copyright of these productions had become vested in the nation, and
that the poems belonged to the public domain.
In calling attention to the frequently quoted twenty-fourth epigram of
Martial, Schmitz says:
_Quantulumcunque fuit, merebatur noster libellis suis et quum
dona ab amicis non acciperet, mereri tantum potuit a bibliopolis,
qui carmina sua vendebant.... Quæ sententia probatur alio loco
Martialis, quo damnum se accepisse queritur, quum carmina non
scripserit, doletque prope jam triginta diebus vix unam paginam
peractam esse._
The epigram in question reads as follows:
_Dum te prosequor et domum reduco,
Aurem dum tibi præsto garrienti,
Et quidquid loqueris facisque laudo,
Quot versus poterant, Labulle, nasci?
Hoc damnum tibi non videtur esse,
Si quod Roma legit, requirit hospes,
Non deridet eques, tenet senator,
Laudat causidicus, poeta carpit,
Propter te perit? Hoc, Labulle, verum est?
Hoc quisquam ferat? ut tibi tuorum
Sit major numerus togatulorum,
Librorum mihi sit minor meorum?
Triginta prope jam diebus una est
Nobis pagina vix peracta. Sic fit,
Cum cenare domi poeta non vult._
In translating, I attempt only to present the general purport.
“During the time in which I am in your company, Labullus, and while
escorting you homeward I am listening to your chattering, and am
expected to give attention and praise to whatever you may be saying
or doing, how many verses do you think could I have produced? Do
you not realize how grievous a loss it is [to both author and
public] that what Rome reads, what the stranger asks for, what the
knight does not scorn, what the Senator cherishes as a possession,
what the lawyer praises, what the poet eagerly seizes, that all
this should perish [_i. e._, fail to come into existence], O
Labullus, through your fault? Yet is not this the case? Is it a
thing to be approved that simply to swell the number of your
followers, my literary productions should be diminished? During a
whole month I have hardly been able to complete a page. This is the
inevitable result when the poet is tempted to dine away from home.”
The interpretation placed by Schmidt on these and similar verses,
that the _damnum_ stood for a pecuniary loss to the author, and that
productions which secured for themselves popular favor brought,
therefore, to their authors pecuniary gain, is upheld by Becker.
He maintains that authors were evidently attracted to Rome by the
prospects of such receipts, and that, to a considerable extent at
least, they depended upon the same for their support. “It is not easy
to believe,” Becker continues, “that a needy author like Martial,
always in want of money, would have been willing to permit Tryphon,
Secundus, and Polius to make profits out of his productions without
arranging to secure any portion of these profits for himself.”[213]
Birt, who, as we have before seen, is a firm believer in the conclusion
that Roman writers secured compensation for their work, is of opinion
that this compensation must usually have taken the shape of a
_præmium_, as Martial puts it, a round payment or _honorarium_, made
probably on the delivery of the manuscript, rather than that of a
royalty.[214]
One of Martial’s references to the customary _præmium_ occurs in
these verses.[215] The poet has been protesting against the weary and
unprofitable role of a client or follower. He asks that Rome may spare
him from any such thankless and trivial tasks as those which come upon
the weary “congratulator,” who, for his dreary service, earns through
the day at best but a hundred miserable pennies (_plumbeos_), while
Scorpus (the gladiator) carries off in an hour, as victor, fifteen
sacks of gleaming gold. Then follow the lines:
_Non ego meorum præmium libellorum,
(Quid enim merentur?) Appulos velim campos,
Non Hybla, non me spicifer capit Nilus,
Nec quæ paludes delicata Pomptinas
Ex arce clivi spectat uva Setini.
Quid concupiscam quæris ergo?--dormire._
“As a reward (_præmium_) for my books (for what, indeed, are they
worth?) I ask not for the Appulian fields; neither Hybla nor the
fruitful Nile attracts me, nor the luscious grapes which from the
Setian hillside hang over the Pontine marshes. You ask what do I then
desire; I reply--to sleep.”
These lines should, of course, be interpreted in connection with the
poet’s other utterances, which, as we have seen, are not marked by any
lack of appreciation of the importance of his literary productions.
It seems probable that the query, “what, indeed, are they worth?” is
meant as a mere _façon de parler_, and is intended to be answered
with a full appreciation of the inestimable value of his poems to the
reader and to the community. I judge further that the poet in naming
the attractive things of this world which he would _not_ demand as
his reward, while, of course, speaking with a certain hyperbole of
phrase, is at the same time making a kind of undercurrent of suggestion
that fruitful hillsides, or even great provinces, would not, in fact,
be a disproportioned reward for talents and services like his. The
lines remind one of what Dickens (in his sketch of the election of a
beadle) describes as the “great negative style” of oratory. “I will not
speak of his valiant services in the militia, I will not refer to his
charming wife and nine children, two at the breast,” etc. The important
detail in the lines, however, for our present purpose is the reference
to a _præmium_ or compensation of some kind or amount as naturally
to be looked for and to be depended upon for successful literary
production. Taking this reference in connection with others of similar
purport, it is, I think, safe to conclude that, notwithstanding the
lack of protection of the law, Martial and other writers of his time
who were not too rich to require such earnings or too proud to demand
them, earned money with their pens, or rather with their _styli_.
I add references to a few other instances of payments or returns to
authors.
One of the earliest is mentioned by Suetonius.[216] Pompilius
Andronicus, the grammarian, sold his treatise for 1600 sesterces.
This sale must have comprised the original manuscript, together with
such author’s and publishing “rights” as existed. The younger Pliny
is quoted by Birt[217]--as saying that Pliny the elder had, while in
Spain, declined an offer from a certain Lucinus of 40,000 sesterces
(about $1800.00) for his commentaries. Lucinus was not a publisher, but
apparently some enthusiastic admirer of the author.
In another epigram[218] Martial makes a curious slap at two
contemporary poets:
_Vendunt carmina Gallus et Lupercus.
Sanos, Classice, nunc nega poetas._
“Gallus and Lupercus sell their poetry. Now deny, O Classicus! that
they are real poets (or poets in their right minds, or poets of common
sense).”
As Haenny suggests (citing Schrevel), no one dares to deny the sanity
of a poet who can get money for his productions, but one might question
the sanity of the publisher who pays the money.
Haenny thinks that Martial is sneering at the practice (unworthy of
poets) of writing for gain. Such a position seems to me entirely
inconsistent with Martial’s other expressions. It seems to me much
more likely that Martial is sneering at the idea that these particular
writers have produced any poems that are worth money. Lupercus is
probably the same person whom Martial rebuked for trying to secure his,
Martial’s, poems without paying for them.
In one epigram[219] Martial advises a friend, who comes to him for
counsel concerning a profession for his son, by no means to permit him
to become a poet. If the boy has money-making desires, let him learn to
play on the cithara or the flute. If he seems to have real capacity, he
might become a herald or an architect.
