Authors and their public in ancient times

by George Haven Putnam

CHAPTER V.

Rome.

ROMAN literature may be said to date from about 250 B.C., or, to take an event which marked an important era in the life of the Republic, from the close of the first Punic War, 241 B.C.

With the Romans, literature was not of spontaneous growth, but was chiefly the result of the influence exerted by the Etruscans, who were their first teachers in everything mental and spiritual.

The earliest literary efforts of the Greeks, or at least the earliest which are known to us, were, as we have seen, epic poems, setting forth the deeds of the gods, demi-gods, and heroes. The earliest literary productions of the Romans were historical narratives, bald records of events real or imaginary.

Simcox refers to the curious feature of Latin literature, that “It is in its best days a Roman literature without being the work of Romans.”[139] The great writers of Athens were Athenians, but from Ennius to Martial, a succession of writers who were not natives of Rome lived and worked in the metropolis and owed their fame to the Roman public.

Authors came to Rome from all parts of the civilized world, there to make their literary fortunes. They needed, in order to secure a standing in the world of literature, the approval of the critics of the capital, and in the latter period, they required also, for the multiplying and distributing of their books, the service of the Roman publishers.

Géraud points out that the Romans came very near to the acquisition of the art of printing. It was the aim of Trajan, in his Asiatic expeditions, to surpass Alexander in the extent of his conquests and journeyings eastward. “If I were but younger!” murmured Trajan, as he stood on the shores of the mysterious Erythrean Sea (the Indian Ocean). And there was in fact probably little but lack of time to prevent him from passing Alexander’s limit of the Indus, and, marching across the Indian peninsula, from arriving within the borders of the “everlasting empire” of the Chinese. In the time of Trajan, however (100 A.D.), the Chinese had already mastered the art of xylographic printing, or printing from blocks. If, therefore, Trajan had arrived at the imperial power say ten years earlier, literary property might have saved thirteen centuries in securing the most essential condition of substantial existence.

There are, however, compensations for all losses. If printing had come into Europe in the first century, the world might to-day be buried under the accumulated mass of its literature, and my subject, already sufficiently complex, would have assumed unmanageable proportions.

With the knowledge of the language and literature of Greece, which came to the Romans partly through the commerce of the Greek traders of the Mediterranean, partly through the Greek colonies in Italy, and partly, probably, through the intercourse brought about by war, a new literary standard was given to Rome. The dry annals of events, and the crude and barely metrical hymns or chants, which had hitherto comprised the entire body of national literature, were now to be brought into contrast with the great productions of the highest development of Greek poetry, drama, and philosophy. As a result the literary thought and the literary ideals of Rome were, for a time, centred in Athens.

It would not be quite correct to say that from the outset Athenian literature served as a model for Roman writers. This was true only at a later stage in the development of literary Rome. The first step was simply the acceptance of the works of Greek writers as constituting for the time being all the higher literature that existed. Greek became and for a number of years remained the literary language of Rome. Such libraries as came into existence were at first made up exclusively, and for centuries to come very largely, of works written in Greek. The instructors, at least of literature, philosophy, and science, taught in Greek and were in large part themselves Greeks. In fact the Greek language must have occupied in Italy, during the two centuries before Christ, about the place which, centuries later, was held throughout Europe by Latin, as the recognized medium for scholarly expression.

There is, however, this difference to note. The Latin of mediæval Europe, though the language of scholars, was for all writers an acquired language, and its use for the literature of the middle ages gave to that literature an inevitable formality and artificiality of style. The Greek used in early Rome was the natural literary language, because it was the language of all the cultivated literature that was known, and it was learned by the Romans of the educated classes in their earliest years, becoming to them if not a mother tongue, at least a step-mother tongue. In the face of this all-powerful competition of the works of some of the greatest writers of antiquity, works which were the result of centuries of intellectual cultivation, the literary efforts of the earlier Roman authors seemed crude enough, and the development of a national literature, expressed in the national language, progressed but slowly.

With the capture of Corinth in 146 B.C., the last fragment of Greek independence came to an end, and the absorption of Greece into the Roman empire was completed. But while the arms of Rome had prevailed, the intellect of Greece remained supreme, and, in fact, its range of influence was enormously extended through the very conquests which gave to the Romans the mastery, not only of the little Grecian peninsula, but of the whole civilized world.

The second stage in the development of Roman literature was the wholesale adaptation by the Roman writers of such Greek originals as served their purpose. It was principally the dramatic authors whose productions were thus utilized, but the appropriations extended to almost every branch of literature. In a few cases the plays and poems were published simply as translations, due credit being given to the original works, but in the larger number of instances in which the adaptation from the Greek into the Latin was made with considerable freedom and with such modifications as might help to give a local or a popular character to the piece, the Roman playwright would make no reference to the Attic author, but would quietly appropriate for himself the prestige and the profits accruing from his literary ingenuity and industry. It is proper to remember, however, that in few cases could living Greek authors have had any cause for complaint. It was the writings of the dead masters, and particularly, of course, of those whose work, while distinctive and available, was less likely to be familiar to a Roman literary public, which furnished an almost inexhaustible quarry for the rapacity of the plagiarists of the early Republic.

The bearing of this state of things upon the development of real Roman literature and upon any possibility of compensation for the writers of such literature, is obvious. Why should a Roman publisher or theatrical manager pay for the right to publish or to perform a drama by a native writer, when he could secure, for the small cost of a translation or adaptation, a more spirited and satisfactory piece of work from the Attic quarry?

What encouragement could be given, in the face of competition of this kind, to the young Latin poet, striving to secure even a hearing from the public? The practice of utilizing foreign dramatic material by adapting it for home requirements, has, as we know, been very generally followed in later times, the most noteworthy example being the wholesale appropriations made by English dramatists from the dramatic literature of France, prior to the establishment between the two countries of international copyright.

There must also have been a further difficulty on the part of the earlier Roman publishers in the way of finding funds for the encouragement of native talent. Their own work was for many years being carried on at a special disadvantage in connection with the previously referred to competition of Alexandria. As late as the middle of the first century A.D., a large portion, and probably the larger portion, of the work of the copyists in preparing editions had to be done in Alexandria, as there alone could be found an adequate force of trained and competent scribes, the swiftness and accuracy of whose work could be depended upon. Alexandria was also not simply the chief, but practically the sole market in the world for papyrus. The earlier Roman publisher found it, therefore, usually to his advantage to send to Alexandria his original text, and to contract with some Alexandrian correspondent, who controlled a book-manufacturing establishment, for the production of the editions required, while to this manufacturing outlay the Roman dealer had further to add the cost of his freight. There is record of certain copying done for Roman orders during the first and second centuries B.C. in Athens, but this seems in the main to have been restricted to commissions from individual collectors, like Lucullus (B.C. 115-57). The mass of the book-making orders certainly went to Alexandria, which bore a relation to the book-trade of Rome similar in certain respects to that borne to the London publishers in the first half of the present century by the literary circle and by the printers of Edinburgh. The earlier Roman publishers, therefore, in losing the advantage of the manufacturing of books issued by them, found their margin of possible profit seriously curtailed, and the chances of securing for the authors any remuneration from the sales of their books must for many years have been very slight. It seems, in fact, probable that compensation for Roman authors began only when, through the development of publishing machinery, it became possible for the making of books to be done advantageously in Rome. This period corresponds also with the time when a real national literature began to shape itself, and when the development of a popular interest in this literature called for the production of books in the Latin language, which could be prepared by Latin scribes.

