Authors and their public in ancient times

by George Haven Putnam

The importance of Alexandria as one of the chief sources of book-production endured for three centuries or more after its conquest by the Romans in the year 30 B.C. As long as the language and literature of the Greeks continued to be the fashion among the cultivated circles in the Roman Empire, the supplies of books prepared by the Greek copyists continued to be largely drawn from Alexandria. By the close of the first century, however, the centre of literary activity had been transferred to Rome, and it was no longer to Alexandria but to Rome as the literary as well as the official capital of the world, that men of letters now journeyed from all parts of the empire.

The Alexandrian Academy of letters was succeeded by the Alexandrian school of theology, and to the city of the Ptolemies is probably to be credited the evolution of the odium theologicum, and the beginning of the long series of fierce and bitter theological contests which have unfortunately played so large a part in the history of the Christian Church, and have had so marked an influence on the history of the world. The names of Philo, Ammonius, and later of Plotinus, Iamblichus, Clemens, Origen, and Porphyry are the best known of the Alexandrian lecturers and writers of the first two centuries after Christ, whose teachings in philosophy and theology exercised influence on the thought of their time and on the metaphysical and theological conception of generations to come. In the fourth century came the more noteworthy Athanasius, and in the fifth Cyril, of whom such a vivid picture is given in Kingsley’s Hypatia. That curious combination of Oriental mysticism with the Hebrew and Christian creeds known as Gnosticism, if it did not originate in Alexandria, was largely taught there during the first two centuries A.D., among the earlier teachers being Basilides, Valentinus, Heracleon, and Theodotus.

From the various schools of metaphysics and theology was poured out during the first three centuries after Christ a great body of writings, which found their way into the remotest corners of the Christian world, and the persisting influence of which can be traced in not a few of the creeds even of to-day. It is probable, however, that important in other ways as this literature was, it presented few examples of literary property in the shape of returns to its author. The writers on metaphysical, theological, and religious subjects were, in fact, so keenly interested in extending the knowledge of their special views and tenets, and in furthering the influence of the creeds and systems of belief with which they had identified themselves, that they were very ready to facilitate by every possible means the distribution of their works, and to give to all who desired the fullest possible freedom for the multiplication of copies. The booksellers may have profited to some extent by the activity of the public interest in the rivalries of the various schools, but it appears as if the compensation of the authors must, like that of the Athenian philosophers of five or six hundred years earlier, have been limited to such payments as were made by the attendants on their lectures.

Our consideration of the relations of authors with their readers, and concerning the nature and extent of the remuneration secured for literary undertakings, must now be transferred to imperial Rome, the city from which what is known as classical literature derives its largest heritage, a heritage second in importance only to that to be credited to Athens.

CHAPTER IV.

Book-Terminology in Classic Times.

BEFORE proceeding to the consideration of the conditions under which works of literature in Rome were prepared by the writers and were brought within reach of the hearers or readers, it will be convenient to give consideration to the different forms of books which existed among the ancients, the various names by which these forms were known, and the nature of the material from which they were prepared.

The history of the different materials used in the writing of books and of the various terms employed to designate the books themselves, throws light on the conditions and the development of the production and distribution of literature. The baked clay tablets of the Chaldeans and Assyrians have already been referred to. Layard speaks of those found by him as of different sizes, the largest being flat and measuring nine inches by six and a half, while the smallest were slightly convex, and in some cases not more than an inch long, with but one or two lines of writing. The cuneiform characters on most of them were singularly sharp and well defined, but so minute in some instances as to be illegible without the aid of a magnifying glass. Curiously enough, in the same ruins with the tablets have been found specimens of the glass lenses which were probably used by their readers. Specimens have also been found of the instrument which was employed to trace the cuneiform characters, and its form sufficiently accounts for the peculiar shape of these characters, a shape which was imitated by the engravers on stone. The tracer is a little iron rod (a stylus), not pointed but triangular at the end. By slightly pressing this end on the cake of soft moist clay held in the left hand, no other sign could be obtained but that of a wedge, the direction being determined by a turn of the wrist, presenting the instrument in various positions. The tablets, having been thus inscribed on both sides and accurately numbered or folioed, were baked in the oven.