In another[220] he points out that no money can be obtained from Phœbus
or from Thessalian songs. It is Minerva who has wealth--she alone lends
money to the other gods. In a third[221] he complains that in writing
poetry he may give pleasure to his readers, but he does so at a serious
sacrifice to himself, for if he chose, in place of giving his time
to verses, to serve as an advocate, to sell his influence to anxious
defendants, his clients “would become his purse.” As it is, however, he
must console himself with the thought that his readers are benefited
although the poet works practically without recompense.
Later, the poet likens his literary work to a die or a cast from a
dice-box, the result of the labor being at best an uncertainty.[222]
It was through patronage that literature became remunerative, and
fortunately for the authors the patronage of literature became, under
Octavius, fashionable. I have already referred to the familiar name
of Mæcenas, whose influence in interesting his fellow-patricians and
the young Emperor in the literary productions of the capital was most
important. The fashion of patronage thus initiated continued to a
greater or less extent until the days of Hadrian. As Simcox expresses
it, the poets got into the habit of expecting to be treated “as
semi-sacred pensioners, as they have been at the courts of the princes
of the heroic age of Greece and Scandinavia--as they are still at the
courts of certain princes in India who trace their descent up to the
heroic age.”[223] In the age of Anne, English poets passed through a
somewhat similar experience, and during the reigns of the first two
Georges, they were not infrequently haunted by the same expectations.
The bitter line, as paraphrased by Johnson, after his experience with
Lord Chesterfield, commemorating the evil of the poet’s lot, has become
proverbial
“Age, envy, want, the patron and the jail.”
In Rome when, in the decline of the literary interests of the Court,
the hopes of patronage were finally abandoned, the profession of poetry
seems for a time to have been practically given up.
Juvenal takes as the subject of his seventh satire the poverty of
men of letters. He complains that the Emperor is their sole stay,
and that authors can make no money and have as a dependence only the
unprofitable patronage of the great. The poets who recite their verses,
the historians, the lawyers, the rhetoricians who act as instructors
for the young, are made to pass in turn before him, and of each the
condition arouses the compassion of his irritable muse. In this
satire we find references to the practice among poets of giving public
readings of their productions. “Macalonus will lend you his palace and
will provide some freedmen and some obliging friends to applaud. But
among all these, you will find no one who will furnish you with means
to pay either for seats in the parquet or orchestra, or even for places
in the gallery.”[224]
Or again, it is Statius who gives a reading of his Thebaïd.
“All the city comes to hear the reading. The audience is
enthusiastic and applauds vociferously. But Statius would have died
of hunger if he had not been able to sell to the actor Paris his
tragedy of _Agave_. Paris distributes military honors and puts on
the fingers of poets the ring of knighthood. What the nobles do not
give, an actor may bestow.”[225]
The author of the dialogue on the decadence of oratory (attributed
to Tacitus) makes mention also of these public lectures or readings,
and of what they cost to a certain Bassus, for hiring a hall, for
programmes, and for outlays in getting an audience together.
_Rogare ultro et ambire cogitur ut sint qui dignentur audire; et ne
id quidem gratis. Nam et domum mutuatur, et auditorium exstruit, et
subsellia conducit, et libellos dispergit._[226]
Apart from the use of authorship as a profession, it was of course
pursued by many as an agreeable means of beguiling leisure, the results
being harmless for posterity if not entirely so for the neighbors of
the writer. In this respect, Rome, in the third century, was not very
different from London or New York in the nineteenth. The _dilettante_
tragedian frequently restricted his literary ambition to securing
a hearing for his productions before an audience, whether public
or private, and did not venture to plan for his works any wider
publication.
There are not a few references to banquets at which the guests paid
for their dinners by listening, with due appreciation, to the latest
tragedy of their host.
In some instances at least the guests must have found occasion really
to value their literary as well as their gastronomic entertainment,
as not a few works which had been left by their authors uncopied and
uncared for, have been preserved for posterity only through the care of
admiring friends.
Donatus says that Virgil had planned before his death to burn his
_Æneid_, unwilling that it should be published without further
revision, and that the work was only saved by the commands of
Augustus.[227] Other writers, either by reason of dread of critical
opinion or from an extreme standard of thoroughness, kept their
manuscripts in their desks for a number of years after completing them.
As Catullus says, after publication there can be no thought of further
emendation. He speaks of one of Cinna’s volumes as given to the world
after the ninth winter (_edita nonam post hiemem_).[228]
This term of nine years happens to coincide with the advice of Horace,
that a literary work should be held back for nine years--_nonum
prematur in annum_,--for the word once published can never be
recalled.[229]
Pliny permitted his friend Saturninus to help him with the revision
of his _Schedulæ_, but is not even then assured that he will be
satisfied to permit them to come before the public: _Erit enim et post
emendationem liberum nobis vel publicare vel continere_--“and after
the revision of the books it still rested with us to decide whether to
publish them or to hold them back.”[230]
Fronto, who was tutor to Marcus Aurelius, had written a pamphlet
against a certain Asclepiodotus, and had arranged with a publisher for
the issue of an edition. Hearing later that Verus (the adopted son
of Antoninus Pius) was friendly to Asclepiodotus, he hastened to the
publisher’s office to cancel the publication, but finds, to his regret,
that he is too late, a number of copies having already gone out to the
public, _curavi quidem abolere orationem, sed jam pervaserat in manus
plurimum quam ut aboleri posset_.[231]
According to Birt,[232] the oldest book-shop--that is, retail
book-shop--known to have existed in Rome was that in which Clodius
hid himself (58 A.D.). Later, we find the stalls of the bibliopoles
placed in the most frequented quarters of the city, by the Janus Gate
of the Forum, by the Temple of Peace, on the _Argiletum_, in the
_Vicus Sandalarius_, and on the _Sigillaria_. Martial speaks in fact
of the street Argiletum as being chiefly occupied by booksellers, with
whom, curiously enough, he tells us, were associated the fashionable
tailors.[233] It would be pleasing to think that there was ever a time
or a city in which the buying of books was as much of a fashionable
diversion as the buying of clothes.