The two sets of influences, the one mercantile, the other intellectual and patriotic, worked together, and were somewhat intermingled as cause and effect. The peculiar relation borne to the earlier intellectual development of Rome by the literature of a foreign people has never been fully paralleled in later history. The use of Greek in Italy as the language of learning and of literature, was, as said, very similar to the general acceptance of Latin by the scholars of mediæval Europe as the only tongue worthy of employment for literary purposes. But I can find no other instance in which the literature of one people ever became so completely and so exclusively the authority for and the inspiration of the first literary life of another. During the eighteenth century, North Germany had, under the direction of its Court circles accepted French as the language of refined society, and German literature was to some extent fashioned after French models; but important as this influence appeared to be, at the time, say, of Frederick the Great, it does not seem as if it could have had any large part in shaping the work of the German writers of the following half century.

The literary life of the American Republic has, of course, during a large portion of its independent existence, as in the old colonial days, drawn its inspiration from the literature of its parent state, Great Britain. There has been, in this instance, as in the relation between Rome and Greece, on the part of the younger community, first, an entire acceptance of and dependence upon the literary productions of the older state; later, a very general appropriation and adaptation of such productions; still later (and in part pari passu with such appropriation), a large use of the older literature as the model and standard for the literary compositions of the writers of the younger people; while, finally, there has come in the latter half of the nineteenth century for America, as in the second half of the first century for Rome, the development, in the face of these special difficulties, of a truly national literature. For America, as for Rome, this development was in certain ways furthered by the knowledge and the influence of the great literary works of an older civilization, while for America, as for Rome, the overshadowing literary prestige of these older works, and the commercial difficulties in the way of securing public attention and a remunerative sale for books by native authors in competition with the easily “appropriated” volumes of older writers of recognized authority, may possibly have fully offset the advantage of the inspiration.

In certain important respects the comparison fails to hold good. For America the literary connection with and inspiration from Great Britain was in every way a natural one. In changing their skies, the Americans could not change their mother-tongue, and in the literature of England, prior to 1776, they continued to claim full ownership and inheritance. The peculiar condition for Rome was its acceptance, as the foundations of its intellectual life, of the literature of a conquered people, with which people its own kinship was remote, and whose language was entirely distinct.

The estimate in which the Greeks were held by their conquerors is indicated in the fact that, while the Greeks held all but themselves to be barbarians, by the Romans the term was applied to all but themselves and the Greeks.

While a republican form of government has not usually been considered as unfavorable for intellectual activity, history certainly presents not a few instances in which an absolute monarch has had it in his power, through the direct use of the public resources, to further the literary production of the State in a way which would hardly have been practicable for a republic. It is not to be doubted, for instance, that a ruler in Rome, with the largeness of mind and persistency of will of Ptolemy Philadelphus, could by some such simple measures as those which proved so effective in Alexandria, have hastened by half a century or more the development of a national literature in Italy. But, until the establishment of the Empire, the rulers of the Republic had their hands too full with the work of defending the State and of extending its sway, to be able to give thought to, or to find funds for any schemes for, “Museums,” Academies, or Libraries, planned to supply instruction for the community, and to secure employment and incomes for literary men, under whose direction literary undertakings could be carried on at the expense of the public treasury.

No institution of learning received any endowment from the treasury of the Roman Republic, and the scholars who undertook literary work received no aid or encouragement from the government. Under the limitations and conditions controlling the literary life of the time, it is not to be wondered at that the many attractions held out by the Ptolemies should have caused Alexandria rather than Rome to become the literary centre of the world, a distinction which it seems hardly to have lost until, half a century after, through the conquest of Egypt by Octavius (B.C. 30), it had fallen to the position of a capital of a Roman province.

A still further consideration to be borne in mind in connection with the slow development of Roman literature, is the attitude of Roman writers to their work. Many of those whose names are best known to us would have felt themselves lowered to be classed as authors. They were statesmen, advocates, men about town, or, if you will, simple citizens, who gave some of their leisure hours to literary pursuits. To the Greek author, whether poet, philosopher, or historian, literature was an avocation, an honored and honorable profession. The Roman writer preferred as a rule to consider his writing as a pastime. Cicero says: Ut si occupati profuimus aliquid civibus nostris, prosimus etiam, si possumus, otiosi.[140]

Cornelius Nepos, in writing the life of Atticus, omits the smallest reference to the connection of Atticus with literature, as if any association with authorship or with publishing was either of no importance, or might even have impaired the reputation of an honored Roman.

It was this feeling that authorship was not in itself an avocation worthy of a Roman citizen, which unquestionably stood very much in the way of any arrangements under which authors could secure compensation for their productions, and doubtless postponed for a considerable period the recognition by the publishers and the reading public of any property rights in literature. The evidences, or, as it would be more exact to say, the indications, concerning such compensation for Roman writers are but fragmentary and at best but inconclusive. They will be referred to later in this chapter.

The first Latin playwright whose name has been preserved, was Titus Livius Andronicus of Tarentum. Andronicus added to his labors as a dramatist the work of an instructor of Greek literature, and he prepared for school use (about 250 B.C.) an abridgment of the Odyssey. A volume of this kind, written for use as a text-book, could hardly have been undertaken for the sake of the literary prestige, but must have been published for the purpose of securing profit from the sale of copies. If this inference is a just one, the book will stand as the earliest known instance in Latin literature of property in the work of an author, and the example is peculiarly characteristic, because the work of Andronicus, like the literature of his country, rested upon a Greek foundation.

A large proportion of the works of the early Roman dramatists have been identified as being versions, more or less exact, of known Greek originals, and in a number of cases the substance of Greek productions of which the titles and perhaps some descriptive references have come into record but the original texts of which have disappeared, have been preserved only by means of these Latin versions. The presumption is strong that very few of the dramatic writings which appeared in Rome during the century following the date of Andronicus, say 280 B.C. to 180 B.C., even of those whose Greek connection has not been traced, were not in great part based upon Greek originals.[141] It would not be easy to decide whether this exceptional relation between the two literatures, and this enormous indebtedness of the younger to the older, furthered or hindered the wholesome development of the literary productiveness of Italy. It seems probable that the gain in refinement, and in the cultivation of literary form, was largely offset by the check to the work of the creative faculty and the lessening of sturdiness and individuality. Emerson’s saying that “every man is as lazy as he dares to be,” was probably as true of the writers of Rome as it would have been of any other group of writers placed in a similar position. It is much easier to build one’s house from the finished blocks of the neighboring ruin, than to do the original hewing of new stones out of the side of the mountain.

