Authors and their public in ancient times

by George Haven Putnam

A still further consideration to be borne in mind in connection with the slow development of Roman literature, is the attitude of Roman writers to their work. Many of those whose names are best known to us would have felt themselves lowered to be classed as authors. They were statesmen, advocates, men about town, or, if you will, simple citizens, who gave some of their leisure hours to literary pursuits. To the Greek author, whether poet, philosopher, or historian, literature was an avocation, an honored and honorable profession. The Roman writer preferred as a rule to consider his writing as a pastime. Cicero says: Ut si occupati profuimus aliquid civibus nostris, prosimus etiam, si possumus, otiosi.[140]

Cornelius Nepos, in writing the life of Atticus, omits the smallest reference to the connection of Atticus with literature, as if any association with authorship or with publishing was either of no importance, or might even have impaired the reputation of an honored Roman.

It was this feeling that authorship was not in itself an avocation worthy of a Roman citizen, which unquestionably stood very much in the way of any arrangements under which authors could secure compensation for their productions, and doubtless postponed for a considerable period the recognition by the publishers and the reading public of any property rights in literature. The evidences, or, as it would be more exact to say, the indications, concerning such compensation for Roman writers are but fragmentary and at best but inconclusive. They will be referred to later in this chapter.

The first Latin playwright whose name has been preserved, was Titus Livius Andronicus of Tarentum. Andronicus added to his labors as a dramatist the work of an instructor of Greek literature, and he prepared for school use (about 250 B.C.) an abridgment of the Odyssey. A volume of this kind, written for use as a text-book, could hardly have been undertaken for the sake of the literary prestige, but must have been published for the purpose of securing profit from the sale of copies. If this inference is a just one, the book will stand as the earliest known instance in Latin literature of property in the work of an author, and the example is peculiarly characteristic, because the work of Andronicus, like the literature of his country, rested upon a Greek foundation.

A large proportion of the works of the early Roman dramatists have been identified as being versions, more or less exact, of known Greek originals, and in a number of cases the substance of Greek productions of which the titles and perhaps some descriptive references have come into record but the original texts of which have disappeared, have been preserved only by means of these Latin versions. The presumption is strong that very few of the dramatic writings which appeared in Rome during the century following the date of Andronicus, say 280 B.C. to 180 B.C., even of those whose Greek connection has not been traced, were not in great part based upon Greek originals.[141] It would not be easy to decide whether this exceptional relation between the two literatures, and this enormous indebtedness of the younger to the older, furthered or hindered the wholesome development of the literary productiveness of Italy. It seems probable that the gain in refinement, and in the cultivation of literary form, was largely offset by the check to the work of the creative faculty and the lessening of sturdiness and individuality. Emerson’s saying that “every man is as lazy as he dares to be,” was probably as true of the writers of Rome as it would have been of any other group of writers placed in a similar position. It is much easier to build one’s house from the finished blocks of the neighboring ruin, than to do the original hewing of new stones out of the side of the mountain.

The next name of importance among the writers of the period of the Punic Wars was Ennius, often spoken of as “the father of Latin literature.” Of his dramatic work Simcox remarks: “A play of Ennius was generally a play of Euripides simplified and amplified.”[142] It is in order to remember that Ennius, though doing all his literary work in Latin, was himself not a Latin, but a Calabrian—that is, at least half Greek in his ancestry and early environment. The work by which he is best known is the Annals, a historical or rather legendary poem, giving evidence of the Greek bias of the author in undertaking to present history (from Romulus to Scipio) as a poem rather than as a chronicle of facts in sober prose. Ennius translated a Sicilian Cookery-book (issued about 175 B.C.), a piece of work which, as the translator was poor, earning a modest livelihood by teaching, could only have been undertaken as a business commission. Whether it was paid for by a bookseller or by a patron is not recorded, but the probability is in favor of the latter, as Ennius, while frequently mentioning his patrons, makes no reference to any booksellers. An early instance of the possibility of making money by writing is afforded by Plautus, whose comedies date between 202 and 184 B.C. He is reported to have written plays with such success as to have been able with the proceeds to set himself up as a miller, and when his business failed, he returned to play-writing until he had again secured a competence.[143] His success was the more noteworthy, as it was difficult to understand how there could have been much demand for comedies in Rome during the anxious years when Hannibal was encamped at Capua. Cæcilius, who was a late contemporary of Plautus, is for us little more than a name, as of his comedies, commended by others as great, but fragments have been preserved. Terence was one of the writers possessing a large appreciation of Greek literature. He translated a hundred plays, chiefly from Menander, but there is nothing to tell us how far his literary undertakings proved commercially successful.[144] A historical work of substantial importance was the Origines of Cato the Censor, completed about 149 B.C. (three years before the fall of Carthage and of Corinth), which dealt with the institutions of Rome and with the origin of the allied Italian States. This was followed by the Annales Maximi of Mucius Scævola (issued in 133 in no less than eighty books), by further Annals by Calpurnius Piso, and by the Histories of Hostius (125) and of Antipater (123). I have, of course, no intention of presenting in a sketch like this, a summary of early Roman literature, or a schedule of Latin writers. I only desire to point out that during the century preceding the birth of Cicero (106), while there is no definite information concerning the existence in Rome of any organized book trade, or of publishing machinery, by means of which books could be manufactured and sold, and business relations be established between the authors and their public, a number of important literary enterprises, involving no little labor and expense, were undertaken. I think there are fair grounds for the inference that the continued production of books addressed to the general public implied the existence of a distribution machinery for reaching such public, and that there were, therefore, publishers in Rome who found it to their advantage to pay authors for literary labor many years before the founding of the firm of that prince of publishers, Atticus, whose business methods are described by Cicero.