Both Horace and Martial speak of the book-shops as having become places
of resort where the more active-minded citizens got into the habit of
meeting to look over the literary novelties and to discuss the latest
gossip, literary or social. On the door-posts or on columns near the
entrance were placed the advertisements of recent publications and the
announcements of works in preparation. Martial gives us the description
as follows:
_Contra Cæsaris est forum taberna
Scriptis postibus hinc et inde totis,
Omnes ut cito perlegas poetas._
····
_De primo dabit alterove nido
Rasum pumice purpuraque cultum
Denariis tibi quinque Martialem._[234]
Birt finds evidences that before the close of the first century,
the book trade in Rome and through many portions of the Empire had
developed into large proportions. Each week the packets from Alexandria
brought into Rome great cargoes of papyrus from the paper-makers of
Alexandria. These papyrus rolls, first stored in the warehouses,
speedily find their way to the workrooms of the publishers, where
hundreds of skilled slaves follow with swift pens the rapid dictation
of the readers, who relieve each other from time to time. Others
occupy themselves with the work of comparison and revision, while a
third group, the _glutinatores_, cover the completed manuscripts with
appropriate bindings. In the book-shop, _taberna_, are attractively
presented for the attention of the scholars, the _dilettanti_, the real
collectors, and their fashionable imitators, the collections of the
accepted classics and of the latest literary novelties. Here a cheap
edition of the _Æneid_ is sold for school use for a few pennies; there
great sums are expended for a veritable “original” text of some work by
Demosthenes, Thucydides, Cato, or Lucilius[235]; while a third buyer is
placing a wholesale order for a “proper assortment” of literature to
serve as an adornment for a new villa.
From the Roman bibliopoles large shipments of books are also regularly
made to other cities, such as Brundisium, _fasces librorum venalium
expositos vidimus in Brundisio_,[236] or Lugdunum[237] (Lyons), or
Vienna (in Gaul).[238]
It seems also to have been the practice (which has not been abandoned
in modern times) to ship off to the provinces the over supplies or
“remainders” of editions of books which had in the capital gone out of
fashion. _Aut fugies Uticam aut vinctus mitteris Ilerdam._[239]
Notwithstanding this extreme activity of the business of making and
selling books, Birt is inclined to conclude that the lot of the poor
student must have been a difficult one.
Such libraries as existed in Rome and Italy had not been instituted
with reference to the work of students, as had been done with the
collections in Alexandria, and the Roman State appears in fact to have
given very little attention to the requirements of higher education.
An author, named Diogenian, writing in the time of Hadrian, undertook
to supply the needs of the impecunious student of philology, the πένης
πεπαιδευμένος of Lucian, with his book entitled περιεργοπένητες, which
was so comprehensive in its information as to enable its fortunate
owner to “do without any other work on its subject.”[240]
Birt concludes from certain references that the leading publishers
in Rome had during the beginning of the second century organized
themselves into an association for the better protection of their
interests in literary property, and that each member of such
association bound himself not to interfere with the undertakings
of his fellow-members. As Roman literature increased in commercial
importance, some such arrangement or undertaking was, of course,
indispensable, as in connection with the cheapening rates for the labor
of slave copyists, indiscriminate competition could only have resulted
in anarchy in the book-world, and have retarded indefinitely the
development of literature as a profession. Birt evidently had in mind
the existence of some such Publishers’ Commission as was instituted by
the book-trade of Leipsic in the 17th century, but it is not likely
that the Roman association succeeded in securing any such definite and
effective organization.
It is on record, however, that the publisher Tryphon claimed to
possess a legal control over the writings of Quintilian, while there
is, unfortunately, nothing to show by what means he was enabled to
retain such control.[241] Tryphon took credit to himself for having
persuaded the reluctant Quintilian to permit the publication of
certain works which would otherwise have been lost to posterity.[242]
Quintilian refers to Tryphon as a trusted friend, on whose judgment
he relied.[243] Tryphon was also one of the numerous publishers of
Martial.[244]
The name of the _librarius_ Dorus, mentioned by Seneca as a
contemporary of his own, is worthy of note because he was one of the
earliest buyers of publishing rights or copyrights. Seneca understands,
namely, that Dorus had purchased from the heirs of Atticus and from
those of Cicero the publishing rights and the “remainders” of the
editions of Cicero’s works.[245]
An ownership was claimed by the State in the Sibylline books, but this
was of course never exercised in the form of a publishing right. It is
related, however, that the duumvir Attilius suffered the punishment
of death, adjudged to a parricide, because, being charged with the
custody of the Sibylline books, he suffered Petronius Sabinus to copy
some portions of the same. This might be called an infringement of a
copyright vested in the State, but in the regard of the Roman law the
deed was evidently considered simply as a sacrilege.[246]
Suetonius relates, in his _Life of Domitian_, an instance in which
the Emperor administered, on the ground of certain objectionable
passages in a work of history, a penalty so severe that it is difficult
to accept the report as accurate. He says: _Hermogenem Tarsensem
occidit propter quasdam in historia figuras; librariis etiam qui eam
descripserant cruce fixis._ “He killed Hermogenes of Tarsus on account
of certain expressions in his history; even the booksellers who had
circulated the work were crucified.”[247]
If the account is correct, we have in this instance a very early
application of the present usage in regard to the circulation of
so-called “libellous” matter. The bookseller of to-day no longer
dreads capital punishment at the hands of an irate monarch, but it is
perfectly possible for him to be forced into bankruptcy through the
penalties collected on account of the circulation (however unwittingly)
of volumes containing statements called by the law “libellous.”
The principal customers of the booksellers were the schoolmasters
and the so-called “grammarians.” To these should be added, from the
beginning of the first century, an increasing number of libraries. The
first public library in Rome is said to have been founded as early as
167 B.C., but it was not until the reign of Augustus that the Roman
libraries became important and that in the other cities also libraries
were instituted.
There was a library attached to the temple of Apollo on the Palatine
hill in Rome, which Simcox refers to as an humble imitation of the
Museum of Alexandria, but I do not know the date of its founding. It
is noted of Tibullus, who was usually indifferent to fame, that he
consented to send to this library a copy of his collected writings, and
there are other references from which it appeared that, either from
public spirit or from a desire for public appreciation, authors made a
practice of presenting copies of their books to this Palatine library,
and that in this way a considerable collection was brought together,
of which the public had the benefit; but it is certain that there
was no municipal or imperial enactment prescribing such presentation
copies, and it does not appear that any of the emperors took any such
active interest in furthering the development of literature and of the
literary education of the public as had been shown by the Ptolemies of
Alexandria.
In Rome there were, according to Birt, twenty-nine public libraries
founded between the reign of Augustus and that of Hadrian, while there
are various references to the public libraries of the smaller cities.
Aulus Gellius[248] speaks of the library in Tibur (the modern Tivoli)
_in Herculis Templo satis commode instructa libris_. Comum (the modern
Como) possessed a library given to it by Pliny.[249] The Roman Athens
had a public library connected with the College of the Ptolemies,
and the Emperor Hadrian founded a second.[250] Strabo speaks with
appreciation of the library of Smyrna.[251]
It appears probable that, at least for the first three or four
centuries after Christ, the larger proportion of the books contained
in the public libraries (as in the private collections) were in
Greek. Cicero speaks more than once of the fact that the Greek books
were comparatively plenty, while those in Latin were scarce.[252]
Juvenal’s character, the impecunious Cordus, “possessed but few books,
and those in Greek.”[253] Suetonius, in speaking of the restoration
by Domitian of the public libraries which had been burned by Nero,
states that the Emperor collected from all sources trustworthy texts
and forwarded them to Alexandria for use in the production of the many
copies required.[254] It is evident, in the first place, that at this
time (about 90 A.D.) the supply of skilled copyists in Rome was still
inadequate for any such extended undertakings, and secondly, that there
was question merely of works in Greek, for Latin texts would hardly
have been sent to Alexandria.