The next name of importance among the writers of the period of the Punic Wars was Ennius, often spoken of as “the father of Latin literature.” Of his dramatic work Simcox remarks: “A play of Ennius was generally a play of Euripides simplified and amplified.”[142] It is in order to remember that Ennius, though doing all his literary work in Latin, was himself not a Latin, but a Calabrian—that is, at least half Greek in his ancestry and early environment. The work by which he is best known is the Annals, a historical or rather legendary poem, giving evidence of the Greek bias of the author in undertaking to present history (from Romulus to Scipio) as a poem rather than as a chronicle of facts in sober prose. Ennius translated a Sicilian Cookery-book (issued about 175 B.C.), a piece of work which, as the translator was poor, earning a modest livelihood by teaching, could only have been undertaken as a business commission. Whether it was paid for by a bookseller or by a patron is not recorded, but the probability is in favor of the latter, as Ennius, while frequently mentioning his patrons, makes no reference to any booksellers. An early instance of the possibility of making money by writing is afforded by Plautus, whose comedies date between 202 and 184 B.C. He is reported to have written plays with such success as to have been able with the proceeds to set himself up as a miller, and when his business failed, he returned to play-writing until he had again secured a competence.[143] His success was the more noteworthy, as it was difficult to understand how there could have been much demand for comedies in Rome during the anxious years when Hannibal was encamped at Capua. Cæcilius, who was a late contemporary of Plautus, is for us little more than a name, as of his comedies, commended by others as great, but fragments have been preserved. Terence was one of the writers possessing a large appreciation of Greek literature. He translated a hundred plays, chiefly from Menander, but there is nothing to tell us how far his literary undertakings proved commercially successful.[144] A historical work of substantial importance was the Origines of Cato the Censor, completed about 149 B.C. (three years before the fall of Carthage and of Corinth), which dealt with the institutions of Rome and with the origin of the allied Italian States. This was followed by the Annales Maximi of Mucius Scævola (issued in 133 in no less than eighty books), by further Annals by Calpurnius Piso, and by the Histories of Hostius (125) and of Antipater (123). I have, of course, no intention of presenting in a sketch like this, a summary of early Roman literature, or a schedule of Latin writers. I only desire to point out that during the century preceding the birth of Cicero (106), while there is no definite information concerning the existence in Rome of any organized book trade, or of publishing machinery, by means of which books could be manufactured and sold, and business relations be established between the authors and their public, a number of important literary enterprises, involving no little labor and expense, were undertaken. I think there are fair grounds for the inference that the continued production of books addressed to the general public implied the existence of a distribution machinery for reaching such public, and that there were, therefore, publishers in Rome who found it to their advantage to pay authors for literary labor many years before the founding of the firm of that prince of publishers, Atticus, whose business methods are described by Cicero.

In Rome, as in Athens, the men who first interested themselves in publishing undertakings, or at least in the publishing of higher class literature, were men who combined with literary tastes the control of sufficient means to pay the preparation of the editions. Their aim was the service of literature and of the State, and not the securing of profits, and, as a fact, these earlier publishing enterprises must usually have resulted in a deficiency. As the size of the editions could easily be limited to the probable demand, and further copies could always be supplied as called for, it seems at first thought as if the expense need not have been considerable. The high prices which, under the competition of a literary fashion, it became necessary to pay for educated slaves trained as scribes, constituted the most serious item of outlay. Horace speaks of slaves competent to write Greek as costing 8000 sesterces, about $400.[145] Calvisius, a rich dilettante, paid as much as 10,000 sesterces, $500, for each of his servi literati.[146] In one of the laws of Justinian, in which the relative price of slaves is fixed for estates to be divided, notarii, or scribes, are rated fifty per cent. higher than artisans.[147]

Certain proprietors found it to their advantage, partly for their own service and partly for the sake of making a profit later through their sale, to give to intelligent young slaves a careful education. Such a training, in order to produce a really valuable scribe, had to include a good deal beside reading and penmanship. A servus literatus, to be competent to prepare trustworthy copies, needed to have a good knowledge of Greek, and such acquaintance with the works of the leading authors, Greek and Latin, as would enable him to decipher with some critical judgment doubtful passages in difficult manuscripts. It is probable that better work, that is more accurate work, was done by these selected scribes of the household than by the copyists employed by the book-dealers. Strabo tells us that as the making of books became a common undertaking, there was constant complaint at the inaccuracies and deficiencies of the copies offered for sale, which had in many cases been prepared by ignorant scribes writing hastily and carelessly, and which had not afterwards been collated with the original text.[148] Strabo refers to book-making establishments in Rome as early as 80 B.C., which was before the founding of the concern of Atticus, but he does not give us the names of their managers.

Marcus Crassus, whose staff of skilled slaves included readers, copyists, and architects, took upon himself the general supervision of their education, and presided over their classes of instruction.[149] As is shown by the correspondence of Cicero, Atticus, Pliny, and others, these educated slaves frequently came into very close personal relations with their masters, and were cherished as valued friends. The writers who were employed in the duplicating of books were called librarii, correspondence clerks, amanuenses, and the official clerks of public functionaries, scribæ. An inscription quoted by Gruter indicates that the work of book-copying was sometimes confided to women—Sextia Xanta scriba Libraria. Copyists who devoted themselves to deciphering and transcribing old manuscripts, were known as antiquarii. The term notarii was applied to those who wrote at dictation, taking reports of speeches and of public meetings, testimony of witnesses, notes of judicial proceedings, etc. They were called notarii because they took notes, often in a kind of shorthand. Such a man was Tiro, a freedman of Cicero.

The man whose name is most intimately connected with the work of publishing in the time of Cicero was Titus Pomponius Atticus, who is perhaps best known to us through his correspondence with Cicero. Atticus organized (about 65 B.C.) a great book-manufacturing establishment in Rome, with connections in Athens and Alexandria. He was himself a thorough scholar, and it was because he was so well versed in the Greek language and literature that the name Atticus had been given to him. It is probable that his earliest publishing ventures were editions of the Greek classics, and it is certain that these always formed a very important proportion of his undertakings. He had himself brought from Greece an extensive and valuable collection of manuscripts, which he placed at the service of Cicero and of other of his literary friends, and the development of the work of his scribes from the transcription of a few copies for their friends to the publication of editions for the reading public was a very natural one.

The editions issued by Atticus, which came to be known as “Attikians,” Ἀττικίανά, secured wide repute for their accuracy, and came to be referred to as the authoritative texts. The term “Attikians” appears to have been used as we might to-day, in referring to Teubner’s Greek classics, say “the Teubners.” Haenny speaks[150] of the “Attikians” as welcomed by scholars for their accuracy and completeness. H. Sauppe tells us that the text of the oration of Demosthenes against Androtion is based upon the issue of Atticus.[151] Harpocration refers to the “Atticus texts” of this oration, and also of Æschines.[152] Galen makes mention of the Atticus edition of Plato’s Timæus.[153] Haenny points out that some question has been raised as to whether the term “Attikiana” always referred to the editions of Titus Pomponius Atticus.[154] He concludes, with Birt, that this term may, later, having come to stand for accurate texts and carefully prepared editions, have occasionally been applied to issues of a later period which could properly be so described or as a term of compliment. When, however, it was used in connection with works presumably issued between 65 and 35 B.C., it must be understood as referring to the publications of Titus Pomponius. Fronto always spoke of him simply as Atticus, and he is so referred to several times by Plutarch. Hemsterhuis[155] quotes a reference by Lucian. “You appear to think,” says Lucian to the “book-fools,” bibliomaniacs, “that it is essential for scholarship to possess many books. Therein, however, you show your ignorance.”

