The Hebrews wrote upon stones and animal skins. In this manner they preserved the Old Testament portion of the Bible, and gave to posterity one of the most wonderful books ever written.
The ancient Phœnicians were commercial people, and being such did very little in producing literature; yet it is to them that we owe the present Roman alphabet. The illustration on a following page shows how this transition probably came about. There is a slight resemblance between some of the twenty-one characters in the Phœnician alphabet and certain picture writings of the Egyptians, whose hieroglyphic alphabet consisted of several hundred characters and was as cumbersome as is the Chinese alphabet with its several thousand characters.
The Greeks received their alphabet directly from the Phœnicians, there being a tradition that one Cadmus introduced it into Greece. Some writers claim that “Cadmus” merely signifies “the East” and does not refer to an individual. The names of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, Alpha and Beta, are similar to those of many other languages, and the word “alphabet” is derived from these two words.
In Greece, especially at Athens, before manuscripts became numerous, lectures and public readings were important features of intellectual life.
The poems of Homer, supposed to have been composed about 880 B.C., were not put into writing until 560 B.C., and during this period of more than three hundred years they were retained in the memory of bards, by whom they were sung or recited.
“Plutarch’s Lives,” one of the best known Greek literary works, was written in the second century, A.D.
The Greek nation is generally acknowledged to have been one of the most intellectual of ancient times, yet it is a peculiar fact that only the boys were given an education, the intellectual development of women being considered unnecessary.
Copying of manuscripts was often a labor of love. Demosthenes, the great philosopher, is said to have transcribed with his own hands the eight books of Thucydides on the history of the Peloponnesian War.