Authors and their public in ancient times

by George Haven Putnam

CHAPTER II.

Greece.

THE literature of Greece has become the property of the world, but of the existence of literary property in Greece—that is, of any system or practice of compensation to writers from their readers or hearers, either direct or indirect—the traces are very slight; so slight, in fact, that the weight of authority is against the probability of such practice having obtained at all.

It is fortunate for the literature of the world that the Greek poets, dramatists, historians, and philosophers were content to do their work for the approval of their own generation, for the chance of fame with the generations to come, or for the satisfaction of the work itself, as their rewards in the shape of anything more tangible than fame appear to have been either nothing or something very inconsiderable.

Clement says: “After the most painstaking researches through the records left us by the Greeks, we are compelled to conclude that in none of the Greek states was any recognition ever given under provision of law, to the right of authors to any control over their own productions.”[18] Breulier writes: “Literary property, in any sense in which the term is understood to-day, did not exist at Athens.”[19] Wilhelm Schmitz concludes that “no such relation as that which to-day exists between authors and booksellers (publishers) was known among the Greeks. In none of the writings of the time, do we find the slightest reference to any such publishing arrangements as Roman authors in the time of Martial were accustomed to secure.”[20] This treatise of Schmitz’s is a painstaking and interesting study of the conditions of Greek literature in classic times and of the relations of Greek writers to their public, and for certain portions of this chapter I am largely indebted to the results of his investigations.

Géraud remarks that in the first development of written language and literature among the Hebrews and Egyptians, it is easy to recognize the “fatal influence of the spirit of priestly caste, an influence from which the Greek peoples were comparatively free.”[21] The richest literature of antiquity, he goes on to say, is that of Greece, and it was also in Greece that the art of writing made the most rapid advances. The teaching of the priests, whether given through the oracles or not, was purely oral, so that the Greeks did not come into possession of any body of sacred scriptures such as formed the original literature of other peoples. On the other hand, the ardent nature, inquiring and active intellect, and brilliant imagination of the Greeks, gave an early and rapid development to the arts, to poetry, and to speculative philosophy.

The old-time tradition credits the introduction of the alphabet in Greece to Cadmus, and fixes the date of the first Hellenic spelling-school at about the fifteenth century before Christ. I believe the authorities are divided as to whether this mythical Cadmus represents a Phœnician or an Egyptian influence, but this is a question which need not be considered here. I understand the philologists are in accord in the conclusion that the Cadmus story represents, not a first instituting of a Greek alphabet, but merely certain important modifications in the form of letters already in use. Birt asserts, as if it were now a settled fact, that while the Greeks derived their written characters from the Phœnicians, they were indebted to Egypt for their first ideas in the making of books. There is a very distinct family resemblance between the Greek characters as known in literature and those of the Hebrew, Phœnician, and Syriac alphabets, while the names of the Greek letters Alpha and Beta are found in all the Semitic dialects. It seems further to be certain that the earlier peoples of Greece, after for a time having written perpendicularly according to the fashion of the Chinese, began later to write from right to left according to the Oriental manner.

The so-called Boustrophedon, a term meaning “turning like oxen when they plough,” was a method of writing from left to right, and from right to left in alternate lines. Among the earlier specimens of this method were the laws of Solon (about 610 B.C.) and the Sigean inscription (about 600 B.C.). This system represents a period of transition between the earliest style and that of which the invention is credited to Pronapides, and is simply the modern European fashion of writing from left to right. The inscriptions of the Etruscans are largely written in Boustrophedon. Neither in Greece, however, nor elsewhere, did this method remain in use for any writings which are to be classed as literature.

While Greek literature, as far as known to us, must be considered as beginning with the Homeric poems, the date of which is estimated by the majority of the authorities at about 900 B.C., there appears to be no trustworthy example of Greek writing earlier than about 600 B.C. Curiously enough, this specimen was found not in Greece but in Egypt. Jevons describes it as follows:

“On the banks of the Upper Nile, in the temple of Abu Simbel, are huge statues of stone, and on the legs of the second colossus from the south are chipped the names, witticisms, and records of travellers of all ages, in alphabets known and unknown. The earliest of the Greek travellers who have thus left their names were a body of mercenaries, who seemed to have formed part of an expedition which was led up the Nile by King Psammitichus.”[22]