Atticus brought to Rome skilled librarii from Athens, and gave personal attention to the training of young slaves for his staff of copyists. He seems also to have sent manuscripts for copying to both Athens and Alexandria, probably while he was still completing the organization of his own staff. Such commissions may also have been due to the fact previously referred to, that of many works the well authenticated texts could be found only in those two cities, and after the time of Philadelphus, more particularly in Alexandria.

Atticus was a large collector of books, and won also some reputation as an author, although his principal work, a series of chronological tables, belonged perhaps rather to records than to literature proper. Cicero speaks warmly both of the excellent literary judgment and of the warm liberality of his publishing friend, and it seems certain that Atticus took an important part in furthering the development of Latin literature, and in organizing the publishing machinery which was thereafter to make it possible for Latin writers to secure some remuneration for their labors. He seems, in fact, in every way to have been a model publisher, and to have well deserved the honor of being the first of his guild whose name has been preserved in the history of Latin literature. While giving due credit to his wide-minded liberality in his dealings with authors, and to his public-spirited expenditure in behalf of literature, it is in order to bear in mind that with Atticus publishing, while probably carried on with good business methods, was rather a high-minded diversion than a money-making occupation. His chief business was that of banking, in which he became very wealthy. It is not so difficult to be a Mæcenas among publishers if one is only a Mæcenas to begin with. It is probable from the little that can be learned concerning the expenses of book-making and the possibilities of book-selling, that the publishing interests of Atticus brought him (as far at least as money is concerned) deficiencies instead of profits, but he doubtless considered that he was, nevertheless, a gainer by literature when he had taken into account at its full value the friendship of Cicero. Among the earlier writings of Cicero certainly published by Atticus were the Letters, the De Oratore, the Academic Discourses, and the Oration for Ligarius.[156]

Cicero seems to have been especially well satisfied with the account of sales rendered for this last, for he writes: “You have done so well with my Discourse for Ligarius, that I propose hereafter to place in your hands the sale of all my writings”—Ligarianam præclare vendidisti; posthac, quidquid scripsero, tibi præconium deferam.[157]

Several pieces of information are given by this letter. It appears that Cicero was in the habit of securing remuneration from the sale of his published works, and that this remuneration was proportioned to the extent of the sales, and must therefore have been in the shape either of a royalty or of a share of the net profits. It is further clear from the emphasis given to his decision that Atticus should publish his future works, that some other publishing arrangements were within his reach, and therefore that there were already other publishers whose facilities were worth consideration in comparison with those of Atticus.

In this same letter Cicero tells his publishers that he has discovered an error in this Ligarian Oration (he had spoken of a certain Corfidius who had been dead for some years as if he were still living), and that before any more copies were sold, at least three of the librarii must be put to work to make the necessary correction, from which it appears that the “remainder” of the edition comprised a good many copies.

A passage in another letter shows that the ancient, like the modern, publisher had to keep a record of complimentary copies given away under instructions of the author, so as to avoid the risk of including these among the copies accounted for as sold. “I am obliged to you,” writes Cicero, “for sending me the work by Serapion. I have given orders that the price of this should be paid to you at once, so that you should not have it entered on your register of complimentary copies.”[158]

While the De Oratore was in course of publication, Cicero discovered that a quotation had been ascribed to Aristophanes which should properly have been credited to Eupolis. Some copies had already been sold, but Cicero begs Atticus to have the correction made in all the copies remaining in the shop, and, as far as possible, to have the buyers looked up so that their copies might also be corrected.

Simcox says that “Cicero’s smaller treatises, the Lælius and the Cato, were probably, like the De Officiis, based upon Greek works, which he adapted with a well founded confidence that as a great writer he could improve the style, and that a Roman of rank ought to be able to improve the substance.”[159] The suggestion is interesting as indicating a change in the mental attitude of a Roman writer towards Greek literature.

Cicero used Atticus not only as a publisher but as a literary counsellor and critic, and evidently placed great confidence in his friend’s critical judgment. He speaks of waiting in apprehension for the “crayon strokes” (across the papyrus sheets)—Cerulas enim tuas miniatas illas extimescebam.[160] Atticus criticises freely, indicates misused words and erroneous historic references, and suggests emendations.[161]

It seems evident, from the wording of certain references, that the copies prepared for sale were usually at least themselves the property of the bibliophile. Cicero speaks of libri tui,[162] and says also, illa quæ habes de Academicis.[163] On the other hand, the author and publisher, occasionally, at least, assumed equal shares of the cost of the paper (papyrus). Cicero writes to Atticus, quoniam impensam fecimus in macrocolla, facile patior teneri.[164] This share taken by the author in the outlay in addition to his investment of literary labor, may very properly have been taken into account in arriving at a division of the profits, but we have no figures to show on what basis such division was made. While the Discourse on Ligarius produced, as we have seen, a profit, the publication of the first series of Academic Discourses (Academica Priora) resulted in loss, and the full amount of this loss appears to have been borne by the publisher. Cicero, referring to the large portion of the edition remaining unsold, writes, tu illam jacturam feres æquo animo, quod illa, quæ habes de Academicis, frustra descripta sunt; multo tamen hæc (i. e., academica posteriora, the later or the revised series) erunt splendidiora, breviora, meliora.[165] “You will bear the loss with equanimity, since the copies that you have left on your hands of the Academic Discourses comprise in fact but a portion of the venture. The revised editions of these will be more brilliant, more compact, and in every way better.” Cicero wishes to show that this revision should certainly prove popular and salable, and should more than make up the loss incurred on the first edition.

Birt points out[166] the difference in the publishing arrangements entered into by Cicero from those referred to by Martial. Cicero has apparently a direct business interest in the continued sale of his books, an interest, therefore, probably based upon a percentage. Martial, on the other hand, appears to have accepted from the publishers some round sum, a præmium libellorum, for each of his several works, a sum which is evidently too small to make him happy. On this ground he says it is, from a pecuniary point of view, a matter of indifference to him whether his writings find few readers or many—Quid prodest? nescit sacculus ista meus.[167] Unfortunately no catalogue or even partial list of the publishing ventures of Atticus has been preserved, and the references in the letters of Cicero are almost the sole source of information in regard to them. Cicero speaks of the treatise of Aulus Hirtius upon Cato as one of the publications of Atticus.[168] Birt finds record of the issue by him of a series of carefully edited Greek classics (published in the original), for the texts of which the trustworthy manuscripts of the Athenian “calligrapher,” or copyist, Callinus were followed.[169] Birt is also my authority for the conclusion that Atticus did not confine his book business to his publishing house, but that he established retail shops, tabernarii, in different quarters of Rome, and possibly also in one or two of the great provincial capitals.[170]

While no publisher of the time occupied any such prominent position in the world of letters as Atticus, it seems evident from the references made by Roman authors to the arrangements for the sale of their books, that other publishing concerns already existed in Rome, although no other names have been preserved. It is probable that no one of his contemporaries possessed the exceptional advantages afforded by the wealth of Atticus in carrying on literary undertakings of uncertain business value, and it is probable also that the competition of a publisher to whom the financial result of his venture was a matter of small importance, must frequently have been perplexing to the dealers whose capital was limited and whose income was dependent upon their publishing business. In fact, the exceptional business methods of Atticus may easily for a time have discouraged or rendered difficult the development on sound business foundations of publishing in Rome.

