Closed bookcases.As the Comm. Lanciani has pointed out (Ancient Rome, p. 195), it is interesting to note that the ancient Roman method of arranging books in low, closed cupboards is still preserved in the great library of the Vatican in Rome; which is unlike most existing libraries in the fact that on first entering no one would guess that it was a library, not a single book being visible.
Of the ancient armaria themselves no example now exists. They were of wood, and therefore, of course, perishable. But we may, I think, argue from analogy, that the doors of the cupboards were richly ornamented with painted decorations, thus forming an elaborate dado or podium below the row of portrait reliefs which occupied the upper part of the walls.
| Booksellers' quarter. |
Booksellers' quarter.The principal quarter in Rome for the shops of booksellers (bibliopolae or librarii) appears to have been the Argiletum, which (in Imperial times) was an important street running into the Forum Romanum between the Curia and the Basilica Aemilia; see Mart. I. 3, 117[[13]].
For ancient manuscripts or autograph works of famous authors large prices were often paid. Aristotle is said to have given three talents (about £750) for an autograph manuscript of Speusippus, and a manuscript of Virgil's second book of the Aeneid, thought to be the author's own copy, sold for twenty aurei, more than £20 in modern value; see Aul. Gell. III. 17, and II. 3.
| Cost of new books. Slave scribes. |
Cost of new books.But ordinary copies of newly published works, even by popular authors, appear to have been but little more expensive than books of this class are at the present day. The publisher and bookseller Tryphon could sell Martial's first book of Epigrams at a profit for two denarii—barely two shillings in modern value; see Mart. XIII. 3. It may seem strange that written manuscripts should not have been much more costly than printed books, but when one considers how they were produced the reason is evident. Slave scribes.Atticus, the Sosii and other chief publishers of Rome owned a large number of slaves who were trained to be neat and rapid scribes. Fifty or a hundred of these slaves could write from the dictation of one reader, and thus a small edition of a new volume of Horace's Odes or Martial's Epigrams could be produced with great rapidity and at very small cost[[14]].
Little capital would be required for the education of the slave-scribes, and when once they were taught, the cost of their labour would be little more than the small amount of food which was necessary to keep them alive and in working order.
Cicero (Att. II. 4) speaks of the publisher Atticus selling manuscripts produced in this way by slave labour on a large scale.
| Librarii. |