Even without the aid of scholarly government supervision and of liberal
government appropriations, the public libraries of Rome and of the
leading cities of the provinces must have been of no little importance
in furthering the literary interests of the time, while they rendered
to posterity the important service of preserving not a few works which
would otherwise apparently have perished entirely. For this latter
service we are indebted, however, not only to the libraries but to the
vanity of the authors, who for the most part took pains to place in one
or more of the public libraries copies of their writings as soon as
published. Of certain works of which the originals have disappeared,
such knowledge as we have comes to us only in the fragments given
in the school readers, which for each generation of young students
were made up of extracts from the books of the previous generation of
writers.
Some of these “classical” readers of the period of the early Empire
were copied for use in the monastic schools of some centuries later,
but these were in large part speedily superseded by the collections
of legends and breviaries which came to be accepted as the proper
literature for the monastery and the convent.
In addition to the “grammarians” buying books for their professional
needs, and the city libraries purchasing for the public welfare, there
were, during the first two centuries, an increasing number of private
collectors, not a few of whom, however, bought books, not from any
scholarly interest, but simply because it became the fashion to do
so. Seneca speaks of great collections of books in the hands of men
who had never so much as read their titles.[255] Such purchases must
nevertheless have been important for the encouragement of literary work
in Rome. Many of the public baths were furnished with libraries[255];
a country house could not be complete without a library, says
Cicero[256]; each one of the villas of Italicus, according to Pliny,
had its library[257]; Trimalchio, says Petronius,[258] possessed no
less than three. A statue of Hermes, found in Rome, bears an epigram
which speaks of βύβλοι in the grove of the Muses, and which undoubtedly
had been intended to be placed in the library of some country
villa.[259]
Among some of the larger private collections referred to are those of
the grammarian Epaphroditus, who possessed 30,000 volumes,[260] and of
Serenus Sammoaicus, who is credited with over 60,000 volumes.[261]
The impecunious Martial, on the other hand, tells us that his own
collection comprised less than 120 rolls.[262]
We have already referred to the practical interest taken by Martial
in the details of bookselling. We find him quoting the authority of
the booksellers against certain critics, who were not willing to rank
Lucian as a poet of repute, and showing that after thirty years or more
there was still a steady demand for Lucian’s poetical works.
Martial takes the ground that continued popular appreciation is
sufficient evidence of literary repute, whatever the critics may say to
the contrary.[263]
The same satirist refers more than once to many amiable and deserving
authors, who, despite their talents, succeeded in reaching no public
at all other than the unhappy guests who learned from experience to
dread the admirable dinners which had to be paid for by listening
to literary productions. The practice of recitations on the part of
the host must have been quite general, if when no such performance
was intended it was considered desirable to mention the fact in the
invitations. Martial quotes himself as promising to Stella in inviting
him to dinner, that under no provocation will he be tempted to recite
anything, not even though Stella should recite his own poem on the
“Wars of the Giants.”[264]
Martial explains the inferiority of the literary production of the
reign of Domitian by the fact that there was no Mæcenas to give
encouragement to authors. All the great poets of the Augustan age
had, as he recalls, been placed in easy circumstances (as far as they
were not so already) either through the direct bounty of Mæcenas or
as a result of his influence over the Court. According to the view of
Martial, literature possessing any lasting value is impossible without
the leisure and freedom from care which comes from an assured income.
Mæcenas, and the fashion of subsidizing literature initiated by him,
appear in a crude way, in presenting encouragement for literary work,
to have supplied the place of a copyright law.
There may, of course, often have been question as to what constituted
a “proper compensation” for a poetical effort. Tacitus speaks of a
certain Roman knight, C. Lutorius Priscus, who had won some repute from
a poem on the death of Germanicus. He thereupon composed another poem
on the death of Drusus (son of Tiberius), who was at the time seriously
ill, but who was perverse enough to recover. Priscus had, however,
already read his poem aloud, after which he was promptly put to death
under a vote of the Senate, whether on account of the badness of the
poem, or because he had prophesied the death of the Prince, Tacitus
does not state.[265]
Juvenal joins with Martial in characterizing the writing of poetry as
an unsatisfactory profession, and hints more strongly than Martial
that the profession was spoiled by amateurs. He suggests as a further
ground for the absence of first-rate poetry, that all the subjects had
been exhausted, meaning, of course, all the mythological subjects. He
arrives at the conclusion that poetry and literature in general are
dying, and considers this is not to be wondered at, since even if a man
of letters makes a sacrifice which ought not to be required of him, and
turns schoolmaster, he will be grossly underpaid, and often not able to
recover the beggarly pittance which will be due him.[266]
This inadequacy of the legitimate returns for literary work was
doubtless considered by Martial as a sufficient justification for
utilizing his unquestioned literary cleverness in ways not always
legitimate, for, as has been pointed out by Cruttwell, Simcox, and
others, not a few of the epigrams look like demands for blackmail.
“Somebody”--the poet declines to know who the somebody is--“has given
offence”; if the poet should discuss who, so much the worse for
somebody. He is full of veiled personalities of the most damaging kind.
He deprecates guessing at the persons indicated, but they must have
recognized themselves, and have seen the need of propitiating a poet
who was at once politic and vindictive. He insists repeatedly upon his
successful avoidance of all personal attacks, while he had been lavish
of personal compliments. He tells us himself that these were not given
gratis, and when somebody whom he has praised ignores the obligation
he receives, the fact is published as a general warning. We cannot
doubt that when Martial wrote that “there were no baths in the world
like the baths of Etruscus,” and that “whoever missed bathing in them
would die without bathing,” he expected to be paid in some form or
other for the valuable advertisement he was giving to Etruscus.[267] In
like manner, when he answers numerous requests for a copy of his poems
with a reference to his bookseller, adding a jocose assurance that the
poems are not really worth the money, it is fair to assume that the
bookseller had paid something for the manuscript or that the author
had some continued interest in the sales.[268]
In being obliged by the narrowness of his means to watch thus closely
the sales of his booksellers, and in believing himself compelled to
pick up _sesterces_ by writing complimentary epigrams or threatening
abusive ones, Martial may well have envied the assured position of his
contemporary Quintilian, who received from the imperial treasury as a
rhetorician a salary, which, with his other emoluments, gave him an
income of 100,000 _sesterces_ (about $4000). Quintilian appears to have
been the first rhetorician to whom an imperial salary was given.