Important as the undertakings of Atticus unquestionably were for the furthering of the production and the distribution of literature, in Rome, we should have known practically nothing concerning his work as a publisher if it were not for the fortunate preservation of the series of letters written to him by Cicero. If these letters had been destroyed, the name of Atticus would have come into the history of his time only as that of a rich banker and a public-spirited citizen. The honorable friendship between this old-time publisher and his most important author was of service to literature in more ways than one. Other Roman publishers of greater importance must have taken up the work of Atticus, but no similar series of letters has been preserved to commemorate their virtues and their services. Boissier[171] is of opinion that Tiro acted as publisher for certain of Cicero’s writings; he uses the phrase Tiron et Atticus, les deux éditeurs de Cicéron. The evidences, however, concerning Tiro’s career as a publisher do not appear to be conclusive. Tiro was a favorite slave of Cicero, a Greek by birth, and evidently a man of education. He served as Cicero’s secretary, and, as the correspondence shows, was regarded by his master as a valued friend. As secretary, he unquestionably had during Cicero’s lifetime a full share of responsibility in preparing Cicero’s writings for publication, and after the death of his master he appears to have acted as a kind of literary executor.

It is probably to this class of service that Quintilian referred when he spoke of him as the compiler and publisher of the writings of Marcus Tullius.[172] Gellius, in quoting the fifth oration against Verres, speaks of the edition or the “book” as one of accepted authority, prepared under the supervision and personal knowledge of Tiro.[173]

Haenny is of opinion that Tiro never had any publishing business, but that his services were simply those first of a secretary and later of an editor and literary executor. Seneca is authority for the statement that after the death of Cicero his works and the right to their continued publication were bought from Atticus by the bookseller Dorus;[174] see also Birt.[175] This same Dorus was, says Seneca, the publisher of the history of Livy: Sic potest T. Livius a Doro accipere aut emere libros suos.

The writings of Catullus and the famous treatise on the Nature of Things of Lucretius were the most important of the works published between 75 and 50 B.C. during the time of Cicero’s correspondence with Atticus. Lucretius appears to have had little personal vanity concerning his work, which did not appear until after his death. It is probable, but not certain, that the former was issued by Atticus.

Géraud says that there were at this time in Rome a large number of public writers, or professional copyists (librarii), who devoted themselves to transcribing for sale the older classics, and who also took commissions from authors for the production of small editions of volumes prepared for private circulation.[176] Their work might in fact be compared to that of the typewriters of to-day, whose signs are multiplying in all our large cities. These “writers” were principally Greeks, and it was probably for this cause that their Latin work not infrequently evoked criticism. Cicero, writing to his brother Quintus, concerning some Latin books which Quintus had asked him to purchase, says it was difficult to know where to go for these, because most of the texts offered for sale were so bad—ita mendose et scribuntur et veneunt.[177]

These librarii took upon themselves the work not only of transcribing but of binding and decorating the covers of the books sold by them. The contrast between a scribe of this kind, working at bookmaking in his stall like a cobbler making shoes, and the great establishment of the banker-publisher Atticus, must have been marked enough.

Non modo hoc tibi, salse, sic abibit;

Nam, si luxerit, ad librariorum

Curram scrinia, Cæsios, Aquinos

Suffenum, omnia colligam venena,

Ac te his suppliciis remunerabor.[178]

Atticus died, full of years and honors, in the year 32 B.C. If he had only had the consideration to leave some memoirs for posterity, we should have much more satisfactory knowledge than is now possible concerning the relations of Roman authors with their publishers and with the public during the first century before Christ. We have not even, however, any of his letters to Cicero, letters which would of course have had a special interest in making clear the nature of his publishing arrangements with his authors.

In the year 48 B.C. appeared a work whose vitality has proved exceptional, and which, thanks to the school-boys, is to-day, nineteen hundred years after the death of its author, in continued demand. I refer to Cæsar’s Commentaries on the Gallic Wars. This book could certainly have been made a magnificent “property” for its author, but as he was literally intent upon “wanting the earth,” the ownership of one book was hardly worth any special thought. As a fact, we have no details whatever of Cæsar’s publishing arrangements, although we do know that by means of some distributing machinery copies of the Commentaries speedily reached the farthest (civilized) corners of the Roman dominion.

Virgil’s Æneid was, we are told, given to the world through Varius and Tucca, about 18 B.C. The sixth book was read to Augustus and Livia in 22, the year of the death of Marcellus. The publication of the Æneid took place at a time when the machinery for the production and distribution of books was beginning to be adequately organized. It seems evident that it was only after the institution of the Empire that the publishers of Rome were in a position to reach with their editions any wide public outside of Rome and the principal cities of Italy.

About the year 40 B.C. the poet Horace, then twenty-five years old, came to Rome with the hope, as he states, of obtaining a living through literature. His estate at Venusia had been confiscated, owing to his having borne arms at Philippi on the defeated side, and he was now dependent upon his own exertions.[179] He found at Rome a literary circle of growing importance. It was the beginning of the Augustan age, and literature was the fashion with the court circles of the new Empire, and therefore with the society leaders who took the court fashions for their model. Through the kindness of Virgil, the young poet was introduced to Mæcenas, the wealthy statesman whose princely patronage of literature has become proverbial.

The liberality of Mæcenas supplied the immediate needs of the poet, and he appears never to have had an opportunity of finding out whether, apart from the aid of patronage, he could actually have supported himself through the sale of his poems. In fact, a little later, when for a time at least he possesses, through the friendship of Mæcenas, an assured income he appears to have taken the position of refusing to permit his books to be sold, and of writing only for the perusal of his friends.[180]

His first expectancy, however, in regard to the possibilities of a literary career, give grounds for the belief that at the time of the beginning of the Empire the publishing machinery of the capital was already adequately organized, and that the writers whom Horace found in Rome, including Virgil, Tibullus, Propertius, Varius, Valgius, and many others, were securing, apart from the gifts of the emperor or of other patrons of literature, some compensation from the reading public. On this point, however, Horace has himself given other evidence, which, if somewhat unsatisfactory concerning the matter of author’s compensation, is at least clear as to the existence of machinery for the making and distributing of books, and which also indicates that his resolution not to offer his books for sale had not been adhered to. He refers to the brothers Sosii as his publishers, and complains that while his works brought gold to them, for their author they earned only fame in distant lands and with posterity.

