Authors and their public in ancient times

by George Haven Putnam

Jevons goes on to give the grounds for the conclusion (based mainly on the formation of certain of the letters, and in part, of course, on the references to King Psammitichus) that the inscription was written, or rather was cut, upon the statue between 620 B.C. and 600 B.C., according as we take the king mentioned to have been the first or second of his name.[23] We have, then, a date fixing a time at which the art of writing certainly existed among the Greeks, while it is further evident that if in the year 600 the art of writing was so well established that it was understood by a number of mercenaries, it must have been quite generally diffused through certain classes of society, and the date for its introduction into Greece must have been considerably earlier than 600. Jevons knows, however, of no example of Greek writing which can be ascribed to an earlier date than that above quoted.

The conclusion, based upon this inscription, that in the year 600 B.C. writing had for some time been known in Greece, enables us, however, says Jevons, to accept as probably authentic a reference to writing ascribed to an author who lived nearly a century earlier. Archilochus, a poet who is believed to have flourished about 700 B.C., uses in one of his fables the expression “a grievous skytale.”

“A skytale was a staff on which a strip of leather for writing purposes was rolled slant-wise. A message was then written on the leather, and the latter being unrolled, was given to the messenger. If the messenger were intercepted, the message could not be deciphered, for only when the leather was rolled on a staff of precisely the same size (i. e., thickness) as the proper one, would the letters come right. Such a staff, the duplicate of that used by the sender, was of course possessed by the recipient.”

This primitive method of cipher was for a long time in use with the Spartans for conveying State messages. In the figure of speech used by Archilochus, his fable was to outward appearance innocent of any recondite meaning, but would prove a grievous “skytale” for the person attacked.

It seems reasonable, continues Jevons, to accept this passage as indicating a knowledge of writing in Greece as early as 700 B.C. This date allows a century for the diffusion of the art and for the spread of the Ionic alphabet which are implied by the Abu Simbel inscription. And the passage does not prove too much. It does not imply even that Archilochus himself could write. The invention or introduction was sufficiently novel and admirable to furnish a poet with a metaphor; and the skytale was probably then, as in later times, a government institution. This mention of it accords with the probable supposition that writing was used for government purposes for some time before it became common among the people.

The next date or period which in connection with my subject it is of interest to fix, however approximately, is that when it is possible to speak of the existence of a reading public. On this point also I take the liberty of quoting one or two paragraphs from Jevons in which the probabilities are clearly presented:

“Reading and writing were certainly taught as early as the year 500 B.C., and half a century later, to be unable to read or write was a thing to be ashamed of. Herodotus speaks of boys’ schools existing in Chios in the time of Histiæus, who lived about 500.”[24]

“Instruction of this kind does not, however, prove the existence of a reading public. Enough education to be able to keep accounts, to read public notices, to correspond with friends or business agents, may have been in the possession of every free Athenian in the period between 500 and 450 B.C., and the want of such education may have caused a man to be sneered at; but this does not prove the habit of reading literature.”

There are, however, various references which indicate that by the year 450 B.C. the habit of reading was beginning to become general, at least in certain circles of society. Jevons quotes a passage from the Tagenistæ of Aristophanes, in which, speaking of a young man gone wrong, the dramatist ascribes his ruin to “a book, to Prodicus or to bad company.”[25] Jevons also finds in fragments of an old comedy such expressions as “an unlettered man,” “a man who does not know his A B C.” A passage in the lyric fragments of the poet Theognis (who lived 583-500) is of interest not merely as an evidence of some public circulation of literature, but as possibly the earliest example of an author’s attempting to control the circulation of his own productions. Theognis says he has hit on a device which will prevent his verses from being appropriated by any one else. He will put his name on them as a seal (or trade-mark) and then “no one will take inferior work for his when the good is to be had, but every one will say ‘These are the verses of Theognis, the Megarian.’” As Jevons says: “This passage certainly implies that Theognis committed his works to writing.” It also appears to imply that there was likely to be sufficient literary prestige attaching to the poetry of Theognis to tempt an unscrupulous person to claim to be its author, while it is at least possible to infer that the plan of Theognis had reference not only to his prestige as an author, but also to certain author’s proceeds from the sales of his works, which proceeds he desired to keep plagiarists from appropriating. Clement does not, however, believe that there is adequate ground for the latter supposition, but contends that if the poet caused copies of his poems to be multiplied and distributed, it was not for the purpose of having them sold, and not even in order that they might be read, but to enable his friends to learn them and to sing them at drinking parties or other social gatherings. In his opinion, the nature of the poetry of Theognis shows that it was not composed for a reading public.

Giving the fullest possible weight to the evidences for the early development of the knowledge of reading and writing, and the possible facilities for the multiplication and distribution of books in manuscript, it is certain that Greek literature between the ninth and the sixth centuries B.C. cannot have been prepared for a reading public. The epics which have come down to posterity from that period must have been transmitted by word of mouth and memory. Mahaffy and Jevons are in accord in pointing out that the effort of memory required for the composition and transmission of long poems without the aid of writing, while implying a power never manifested among people possessing printed books, is not in itself at all incredible. Memory was equal to the task, and the earlier Greek poems, memorized by the authors as composed, were preserved by successive generations of Bards. They were also evidently composed with special reference to the requirements of the reciters whose recitations were in the earlier periods usually given at the banquets of the royal courts or of great houses to which the bards were attached. The practice of reciting before public audiences can hardly have been begun before the year 600 B.C.