It is evident that at this time the art of the rhetorician or reciter
was still one of importance. The great books of the Claudian period
were evidently written to be recited or to please a taste formed by the
habit of recitation.[269] After the reign of Claudius the noteworthy
works, with the exception perhaps of the _Thebaïd_ of Statius, were
certainly written to be read. How many readers they found is a more
difficult thing to determine. There was certainly, on the part of some
writers at least, no lack of persistency. Labeo, the jurist (who died
13 A.D.), is credited, for instance (or should we say debited?), with
the production of no less than four hundred works.[270]
The average editions of works addressed to the general public are
estimated by Birt to have comprised not less than five hundred copies,
and in many cases a thousand copies.[271] Pliny, writing about 60
A.D., makes reference to a volume by M. Aquilus Regulus (a memoir of
his deceased son), of which the author caused to be made one thousand
copies for distribution throughout Italy and the provinces. Pliny
thinks it rather absurd that for a volume like this, of limited and
purely personal interest, the piety and the vanity of the author should
have caused an edition to be prepared larger than that usually issued
of readable works.[272] Birt is of opinion that there is sufficient
evidence in the references of Horace, Propertius, Ovid, Martial, and
others, to show the existence of a well organized system for the
distribution and sale of books, not only in Italy, but throughout
the distant provinces of Gaul, Britain, Germany, and Scythia. Such a
distribution, even if restricted to the larger cities, would have been
impracticable with editions of much less than one thousand copies.[273]
In support of this view regarding a widespread distribution of books,
Birt quotes a passage from Pliny concerning the service to literature
rendered by Varro.
“Varro was unwilling that the fame of great men should perish, or
that the lapse of years should cause the memory of their deeds to
be lost. He took pains, therefore, in the almost countless volumes
of his writings, to preserve for posterity sketches or studies of
more than seven hundred men who had won renown. Such a device might
well have aroused the envy of the Gods, for these portraitures
were not only thus ensured a permanent existence, but they were
distributed to the farthest corners of the earth, so that the
names of these heroes of the past would, like those of the Gods
themselves, be known in all lands.”[274][275]
Varro, who was a contemporary of Cicero, appears to have interested
himself not only in biography, but in almost every department of
research. He is credited with forty-one books on antiquities,
seventy-six books of edifying dialogues, fifteen books of parallel
lives of illustrious Greeks and Romans, twenty-five books on the Latin
language, nine books on the “seven liberal arts,” fifteen books on
civil law, thirty political memoirs, twenty-two books of speeches,
one hundred and fifty satires, and a number of minor works.[276]
Such industry and versatility have few parallels in the history of
literature, although it is to be borne in mind that the author was
favored with length of days, and was able to be active in literary
work as late as his eighty-second year. It is evident, however, that
there must have been some measure of appreciation on the part of the
public and the publisher to have encouraged him to such long-continued
production.
Possibly the earliest instance of any practical interest taken by
the imperial government in furthering the distribution of literature
for the higher education of the public, is presented by an edict of
the Emperor Tacitus (275 A.D.), ordering that every public library
throughout the Empire should possess not less than ten sets of the
writings of his ancestor, Tacitus, the historian. His reign of two
hundred days was, however, too brief to enable him to ensure the
execution of his decree. It seems probable that if the aged Emperor (he
was in his seventy-fifth year when he came to the throne) had been able
to carry out his plan, posterity would not have had occasion to mourn
the disappearance of so large a portion of the writings of the great
historian.
Tacitus, the historian, was born about 60 A.D., in a small town of
Umbria. His father was of equestrian rank and a man of importance, and
it is interesting to note that the son, instead of being sent to Athens
for his education, as was so frequently done with well born youths of
the preceding generation, received his university training at Massilia
(the modern Marseilles), which by the close of the first century had
become an important centre of literature and education. The supremacy
of Athens in influencing the higher education of Italy had come to a
close, and the centre of intellectual life was moving westward. Tacitus
was evidently a man of no little versatility of power. Before achieving
lasting fame through his histories and essays, he had won distinction
as a lawyer and as an orator, and had served with dignity and success
as prætor and consul. He is spoken of as a graceful poet, and was
believed also to have been the author of a clever volume of _Facetiæ_.
His _History_ was published some time during the reign of Trajan, in
some thirty books, of which less than five have been preserved. His
second historical work was published a few years later, in sixteen
books, under the title of _Annals_, and of this about nine books have
been preserved. The frequent references to these two works and to the
well known essay on the Germans, in the writings of the contemporaries
and successors of Tacitus, show how important a position they occupied
in the literature of the Empire, and show also that copies of them were
distributed widely throughout the known world. We have unfortunately
no details whatever concerning the method of their publication, and no
references to the publishers to whose charge they were confided.
If Tacitus had only, like Martial, been an impecunious writer, we
should probably have found in his correspondence with his friend
Pliny, or in other of his writings, some mention of his publishing
arrangements and of the receipts secured through the sale of his works.
It is evident, however, that his official emoluments were sufficient
to free him from any necessity of making close calculations concerning
earnings by his pen, and it is even possible that he permitted the
fortunate publishers, whoever they were to reserve to themselves the
profits, which ought to have been considerable, arising from the sales
of these important and popular works.
Notwithstanding the gradual decline of Athens towards the close of the
second century as a centre of higher education, Greek continued to be
throughout the Empire the language not only for many philosophical and
scholarly undertakings, but for not a few works planned for popular
reading. I mentioned that Massilia (Marseilles) had been selected
as the place where the young Tacitus could secure to best advantage
a refined education, but Massilia, although a thousand miles from
Greece, was a Greek city. It is probably not too much to say that
throughout the Roman world, wherever a town came into distinction in
any way as a place of intellectual activity and of literary life, it
would be found to have possessed a large Greek element. The Greek
brains must have served as yeast for the intellectual substance of the
Roman world.
Suetonius, writing, about 150 A.D., his work _Ludicra_, comprising
treatises on the sports and public games of the Greeks and Romans, gave
the work to the public in both Greek and Latin. The _Meditations_ of
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, written about 170 were issued only in Greek.
Simcox says:
“From the reign of Hadrian onwards until the translation of the
Empire to the East, the intellectual needs of the capital, such as
they were, were supplied by the eastern half of the Empire; all
the upper classes learned Greek in the nursery, and it was the
language of fashionable conversation ... all people who professed
to be serious entertained a Greek philosopher. Their only reason
for keeping up Latin literature at all was that the cleverest
people who had received a literary education wished to be poets
or historians or orators, an ambition which was sustained by the
competitions endowed by Domitian and by the professorships which
were founded by his predecessors and successors.”