Hic meret æra liber Sosiis, hic et mare transit,

Et longum noto scriptori prorogat ævum.[181]

A complaint so worded is of course perfectly compatible with the existence of a publishing arrangement under which Horace was to receive an author’s share of any profits accruing. Precisely similar complaints are frequent enough to-day when all new books are issued under the protection of domestic copyright and under publishing agreements, and while sometimes an indication that the publisher has managed to secure more than his share of the proceeds of literary labor, they are much more frequently simply the expression of the difference between the author’s large expectations concerning the public demand for his books and the actual extent of such demand.

If publishing statistics could be brought into print, they would show numberless instances in which the author’s calculations concerning the number of copies of their books which the public “could be depended upon” to call for, or “must certainly have called for,” were as much out of the way as have been the estimates of defeated generals as to the numbers of the forces by which they had been overwhelmed. It is certainly to be regretted that the brothers Sosii have not left us some records from which could be gathered their side of the story of their dealings with the court poet. There are instances in later times of firms which have found the honor of being publishers for a poet-laureate bringing more prestige than profit.

The shop of the Sosii was in the Vicus Tuscus, near the entrance to the temple of Janus. In the first book of Horace’s Epistles we find the lines:

Vertumnum Janumque, liber, spectare videris,

Scilicet ut prostes Sosiorum pumice mundus.[182]

Horace finds occasion to inveigh against plagiarists as well as against publishers, and here his indignation is probably better founded. The literature of Rome was, as before pointed out, based on a long series of “appropriations” and adaptations from the Greeks, and the habit, thus early initiated, doubtless became pretty deeply rooted. Virgil complains:

Hos ego versiculos feci; tulit alter honores,

Sic vos non vobis nidificatis aves.[183]

Horace writes:[184]

O imitatores, servum pecus ut mihi sæpe,

Bilem, sæpe jocum vestri movere tumultus.

It seems probable that by this stage in the development of literature, the indignation of an author against plagiarists was not merely on the ground of interference with literary prestige or of the wrongfulness of a writer’s securing honor falsely, but because plagiarism might involve an actual injury to literary property. The first application to literary theft of the term plagium (from which is derived the French plagiaire and the English “plagiarism”), was made by Martial. In the legal terminology of Rome, plagium was used to designate the crime of man-stealing, and a plagiarius was one who stole from another a slave or a child, or who undertook to buy or to sell into slavery one who was legally free. The use of so strong a term to characterize literary “appropriations” is sufficient evidence of the opinion of Martial that such a proceeding was a crime. Martial’s word has been adopted, but later generations of writers do not appear to have fully accepted his views of the criminal nature of the practice.[185]

Simcox is of opinion[186] that the poets of the Augustan age certainly expected to make a certain profit by the sale of their books. They also had expectations of profiting by the gifts of the emperor or of other rich patrons of literature, but there must have been not a few writers who were not fortunate enough to secure the favor either of the court or of the grandees who followed the fashion of the court, and to whom the receipts from the booksellers would have been a matter of no little importance and might frequently have provided only the means for continued sojourn in the capital. It could only have been the receipts from sales that Horace had in mind when he wrote that mediocrity in poets is intolerable, not only to gods and men, but to booksellers, as if to the poets the approval of the booksellers was of more importance than that of either the gods or their fellow-men.[187] It would seem as if either the gods or the publishers must have been too lenient during the past eighteen centuries in their treatment of the poets, for the amount of mediocre verse turned out from year to year is certainly no smaller, considered in proportion to the entire mass of poetry, than it was in the days of Horace.

The scanty references which can be traced in Latin literature of the first century to the relations of authors with the book-trade appear, as might be expected, almost exclusively in the writings of the society poets. In such chronicles as those of Sallust and Livy, narratives written for other purposes than for literary prestige or for bookselling profits, and which had perhaps almost as much to do with the politics of the day (“present history”) as with the history of the State (“past politics”), there was naturally no place for such an insignificant detail as the arrangements of the authors for placing their books upon the market. References to booksellers would have been equally out of place in such a national epic as the Æneid or a great didactic poem like the Georgics.

What little is known, therefore, concerning the bookselling methods of the time must be gathered from the casual allusions found in the verses of such writers as Horace, Ovid, Juvenal, and Martial, and particularly of the last-named.

When (about 7 A.D.) Ovid was banished by the aged Augustus to Tomi, a dreary frontier town somewhere near the mouth of the Danube, he complains that he finds there no libraries, no booksellers. He is surrounded by the din of weapons and the tedious talk of soldiers. He has no single associate who is interested in literature, or whose taste or judgment he could call upon for literary counsel.

Non hic librorum, per quos inviter alarque,

Copia; pro libris arcus et arma sonant,

Nullus in hac terra, recitem si carmina, cujus

Intellecturis auribus utar, adest.

From expressions like these, one can gather an impression of the circles the gay society poet had left behind him in his mourned-for Rome—the libraries and book-shops, where he could always find literary friends to whose appreciative criticism he could submit his latest lines. The picture recalls the literary resorts of London in the time of Wycherley and Congreve.

Ovid sends one of his productions to a friend in Rome, whom he requests to supervise its publication. He writes:

“O thou who art an instructor and a priest among the learned! I commend to your care this my offspring. Bereft of its parent (an exile), it must place its dependence upon you its guardian. Three of my (literary) progeny have preceded this. See that my future productions are given to the world through yourself.”[188]

Martial presents himself to the public with a cordial appreciation of his own merits:

Hic is quem legis ille, quem requiris,

Toto notus in orbe Martialis

Argutis epigrammaton libellis.[189]

“This is he whom you read and whom you seek—Martial, famous throughout the world for his brilliant volumes of epigrams.” He goes on to say:

Ne tamen ignores ubi sim venalis, et erres

Urbe vagus tota, me duce certus eris.[190]

“Lest, however, you should perchance not know where I am for sale, and should go astray and wander over the whole city, you shall be made sure of your way by my directions.” He then adds the direction:

Libertum docti Lucensis quære Secundum

Limina post Pacis Palladiumque forum.

“Look for Secundus, the freedman of the learned citizen Lucensis, (you will find him) behind the threshold of Pax and the forum of Pallas.”

Secundus appears to have been the Tauchnitz of his day, and to have prepared editions in compact form for travellers:

Qui tecum cupis esse meos ubicunque libellos

Et comites longæ quæris habere viæ,

Hos eme, quos arctat brevibus membrana tabellis.

“You who desire to have my books with you wherever you are, and to make them the companions of your long journeys, buy those which have been put up in compact form” (literally, “which the parchment compresses into small pages”).

Martial was apparently a chronic grumbler, and the record of his various complaints about his publishers and his public has been of not a little service in throwing light upon certain details of the publishing methods of his time. He was evidently one of the writers who kept a close watch on the receipts from the sales of his books. He maintained that a poet was perfectly justified in refusing to give presentation copies, because these interfered with the receipts from his booksellers.

