The expenses of the presentation of a drama were very slight, and even this smaller payment by the audience should have afforded means, after the actors had been reimbursed, for some compensation to the dramatist.
Instances of compensation to orators are of not infrequent occurrence, and, as Paul Clement remarks, it seems reasonably certain that experienced orators were not in the habit of writing gratuitously the discourses so frequently prepared for the use of others. Isocrates is reported to have received not less than twenty talents (about $21,500) for the discourses sent by him to Nicocles, King of Cyprus.[42]
Aristophanes speaks of the considerable sums gained by the jurists, but the service for which Isocrates was paid was of course of a different character.
The intellectual or literary life of Athens, initiated by the popularization (at least among the cultivated circles) of the poems of Homer and Hesiod, was very much furthered through the influence of Plato. Curiously enough, notwithstanding Plato’s great activity as a writer, he placed a low estimate on the importance of written as compared with that of oral instruction. This is shown in his reference to the myth concerning the discovery of writing.[43]
The ten books of Plato’s Republic were undoubtedly prepared in the first place for presentation in the shape of lectures to a comparatively small circle of students, and were through these students first brought before the public. Plato’s hearers appear to have interested themselves in the work of circulating the written reports of his lectures, of which for some little time the number of copies was naturally limited. We also learn that the fortunate possessors of such manuscripts were in the habit of lending them out for hire. From a comedy of the time has been quoted the following line: “Hermodoros makes a trade of the sale of lectures.”[44]
Hermodoros of Syracuse was known as a student of Plato, and this quotation is interpreted as a reference to a practice of his of preparing for sale written reports of his instructor’s talks. Plato had evidently not yet evolved for himself the doctrine established over two thousand years later by Dr. Abernethy, that the privilege of listening to lectures did not carry with it the right to sell or to distribute the reports of the same. Abernethy’s student had at least made payment to the doctor for his course of lectures, while if, as seems probable, the teachings of Plato were a free gift to his hearers, his claim to the control of all subsequent use of the material would have been still better founded than that of the Scotch lecturer. But the time when it was not considered incompatible with the literary or philosophical ideal for the authors or philosophers to receive compensation from those benefited by their instruction, had not yet arrived. This reference to Hermodoros has interest as being possibly the first recorded instance of moneys being paid for literary material. The date was about 325 B.C.
Suidas calls Hermodoros a hearer (ἀκροατής) of Plato, and says, further, that he made a traffic of his master’s teachings (λόγοισιν Ἑρμόδωρος ἐμπορεύεται). Cicero, in writing to Atticus, makes a jesting comparison of the relations of Hermodoros to Plato with those borne by his publishing friend to himself, when he says: Placetne tibi libros “De Finibus” primum edere injussu meo? Hoc ne Hermodorus quidem faciebat, is qui Platonis libros solitus est divulgare.[45] “Possibly you may be inclined to publish my work De Finibus without securing the permission of the author. Even that Hermodorus, who was in the habit of publishing the books of Plato, was not guilty of such a thing.”
The term libros, employed by Cicero, is of course not really accurate, and ought properly to be interpreted as teachings, as Hermodoros appears not to have had in his hands any of Plato’s manuscripts, and to have used for his “publications” simply his own reports of his instructor’s lectures. It seems probable from these several references that Hermodoros secured from his sales certain profits, but it was evidently not believed that he considered himself under any obligation to divide such profits with Plato.
We have no word from Plato himself concerning the method by which his writings were brought before the public, but we find references in Aristotle to the “published works of Plato.”[46] Cephisodorus, a pupil of Isocrates, makes it a ground for reproach against Aristotle (considered at the time as a rival of his own instructor) that the latter should have published a work on Greek proverbs, a performance characterized as “unworthy of a philosopher.”[47]
The greater portions of the writings of Aristotle appear to have been composed in the course of his second sojourn in Athens, during which he was specially indebted to, and was possibly maintained by, the affectionate liberality of his royal pupil Alexander the Great. A curious claim was made by the latter to the ownership, or at least to the control, of such of the philosopher’s lectures as had been originally prepared for his own instruction. “You have not treated me fairly,” writes Alexander to Aristotle, “in including with your published works the papers prepared for my instruction. For if the scholarly writings by means of which I was educated become the common property of the world, in what manner shall I be intellectually distinguished above ordinary mortals? I would rather be noteworthy through the possession of the highest knowledge than by means of the power of my position.”