I have already referred to the influence of the French language in
Germany during the first half of the eighteenth century as presenting
a somewhat similar case; but the influence upon German thought and
German literature of the French language and literature, rendered
fashionable under the Court of Frederick the Great, was of course
slight and superficial as compared with the part played in the Roman
world by the language and the thought of the Greeks.
Towards the end of the second century Carthage became of literary
as well as commercial importance. Latin was the language of
administration, and the literary culture of Carthage took upon itself,
therefore, a Latin rather than a Greek form.[277] Among the authors who
gave form, each in his own very distinctive manner, to the literary
school of Carthage were Fronto and Apuleius, and a generation later the
Father of the African Church, the theologian Tertullian.
Fronto’s books appear to have been made in Carthage, but were certainly
on sale with Roman dealers, and the same was doubtless the case with
the witty and popular _Fables_ and _Metamorphoses_ of Apuleius, but
the evidence in regard to a publishing trade in Carthage is purely
inferential. Aulus Gellius, writing about 170, speaks of picking up in
a second-hand book-shop in Brundisium a volume from which he quotes
a pretty story. The incident was probably imaginary, for, as Simcox
points out, the story was taken from the elder Pliny; but the reference
shows that the business of the bookseller was, at the date specified,
already sufficiently systematized to support, even in the smaller
towns, second-hand book dealers.
It was evident that by the close of the first century the machinery
for the making and the distribution of books was sufficiently well
organized to secure for authors the opportunity of a world-wide
influence. It seems probable, however, that the works which at this
date obtained for themselves the widest circulation and influence were
not those of living writers, but were still the classics which Greece
had originated, but which were so largely given to the world through
Rome.
In the fourth century a certain Firmicus Maternus published an
astrological work entitled _Mathesis_. The work was dedicated to the
proconsul Mavertius Lollianus, who had suggested its preparation, and
to him also the author appears to have assigned the control of the
publication, with the curious instruction that the two final books
(out of the eight of which the work was composed) must by no means
be permitted to come into the hands of the general public (_vulgum
profanum_), but that the reading of these should be restricted to those
who had led holy and priestly lives.[278]
Birt, who is my authority for the incident, does not make clear what
means were available for the proconsul by which to enforce this
special and difficult discrimination among readers. Birt cites the
case, however, as an evidence of the control that could be exercised,
and that from time to time was exercised, by the government over the
circulation of literature. It is certain, he says, that even the very
considerable increase in the facilities for the reproduction of books
did not prevent the authorities from undertaking to stop the sale of,
and to confiscate, works which, for one reason or another, might work
detriment to the State, or which conflicted with the personal interest
of the ruler. The earliest example on record of a confiscation dates
back to the time when the Athenian Republic was at its height. In the
year 411 B.C., as mentioned in the chapter on Greece, the writings
of the philosopher Protagoras were burned on the Agora, while the
philosopher himself was held to trial for heresy.[279]
The emperors of Rome possessed, of course, a much more unquestioned
authority and a more effective machinery for the suppression of
doctrines and for the confiscation of books than belonged to the
shifting authorities of Athens, and there are examples of a number of
imperial decrees for literary confiscation, some of which were based
on the real or apparent interests of the State, while not a few can be
credited to personal motives.
The first instance of the kind was the order of Augustus for the
burning of 2000 copies of certain pseudo-Sibylline books. Those charged
with the task were directed not only to take all the stock that could
be found in the book-shops, but to make thorough search also for
all copies existing in private collections.[280] Caligula attempted
a more difficult task, when, according to Suetonius, he undertook
to suppress the writings of Homer--_cogitavit de Homeri carminibus
abolendis_.[281] He also gave orders, says the historian, which were
fortunately only partly carried out, to have destroyed all the writings
and all the busts of Virgil and of Livy contained in the libraries.
Tiberius ordered that the writings of a certain historian of the time
of Augustus should be abolished, _abolita scripta_, by which we may
properly understand simply that the copies were to be taken out of all
public libraries.[282]
The rigorous measures adopted by Domitian to discourage the sale of
the history of Hermogenes of Tarsus, by crucifying the publisher
and all the booksellers who had copies in stock, have already been
referred to.[283] This history was found objection to on the score
of certain designs contained in it, _propter quasdam figuras_. Two
other works which failed to secure the approval of this Emperor were
the _Laudations_ by Junius Rusticus and Herennius Senecio of Paetus
Thrasea and Helvidius Priscus. The two books, that is, all the copies
of them that could be secured, were burned in the Forum after having
been solemnly condemned under a _senatus consultum_. Senecio was
nevertheless able to preserve his own copy.[284]
Not a few of the edicts of confiscation were, however, evidently
carried out by a house to house visitation, extending at least to all
domiciles known to contain collections of books. Diocletian caused
to be collected and destroyed all the ancient manuscripts in Egypt,
“which had to do with the chemistry of quicksilver and gold,” περὶ
χημείας ἀργυροῦ καὶ χρυσοῦ, _i. e._, with the subject of alchemy.[285]
The teachers in Africa of the doctrines of the Manichæans were also
ordered to burn their books. The edict of Diocletian, issued 303 A.D.,
directing the persecution of the Christians, also provided for the
destruction of the Christian Scriptures. According to Burckhardt, many
Christians came forward with the acknowledgment that they possessed
copies of the Scriptures, and, refusing to deliver the same, suffered
the martyrdom for which they sought.[286]
Constantine permitted Arius to live unmolested, but his writings were,
whenever found, committed to the flames, and any one concealing copies
was liable to death. In 448, the Emperor Theodosius issued an edict
for the destruction of all works the influence of which was opposed to
the Christian faith, an instruction which, if it had been faithfully
executed, would have annihilated a large portion of the world’s
literature. Among other writers the loss of whose works, excepting only
a few fragments, was probably due to the edict, was Porphyry of Tyre,
who died about 300 A.D., and who was the ablest of the later scholarly
opponents of the Christian doctrines.
St. Jerome relates that a certain Pammachius attempted to recall and
to cancel almost immediately after publication the edition of Jerome’s
controversial letters against the monk Jovinian, but that his efforts
were unsuccessful, for copies of the book had already been distributed
in every province.
The legislation of imperial Rome, which, as we have seen, made no
specific provision for the protection of the rights of authors, also
omitted to institute any measures for the public supervision of books.
It was under the general provisions of the criminal law that the
publication of writings on certain special subjects was prevented or
was punished, and that the authors, publishers, and sometimes even the
possessors of the works regarded as injurious to individuals or as
likely to cause detriment to the State, became subject to penalties the
severity of which varied with the times.[287] Several of the imperial
edicts characterized libellous publications as acts of _lese-majesté_
or treason.[288]
It would not be in order to bring to a close this sketch of the history
of literary property under the rule of the Romans, without reference to
the contribution made by Roman jurists to the analysis of its origin
and nature, although such contribution was but slight. The theories and
conclusions of these jurists are of interest not on the ground of their
having had any effect on the status of literary production throughout
the Empire, but on account of the far-reaching influence of Roman
jurisprudence upon the conceptions and the legislation of the mediæval
and of the modern world.