He writes, for instance, to his friend Lupercus:

Occurris quotiens, Luperce nobis

Vis mittam puerum, subinde dicis,

Cui tradas epigrammaton libellum

Lectum quem tibi protinus remittam?

Non est quod puerum, Luperce, vexes.

Longum est, si velit ad Pyrum venire,

Et scalis habito tribus, sed altis.

Quod quæris proprius petas licebit;

Argi nempe soles subire letum.

Contra Cæsaris est forum taberna

Scriptis postibus hinc et inde totis,

Omnes ut cito perlegas poetas.—

Illinc me pete; nec roges Atrectum,

(Hoc nomen dominus gerit tabernæ);

De primo dabit, alterove nido

Rasum pumice purpuraque cultum,

Denariis tibi quinque Martialem.

“Tanti non es,” ais! Sapis, Luperce.[191]

“Every time you meet me, Lupercus, you say something about sending a slave to my house to borrow a volume of my Epigrams. Do not give your slave the trouble. It is a long distance to my part of the city, and my rooms are high up on the third story. You can get what you want close to your abode. You often visit the quarter of the Argiletum. You will find there, near the Square of Cæsar, a shop the doors of which are covered on both sides with the names of poets, so arranged that you can at a glance run over the list. Enter there and mention my name. Without waiting to be asked twice, Atrectus, the master of the shop, will take from his first or second shelf a copy of Martial, well finished, and beautifully bound with a purple cover, and this he will give you in exchange for five deniers. What! Do you say it is not worth the price? O wise Lupercus!”

Martial takes occasion to recommend to another acquaintance (but on an entirely different ground) the propriety of purchasing rather than appropriating his productions.

He writes to a certain Fidentinus:

Fama refert nostros te, Fidentine, libellos

Non aliter populo quam recitare tuos.

Si mea vis dici, gratis tibi carmina mittam,

Si dici tua vis, haec eme, ne mea sint.[192]

“It is said, Fidentinus, that in reciting my verses you always speak of them as your own. If you are willing to credit them to me, I will send them to you gratis. If, however, you wish to have them called your verses, you had better buy them, when they will no longer belong to me.”

It is possible that Martial intends by this to suggest to Fidentinus the purchase of the author’s “rights” in these verses, “‘rights,’ which he was willing to sell for a price.” It is more probable, however, that he wanted to shame the plagiarist at least into the buying of some copies.

Martial writes in a similar strain to Quintus:

Exigis ut donem nostros tibi, Quinte, libellos.

Non habeo; sed habet bibliopola Tryphon.

Æs dabo pro nugis et emam tua carmina sanus?

Non, inquis, faciam tam fatue. Nec ego.[193]

“You ask, Quintus, that I shall make you a present of my poems. I, myself, have no copies, but the bookseller Tryphon has some. You may say to yourself, ‘Shall I give money for such trifles?’ ‘Shall I, being of sound mind, buy your verses?’ ‘No, indeed,’ you conclude, ‘I will commit no such folly.’ Neither, then, will I.”

It was Martial’s idea that the proper use of presentation copies was not for needy friends but for influential patrons, from whom substantial acknowledgments could be looked for in the shape of honoraria. He begs the court chamberlain, Parthenius, to bring his modest little book (timida brevisque charta) to the attention of the Emperor.[194] He asks Faustinus to give a copy to Marcellinus,[195] and begs Rufus to present two copies to Venulejus.[196]

The hopes of the author in connection with these presentation copies are indicated by such lines as the following:

Editur en sextus sine te mihi Rufe Camoni,

Nec te lectorem sperat, amice, liber.[197]

Or by these:

O quantum tibi nominis paratur

O quæ gloria! quam frequens amator!

Te convivia, te forum sonabit,

Ædes, compita, porticus, tabernæ,

Uni mitteris, omnibus legeris.

It is evident that a book frequently secured through such personal distribution on the part of the author a certain circulation and publication before copies were placed upon the bookstands, or before it was given into the hands of any bookseller acting as its publisher. Haenny is of opinion that the anxiety of authors like Martial to come into relations with patrons and to secure from them honoraria may be taken as indicating that they could depend upon no receipts from the booksellers. It seems to me that another interpretation is equally plausible. We find an author like Martial needy, eager for money, taking pains to cultivate the favor of the wealthy and the influential in the hopes of securing benefits at their hands. We find him also doing all in his power to push the sale of his books through the booksellers, telling the public where to go and how much they will have to pay, himself writing the publishing announcements of his new books, and in every way evincing the keenest interest in the sales secured for them. It seems natural enough to conclude that he derived a direct business advantage from these sales, and such a conclusion is in accord with what we know of the character of the man, and is borne out by various references in his writings.

In one epigram[198] Martial laments that no one of his readers has felt moved, in return for the gratification secured from his writings, to make him a present such as Virgil received from Mæcenas: tantum gratis pagina nostra placet, an expression which has been interpreted as indicating that this author received no return either direct or indirect from those buying his books. In another utterance, however, he mourns his loss of receipts when for a long time he has published no new thing, but even then he considers that the loss to the public has been much more serious.[199]

In thus speaking of his indifference to the number of his readers, he appears to have either forgotten, or as a matter of affectation to have ignored, the fact that while a large sale for a particular book already paid for by the publisher, could not increase the author’s gains for that particular work, it would certainly put him in a position to secure a higher price from the publisher for his next similar work.

In this way the author would have a very direct pecuniary interest in securing the largest possible number of readers even for books which had been purchased outright by the publisher.

A. Schmidt is one of the students of the subject who believes there is evidence to show that, according to the usual practice, the author received compensation from the publisher not in the form of a royalty, but as an advance payment on the delivery of the manuscript or on the publication of the book.[200]

Among other quotations he cites the following:

Quamvis tam longo possis satur esse libello,

Lector, adhuc a me disticha pauca petis,

Sed Lupus usuram puerique diaria poscunt,

Lector, solve. Taces, dissimulasque? Vale.

The reader, however much pleased with the poem given, is supposed to be expecting a few additional verses; but the usurer Lupus is calling upon the poet for his money, and the poet’s children are crying for bread. (Therefore) O reader, make payment (to me, in need, from whom you have received benefit). (What!) You make no response. You pretend (not to understand). Farewell!—(“I have no use for you,” would be the modern slang.)

The passage presents difficulties, and has been variously interpreted. Schmidt reads for “solve” “salve.” I base my reading on the text given by Haenny.

In another epigram he notes that the edition of his Xenii could be bought from his publisher, Tryphon, for four sesterces (the equivalent of about twelve and a half cents).

He grumbles at the price as being too high, contending that Tryphon could have secured a fair profit from half the amount. He adds: “These verses, O reader, you will, however, find convenient for presents for your friends, at least if your purse is as scantily furnished as is my own.”

Omnis in hoc gracili xeniorum turba libello

Constabit nummis quatuor empta tibi.

Quatuor est nimium? poterit constare duobus,

Et faciet lucrum bibliopola Tryphon.

