II.
Nowadays, thanks to the printing-press, which multiplies thought and scatters it to the four winds of heaven, an author can enter into communication with the public without going beyond the threshold of his study. But among the ancients, when every copy of a work was painfully executed by hand, who can estimate the pains, fatigue, and expense that went to build up an incomplete publicity? What wonder then that an historian like Herodotus introduced his book to public notice by reading it aloud to the crowds assembled for the Olympic games, or that the people paused to listen to him for days together? The author entered without delay upon the enjoyment of his glory—the public into possession of a masterpiece. Later, we learn that Prodicus, the sophist of Ceos, went from city to city, reciting his allegory of Hercules between Virtue and Pleasure, and engraving it upon the memory of all Greece.
Other similar instances might be cited, but merely as exceptions to the customs anterior to the Christian era; nor was it in Greece but at Rome that public lecturing first became a popular usage.
In the reign of Augustus, when eloquence had become pacifice (or narrow-minded, as the bitter spirits who pined for ancient laxity would have said), Asinius Pollio, having been transformed from a republican into a courtier without sacrificing his love of letters, bethought himself to replace the oratorical combats, for ever banished from senate and forum, by establishing a school of declamation, and assemblies whither authors should resort to read their works in public.[Footnote 56] It was erecting a stage for the exhibition of wits who longed for notoriety, and the plan could not fail to succeed. Augustus, in harmony, on this occasion, with popular desire, lent a hearty consent to the innovation. Not only did he sit among the audience without giving evidence of weariness or ennui, but he took an active part in the literary exercises, reading in person, or letting; Tiberius read for him, various compositions of his own.[Footnote 57]
[Footnote 56: Seneca the Rhetorician, Controv. V. Procem.]
[Footnote 57: Sustonius, Augustus, 85, 89.]
Without doubting that Augustus really enjoyed these intellectual entertainments, I believe the encouragement of a harmless literature to have been in accordance with his policy. Every pursuit that could turn aside the Romans from too importunate an interest in state affairs was favorably received. What time remained for meddling in public matters to any man occupied with polishing poetical phrases or rounding rhetorical periods? The chair replaced the tribune advantageously. While bread and circus games satisfied the lower classes, distractions and diversions of a nobler stamp were provided for more enlightened minds. In both cases the conduct of Augustus was actuated by the same motive. So well did public lectures second his designs that be might perhaps have introduced the fashion if it had not already existed. Under the circumstances his countenance only was required to elevate what seemed like a modish caprice to the dignity and durability of an imperial institution. Even the most suspicious and distrustful of this prince's successors forbore to disturb an amusement so conducive to their own advantage. The least favorably inclined were contented with depriving the assemblies of their presence, and others esteemed it an honor to be counted among the most attentive listeners. Nero especially, imperial artist and metromaniac, seems to have honestly regarded these exercises as one of the glories of his reign.
Every one who fancied himself a man of talent (and illusions upon such points are common to the literary world in all ages) was glad to win renown by exhibiting the fruits of midnight toil. With few exceptions, all authors claimed the public ear: Lucan to recite his Pharsalia; Silius Italicus, his Punic War; Statius, his Thebald, Achilleïd, and Silvae; Pliny, his Panegyric of Trajan.[Footnote 58] I mention those authors only whose writings have remained to us; but many others sought to charm a Roman audience. The list would be long, of lecturers whose names, without their works, have come down to posterity; orators of whom Pliny has introduced a large number to us in enumerating his personal friends. Princes followed the contagious example of Augustus. Claudius and Nero enjoyed the display or their acquirements;[Footnote 59] Domitian recited poems which he certainly never wrote; but what matter for that? he liked to give himself the airs of a poet, and of a successful poet, we may be sure. Nero, at least, did not solicit applause in borrowed plumes. In short, no verses were too bad to seek a hearing. A mania for reading and writing raged abroad. Horace satirizes this madness, but after Horace's own sweet, graceful fashion. Juvenal exclaims with wrathful bitterness: "Am I for ever to be a listener? Shall I never retaliate, (I who have been) so often teased with the Theseïd of husky Codrus? One man recites his comedies with impunity, and another his elegies. Shall huge Telephus consume my day unpunished; or Orestes, full to the extremest margin of the book, written even on the reversed pages, and not finished then?" [Footnote 60]
[Footnote 58: Suetonius; Lucan; Pliny the Younger, Let. III. 7, 18; Juvenal, vii. 79]
[Footnote 59: Suetonius; Claudius, 41; Nero, 10.]