As Klostermann points out, the Roman jurists interested themselves
in the subject of property in an intellectual or immaterial creation
rather as a matter of theoretical speculation than as one calling for
legislation; and, as we have already seen, there is no record of any
such legislation, imperial or municipal, having been instituted during
the existence of the Roman State. Some of the earlier discussions as
to the nature of property in formulated ideas appear to have turned
upon the question as to whether such property should take precedence
over that in the material which happened to be made use of for the
expression of the ideas.
The disciples of Proculus (a lawyer living at about 50 A.D.) maintained
that the occupation of alien material, so as to make of it a new thing,
gave a property right to him who had reworked or reshaped it; while
the school of Sabinus (who was himself a contemporary of Proculus)
insisted that the ownership of the material must carry with it the
title to whatever was produced upon the material. Justinian, or rather,
I understand, Tribonianus, writing in the name of the Emperor (about
520 A.D.), took a middle ground, following the opinion of Gaius.
Tribonianus concluded, namely, that the decision must be influenced by
the possibility of restoring the material to its original form, and
more particularly by the question as to whether the material or that
which had been produced upon it were the more essential. The original
opinion of Gaius appears to have had reference to the ownership of a
certain table upon which a picture had been painted, and the decision
was in favor of the artist. This decision (dating from about 160 A.D.)
contains an unmistakable recognition of immaterial property, not, to
be sure, in the sense of a right to exclusive reproduction, but in the
particular application, that, while material property depends upon
the substance, immaterial property, that is to say property in the
presentation of ideas, depends upon the form.[289]
The opinion, as given in the _Institutes_ of Justinian, is as follows:
_Si quis in aliena tabula pinxerit, quidam putant tabulam picturæ
cedere, aliis videtur picturam, qualiscunque sit, tabulæ cedere; sed
nobis videtur melius esse, tabulam picturæ cedere. Ridiculum est
enim picturam Apellis vel Parrhasii in accessionem vilissimæ tabulæ
cedere._[290]
It is certainly curious that a question of this kind, first presented
for consideration in the middle of the first century, should have been
still under discussion nearly five centuries later.
An application of this same principle is presented in legal usage
to-day, under which authors and artists are empowered to take
possession of reproductions of their works even against innocent
third parties or against the owners of the material on which such
reproductions have been made.
The fact that papyrus rather than parchment was the material adopted by
authors during the fruitful period of Latin literature, had of course
an important bearing in the continued existence of their works, for
papyrus was an extremely perishable substance. Damp, worms, moths,
mice, were all deadly enemies of papyrus rolls, but even if, through
persistent watchfulness, these were guarded against, the mere handling
of the rolls, even by the most careful readers, brought them rapidly to
destruction. We find, therefore, that a constant renewal of the rolls
was required in all public libraries, just as to-day our librarians
find it necessary to replace their supply of copies of books of popular
authors which have become worn out by handling. The ancient librarian
had, however, a more arduous and a more expensive task with his
renewals. A reference of Pliny gives us an impression of the average
age that could be looked for for a papyrus book.
“_Ita sint longinqua monumenta; Tiberi Gaique Gracchorum manus. Apud
Pomponium Secundum vatem civemque clarissimum vidi annos fere post
ducentos; jam vero Ciceronis ac divi Augusti Vergilique sæpe numero
videmus._”[291]
We understand, therefore, that (with certain precautions) a book could
last for one hundred years, but that a volume two centuries old was for
Pliny something so exceptional as to be almost incredible.
The papyrus rolls were of course exposed to the most serious friction
at the opening portions which were in immediate contact with one of the
rollers where two rollers were employed, and which in any case were
exposed to the most frequent handling. As a consequence, it was the
initial page of books which first came to destruction, and of not a few
works which were otherwise in readable condition these initial pages
were lacking. A quotation from Eusebius, cited by Birt, shows that it
was even a matter of surprise when a copy of the works of such a writer
as Clement was found complete, with title and preface.[292]
In many of the libraries, it was also not uncommon to find that the
different rolls of a particular work had been wrongly numbered in one
of the transcribings, and had consequently been mixed up as to their
arrangement. It was not infrequent even to find the rolls of the works
of different authors jumbled together, in such a manner that no little
scholarly skill was requisite for their proper understanding and
correct rearrangement.[293]
The papyrus manuscripts from the Athenian, Alexandrian, and Roman
workshops, as far as they have escaped destruction through imperial
edicts, civil wars, and invasions, were permitted to fall into decay,
and were not replaced. By the close of the fourth century, the great
collections of papyrus rolls, in which were contained the classics of
Greek and Roman literature, had practically disappeared. For later
book-making, parchment replaced papyrus, a change which, if it had
occurred two centuries, or even one century earlier, would, in spite
of edicts of destruction, have preserved for future generations not a
few of the lost “classics.” A small proportion of the Greek and Roman
writings, in copies dating from the later literary period, had been
placed on parchment, and some few of these have been handed down to us
through the intervention of Christian monks, who had taken possession
of the parchment for church documents or codices, but who in their own
inscribing had not destroyed, or had only partially destroyed, the
original writing. I have already made reference to this practice of
making one piece of parchment do a double service, and to the name of
_palimpsest_, by which such a doubly inscribed parchment was known.
In the early part of the fourth century several factors came into
operation which checked the development and finally undermined the
existence of the publishing and bookselling trade of Rome. First among
these factors I should name the growing power and influence of the
Christian Church.
In the centuries which elapsed between the downfall of the Roman
Empire and the invention of printing, the centres of intellectual
activities and of scholarly interests were undoubtedly the churches and
the monasteries, and it is probable that if it had not been for the
educational work done by the priests and monks, and for the interest
taken by them (however inadequately and ignorantly) in the literature
of the past, the fragments of this literature which have been preserved
for to-day would have been much less considerable and more fragmentary
than they are. As I understand the history, the literary interests of
the world owe very much to the fostering care given to them by the
Church, or by certain portions of the Church, during the troublous
centuries of the early Middle Ages. During these centuries the Church
not only supplied a standard of morality, but kept in existence
whatever intellectual life there was.
At the time, however, when the Christian Church was rapidly extending
its influence throughout the Roman Empire, and during the century after
it had succeeded in winning over to the faith the emperors themselves,
and had become the official Church of the Empire, the evidence goes
to show that its influence was decidedly detrimental to the literary
productiveness of the age and also inimical to the preservation of the
literary masterpieces of previous ages.