Hæc licet hospitibus pro munere disticha mittas,

Si tibi tam rarus quam mihi nummus erit.[201]

Nulla remisisti parvo pro munere dona,

· · · ·

Decipies alios verbis vultuque benigno,

Nam mihi jam notus dissimulator eris.[202]

Here we have a reproach (which may also serve as a suggestion) to the reader. “You have sent me no gift [or honorarium] as an acknowledgment [of the pleasure given to you]. Others may be deceived by your words and your smiling countenance [into believing you to be a fair-minded man who would recognize his obligations]. To me it is evident you are a dissembler.” (The term is apparently used here to describe one shirking an obligation).

Martial is quite clear in his mind that no one who has read his productions and has not felt an indebtedness to their author, and who has not taken measures to discharge the same, can be an honorable man.

Et tantum gratis pagina nostra placet.[203]

“My book gives so much pleasure at no cost” (to the receiver).

Dicitur et nostros cantare Britannia versus.

Quid prodest? nescit sacculus ista meus.[204]

“It is said that (even in distant) Britain my verses are sung. What advantage is that? [to me]. My purse knows nothing of it.”

Such a complaint may be interpreted in one of several ways. The author may have had payment for his Italian editions, but have been unable to exercise control over unauthorized issues of his books in distant parts of the empire; or he may have sold to his distributing publisher, Tryphon, all rights in the verses, in which case the direct advantage of extended sales would accrue only to the publisher; or there may have been no actual sales in Britain, but single copies carried by officers or travellers may have found their way there, and their presence, referred to in correspondence or by returning travellers, have given to the author the impression that a large reading public in the far north was appreciating his poetry. A very slight reference would serve to excite the imagination of so self-confident an author as Martial.

Martial seems to have been in the habit, not unknown to modern writers, and particularly to English writers, of pitting one publisher against another, in order to secure the largest bid for a new work. At one time he had no less than four publishers in charge of the sale of his works, Tryphon, Atrectus, Polius, and Secundus.

The last named issued a special pocket edition of the Epigrams.

Atrectus, Secundus, and Tryphon have already been referred to. To the fourth, Quintus Valerianus Polius, had it seems been given over the earlier productions of the poet, which he terms his juvenilia. He commends Polius to the reading public in the following lines:

Quæcunque lusi juvenis et puer quondam

Apinasque nostras, quas nec ipse jam novi

Male collocare si bonas voles horas

Et invidebis otio tuo, lector,

A Valeriano Polio petes Quinto,

Per quem perire non licet meis nugis.[205]

“The trifles that I scribbled in the callow days of my youth, productions which I myself hardly remember, these you may secure (if you have a grudge against your leisure and are willing to waste a few hours) from Polius, through whose care my trifles are preserved from oblivion.”

It seems probable that Atrectus gave special attention to the more elaborate and artistic editions, such as are to-day rather clumsily described as editions de luxe. It is in his shop that the volumes are to be found with the ornate purple covers. As far as can be judged from the references, Atrectus, Polius, and Secundus had simply a local trade. Tryphon, on the other hand, we know to have possessed a publishing and distributing machinery. As Haenny remarks, it was no small matter to provide with Martial’s writings not only Rome, but Italy, the provinces, and the outlying corners of the empire. While he was still a beginner in literature, Martial had to be satisfied with the services of Polius, who continued later to keep in sale the juvenilia. It was only after the poet had become known in the fashionable literary world that he was able to secure the co-operation of a leading publisher like Tryphon.

If we were to-day referring to such a publishing relation, we should speak of securing the imprint of the publisher. As has been explained, however, the practice of associating with a work the name of its publisher began with printed books. The Roman publisher sent out his manuscript copies with no indication of the address of the shop in which they had been prepared.

The poet tells us that he prepared the advertisements for the booksellers, putting these in the form of epigrams, but not neglecting to specify the form and price of each book as well as the place where it was offered for sale.

Qui tecum cupis esse meos ubicunque libellos,

Et comites longæ quæris habere viæ,

Hos eme quos arctat brevibus membrana tabellis;

Scrinia da magnis, me manus una capit.

· · · ·

Libertum docti Lucensis quære Secundum

Limina post Pacis, Palladiumque forum.[206]

The idea of an epigrammatic advertisement recalls the announcement (identical with the rhyming title-page) of the first edition of Lowell’s Fable for Critics.

“Reader! Walk up at once (it will soon be too late) and buy at a perfectly ruinous rate,

A Fable For Critics, or better

(I like, as a thing that the reader’s first fancy may strike, an old-fashioned title-page, such as presents

a tabular view of the volume’s contents),

A glance at a few of our Literary progenies

(Mrs. Malaprop’s word)

From the tub of Diogenes,

A vocal and musical medley, that is

A series of Jokes by a Wonderful Quiz,

Who accompanies himself with a rub-a-dub-dub,

Full of spirit and grace, on the top of the tub.

Set forth in October, the 21st day,

In the year ’48, G. P. Putnam, Broadway.”

It is a pity that one of Martial’s advertisements could not have been preserved to compare with the above, which strikes one as quite Martialesque in its general style.

According to Schmidt,[207] Martial’s activities in connection with the sale of his books did not end even with the preparation of the advertisements. In certain cases he was himself engaged in finding buyers for copies. It is probable that such author’s copies formed part of the compensation paid by the publisher for the manuscript, and while by the wealthier authors these would be bestowed “with compliments” upon their friends, the needy writers like Martial would be compelled to turn them into cash. In the eighteenth century in London we find a similar condition of things in the accounts of what was then called publishing “by subscription,” when the needy author would, with his hat in one hand and his subscription list in the other, wait upon his “gracious patron” in expectation of an order for so many copies of his new volume at a guinea or more each.

In spite of the careful training given to their copyists by a few high-class publishers like Atticus, the complaints of inaccurate and slovenly texts, libri mendosi, were frequent. In order to be really trustworthy, each individual copy of the edition ought, of course, to have been carefully collated with and read verbatim by the original, but for an edition of any size, prepared as rapidly as we are told some of them were, such thorough verification was of course impracticable. Martial states[208] that a poem of his (we infer that he means an edition of the poem), comprising 540 lines, had been produced in one hour, hæc una peragit hora nec tantum nugis serviet ille meis. Such work would of course have been done by employing one or more readers to dictate to a number of copyists. The number of copies in the edition is not stated. It could only have been on rare occasions that the author himself would undertake to correct the copies. Martial speaks of doing such correcting work in an exceptional case.[209]

Cicero was evidently exacting concerning the accuracy of his copies. He tells Atticus that by no means must any copies of the treatise De Officiis be allowed to go out until they had been carefully corrected.

We find an occasional reference to a “press-corrector” known to Atticus and Cicero by his Greek name Διορθωτήρ. As the author, except in rare cases, did not get his manuscript again into his hands after this had gone to his publisher, and saw his work again only when the edition was completed and about to be distributed, he was saved from the temptation to make “betterments” by omissions or additions. All such revision he had attended to with due care before handing over his manuscript as “ready for publication,” and authors and publishers of classic times were thus saved the vexation of “extra corrections,” which so frequently forms a serious addition to the expense account and to the annoyance account of modern book-making.

The risks of errors in the transcription must certainly have been 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.