Authors and their public in ancient times

by George Haven Putnam

WHEN Constantine, in the year 328, removed to Byzantium the capital of the Empire, he doubtless took with him from Rome, or was followed by, a large proportion of the leaders of the social and intellectual life of the city. It is said also that Greek scholars from Magna Græcia, and from other parts of the Empire, foreseeing the probable revival of interest in Greek learning, speedily gathered themselves at Constantinople, and through their presence hastened the replacing of the Latin tongue by their own vernacular.

For a century or more, however, after the establishment of Constantinople, literary production appears to have been slight and unimportant. There is some evidence of collections being made of copies of the great classics, collections which later, unfortunately, in large part perished at the hands first of Crusaders and afterwards of Turks, and it is probable that a certain number of scribes were kept employed in the production of such copies. Of new works or of new editions of importance there is no record, while there is also no evidence as to the existence of any bookselling machinery for keeping the public supplied with the old classics.

The first revival of literary productiveness appears to have come from the Court. About 440 A.D. the Empress Eudocia published a poetical paraphrase of the first eight books of the Old Testament and of the prophecies of Daniel and Zechariah. This was followed by a cento of the verses of Homer, applied to the life of Christ; by a version of the legend of St. Cyprian; and by a panegyric on the Persian victories of her husband Theodosius.

An imperial author needed, of course, no bookselling machinery to bring her writings to the attention of the public. The members of the Court circles doubtless made for their presentation copies a full return in the shape of loyal appreciation, while politic priests could be depended upon to interest themselves in the reproduction and distribution of books devoted to such sacred subjects, and emanating from so high an authority.

After this literary outburst from the Court, there is a long period during which there is no record of any original work of importance being produced in Constantinople. I must not omit, however, to make reference to the great undertaking carried out by Ulfilas (sixty years or more before the time of Eudocia’s labors) in the translation of the Bible into Gothic.

Ulfilas was a Goth by birth, but had been educated (as a hostage) in Constantinople. He was made Bishop of Gothia, and the work of his translation was probably completed in Dacia. For the preparation, however, of the transcripts of his text he was apparently obliged to resort to the scribes of the capital, and the “publication” of the work may, therefore, be credited to Constantinople. A magnificent manuscript of this Gothic version of the Gospels, a manuscript known, on account of its beautiful silver text, as the codex argenteus, and which dates from the sixth century, is now preserved in the library of the University of Upsala in Sweden, one of the earliest homes of the Gothic peoples. The wide circulation of these Gothic Scriptures had a great influence in bringing the Gothic tribes into the Christian fold, and exercised, therefore, an important effect on the history of Europe.

The greatest of the earlier authors of the Eastern Empire was the historian Procopius. His History of My Own Times, which was published about 560 A.D., during the reign of Justinian, is devoted more particularly to an account of the wars carried on by the Empire. Procopius had held various offices, and, during 562, was Prefect of Constantinople. After this post had been taken from him, he wrote a volume called Anecdota, or “secret history,” in which Justinian and his empress, Theodora, are very severely handled. A third and earlier production is a description of the edifices erected by Justinian throughout the Empire.

By the beginning of the seventh century, says Oman, the use of the Latin language in Constantinople had practically ceased. Oman speaks of the seventh and eighth centuries as being the “dark age in Byzantine literary history,” but, as far as we can judge from the records, the “luminous” or productive periods must have been very fitful and fragmentary.

After the extinction of the schools of Alexandria and Athens, “the studies of the Greeks” (says Gibbon) “retired to the monasteries, and above all to the royal college of Constantinople, which was burned in the reign of Leo the Isaurian, about 750 A.D.” The head of the foundation was named “the sun of science,” and the twelve professors, the twelve signs of the zodiac. The library comprised over 36,000 volumes. It included the famous Homeric manuscript, before referred to, written on a parchment roll 120 feet long.

Between 886 and 963 A.D. Constantinople was ruled by the group of so-called “literary emperors,” during whose reigns literature became the fashion of the Court. The chief achievements of Leo the Wise and of his son and successor Constantine Porphyrogenitus were their books. The writings of Leo consist of a manuscript on the Art of War, some theological treatises, and a book of prophecies. The former, says Oman, contains some exceedingly valuable information, while the prophecies have been the puzzle of commentators.[295] The works of Constantine comprise a treatise on the administration of the Themes or provincial districts, a biography of his grandfather, and a comprehensive manual of the etiquette and ceremonies of the Court. Towards the close of the eighth century or at the beginning of the ninth appeared the commonplace books of Stobæus, one series entitled An Anthology of Extracts, Sentences, and Precepts, one grouped together under the name of Physical, Dialectic, and Moral Selections, and a third entitled simply Discourses. The extracts are drawn from more than five hundred authors, whose works have in great measure perished. They include, says Heeren (who, in 1792, published an edition of Stobæus), passages from many of the ancient comic writers. The exact date of the life or of the work of Stobæus is not known. Photius says that his commonplace books were prepared as an educational guide for his son Septimius.