As the range of membership of the Church increased, so that it came
to include a larger proportion of men of cultivation and scholarship,
there came into existence a considerable body of theological and
controversial writings, the production of which has gone on steadily
increasing until very recent times. But the reading of the works of
“pagan” writers was discouraged, and the manuscripts themselves were
first neglected, and later suffered to fall into decay. Such writing
as was done by the Christian scribes was in the main limited to the
transcribing of the books then accepted as scriptures and to the
copying of prayers and hymns. The mental activities of both writers
and readers were turned in other directions. Scholars gave their
scholarship and trained copyists their clerical skill to the service
of the Church. It was not merely that the Church took possession for
its own work of so large a proportion of the best minds of the time.
It directly discouraged then, as it did for many centuries thereafter,
the study of any literature other than ecclesiastical. The writers of
Greece and Rome were, for Christian believers, if not heretical, at
least frivolous and time-wasting. Life was short and Christian duties
left no free hours for Homer or Virgil, Plato or Epictetus. By the
time of the accession of Constantine (306 A.D.) the book-shops on the
Argiletum had lessened in number and in importance, the connections of
the Roman publishers with the great towns of the provinces were for the
most part broken off, and, most important of the signs of the times,
there are no new books and no writers at work. Literary productiveness
has for the time ceased.
The second cause which contributed to the destruction of the book-trade
of Rome was the decision of Constantine to remove the capital of the
Empire to Byzantium. The transfer was completed in the year 328, and
for a number of years after that date there was no imperial Court
in Rome. The “world of fashion” had migrated to the Bosphorus, and
with the Court officials, the judges, the advocates, and the military
leaders, had gone a large proportion of the active-minded men of the
old capital, the men of intellectual interests. There remained the
Bishop of Rome (soon to become Primate of the Latin Church) and his
increasing staff of ecclesiastics, but to them, as pointed out, the
literature of the classical period was either a matter of indifference
or an abomination. The direction of the education of the young Romans
must soon have come into the hands of the priests, and this would have
increased their power to crush out the interest in, and the remembrance
of, the literary productions of paganism.
A third factor which hastened the decline of Latin literature and the
extinction of the book-trade of Rome, was the revival of the use of
Greek, which, after the establishment of the capital at Constantinople,
speedily became the official language of the Empire and the speech of
the Court and of polite society generally.
I do not forget that there shortly came into existence an Empire of the
West, under which Rome resumed (although with sadly reduced splendor)
its position as an imperial capital. But the western emperors appear on
the whole to have been a feeble lot, and they certainly did not succeed
in gathering about them any number of men of “light and learning,”
nor is there evidence of any substantial revival of the social or
intellectual activities of Rome. The times continued troublous. The
State had to fight almost continuously for its existence, and the
fighting was not infrequently near at home, the city itself being from
time to time menaced. The “peace of the Empire” existed no longer.
It was not a time for the development of literature, and literature,
excepting a small body of doctrinal and controversial publications of
the Church, practically disappeared.
After the expansion, in 379, of the prerogatives of the Roman See, the
literary activities of the ecclesiastics increased, but it does not
appear that any bookselling machinery was required or employed for
the sale or distribution of the works of devotion, of doctrine, or of
controversy. This distribution was doubtless managed directly by the
priests themselves. The capture of Rome by the Goths under Alaric,
in 410, brought destruction upon the accumulated wealth and trade of
the city, but it is not probable that the tradespeople whose shops
were despoiled included any considerable number of booksellers, as,
according to my understanding, the trade in books had in great part
disappeared some years before. The Goths doubtless had, however, not a
little to do with the destruction of as many of the classic manuscripts
as still existed in the public libraries or in private collections. It
is certain that they would have had no appreciation for and no use for
any manuscripts that fell into their hands. The more recent and still
inconsiderable collections of Church manuscripts shared, of course,
in the general destruction, but these (apart from a few relics) could
easily be replaced.
The Goths disappeared like the rolling back of a flood after its work
of devastation has been completed; and the insignificant series of
Emperors of the West resumed their sway over the ruins of the imperial
city.
The city was restored to a semblance of its old self; but we find
no further traces of the production or of the sale of books. It is
probable that when, in 476, Odoacer, chief of the Herulians, gave
the final blow to the Empire of the West, and took possession of its
capital, he found there, outside of the few treatises and books of
worship of the Church, practically nothing in the shape of literature.
The rule of the Herulian was short; in less than twenty years he was
overthrown by the Goth, and Theodoric came into possession of Rome and
undertook the task of organizing a kingdom out of the much harried
territory of Italy.
In the later portion of his reign, after the city had been favored with
a few years of peace and of freedom from the dread of invasion, there
was some revival of intellectual and literary interests. Cassiodorus,
prætor, prefect, quæstor, and later “master of the offices,” won fame
as court orator and official letter-writer. He wrote a Gothic history
in twelve books (which has disappeared), and a collection of letters
and state-papers entitled _Variæ_, also in twelve books. Of greater
permanent importance was the work of the philosopher Boëthius. Hodgkin
says of him:
“Boëthius was the skilful mechanic who constructed the water-clock
and sun-dial for the King of the Burgundians ... a man of great
and varied accomplishments--philosopher, theologian, musician, and
mathematician. He had translated thirty books of Aristotle into
Latin for the benefit of his countrymen; his treatise on music was
for many centuries the authoritative exposition of the science of
harmony.”[294]
His greatest work was _The Consolation of Philosophy_, which was
composed while the philosopher was in prison awaiting sentence of
death. This was rendered into English by King Alfred and by Geoffrey
Chaucer; translations were made into every European tongue, and copies
were to be found in every mediæval convent library. The _Consolation_
is written partly in prose and partly in verse. Hodgkin is of opinion
that its writer was at the time a Christian.
The production of this work is the only literary event which marks the
rule of Rome by the Goths, and in fact, unless we include the “master
of the offices,” Cassiodorus, with his court orations and courtly
letters, there appeared during the time no other writer of whose work
record has remained. We can infer that some means existed in connection
either with the Court or with the convents for the production of copies
of the _Consolation_ and of the translation of Aristotle. The latter
work, having been prepared, as its translator says, “for the benefit of
his countrymen,” was evidently planned for some general circulation.
As there is no evidence of the existence at the time of any bookselling
machinery, it is probable that for the multiplication and distribution
of his volumes, Boëthius depended upon the scribes of the Church and
upon the connections with each other of the convents throughout Europe.
It is undoubtedly through the libraries of the convents (the only
places in Europe which were to any extent protected against ravages of
war) that the _Consolation_ was preserved.
After the death of Theodoric, Italy became the camping ground and the
fighting place for successive hordes of Lombards, Saracens, and Franks.
Social organization must have almost disappeared. Of scholarly or
literary production there is again for some centuries hardly a trace.
_Inter arma silent styli._ What intellectual life, outside of the
monasteries, was still active in Europe must be looked for at the Court
of the Greek Emperors of Constantinople.
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