In Rome, as in Athens, the men who first interested themselves in publishing undertakings, or at least in the publishing of higher class literature, were men who combined with literary tastes the control of sufficient means to pay the preparation of the editions. Their aim was the service of literature and of the State, and not the securing of profits, and, as a fact, these earlier publishing enterprises must usually have resulted in a deficiency. As the size of the editions could easily be limited to the probable demand, and further copies could always be supplied as called for, it seems at first thought as if the expense need not have been considerable. The high prices which, under the competition of a literary fashion, it became necessary to pay for educated slaves trained as scribes, constituted the most serious item of outlay. Horace speaks of slaves competent to write Greek as costing 8000 sesterces, about $400.[145] Calvisius, a rich dilettante, paid as much as 10,000 sesterces, $500, for each of his servi literati.[146] In one of the laws of Justinian, in which the relative price of slaves is fixed for estates to be divided, notarii, or scribes, are rated fifty per cent. higher than artisans.[147]

Certain proprietors found it to their advantage, partly for their own service and partly for the sake of making a profit later through their sale, to give to intelligent young slaves a careful education. Such a training, in order to produce a really valuable scribe, had to include a good deal beside reading and penmanship. A servus literatus, to be competent to prepare trustworthy copies, needed to have a good knowledge of Greek, and such acquaintance with the works of the leading authors, Greek and Latin, as would enable him to decipher with some critical judgment doubtful passages in difficult manuscripts. It is probable that better work, that is more accurate work, was done by these selected scribes of the household than by the copyists employed by the book-dealers. Strabo tells us that as the making of books became a common undertaking, there was constant complaint at the inaccuracies and deficiencies of the copies offered for sale, which had in many cases been prepared by ignorant scribes writing hastily and carelessly, and which had not afterwards been collated with the original text.[148] Strabo refers to book-making establishments in Rome as early as 80 B.C., which was before the founding of the concern of Atticus, but he does not give us the names of their managers.

Marcus Crassus, whose staff of skilled slaves included readers, copyists, and architects, took upon himself the general supervision of their education, and presided over their classes of instruction.[149] As is shown by the correspondence of Cicero, Atticus, Pliny, and others, these educated slaves frequently came into very close personal relations with their masters, and were cherished as valued friends. The writers who were employed in the duplicating of books were called librarii, correspondence clerks, amanuenses, and the official clerks of public functionaries, scribæ. An inscription quoted by Gruter indicates that the work of book-copying was sometimes confided to women—Sextia Xanta scriba Libraria. Copyists who devoted themselves to deciphering and transcribing old manuscripts, were known as antiquarii. The term notarii was applied to those who wrote at dictation, taking reports of speeches and of public meetings, testimony of witnesses, notes of judicial proceedings, etc. They were called notarii because they took notes, often in a kind of shorthand. Such a man was Tiro, a freedman of Cicero.

The man whose name is most intimately connected with the work of publishing in the time of Cicero was Titus Pomponius Atticus, who is perhaps best known to us through his correspondence with Cicero. Atticus organized (about 65 B.C.) a great book-manufacturing establishment in Rome, with connections in Athens and Alexandria. He was himself a thorough scholar, and it was because he was so well versed in the Greek language and literature that the name Atticus had been given to him. It is probable that his earliest publishing ventures were editions of the Greek classics, and it is certain that these always formed a very important proportion of his undertakings. He had himself brought from Greece an extensive and valuable collection of manuscripts, which he placed at the service of Cicero and of other of his literary friends, and the development of the work of his scribes from the transcription of a few copies for their friends to the publication of editions for the reading public was a very natural one.