CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 FROM 
 The Estate of 
 
 WillareL Austen 
 
Cornell University Library 
 Z4 .P98 1893 
 
 Authors and their public n ancent tme 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 029 482 332 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029482332 
 
AUTHORS AND THEIR PUBLIC 
 IN ANCIENT TIMES 
 
 A SKETCH OF LITERARY CONDITIONS AND 
 
 OF THE RELATIONS WITH THE PUBLIC 
 
 OF LITERARY PRODUCERS, FROM 
 
 THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE 
 
 INVENTION OF PRINTING 
 
 BY 
 
 GEO. HAVEN JUTNAM 
 
 AUTHOR OF "the QUESTION OF COPYRIGHT," ETC. 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 NEW YORK LONDON 
 
 27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 24 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND 
 
 Sfet "^miktihochtt ^rtss 
 1894 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1893 ' 
 
 BY 
 
 GEO. HAVEN PUTNAM 
 
 Electrotyped, Printed and Bound by 
 
 XCbc 'ftnicberbocftct press* laew ^ovk 
 G, P. Putnam's Sons 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following pages, as originally written, were 
 planned to form a preliminary chapter, or general 
 introduction, to a history of the origin and develop- 
 ment of property in literature, a subject in which I 
 have for some time interested myself. The progress 
 of the history has, however, been so seriously ham- 
 pered by engrossing business cares, and also by an 
 increasing necessity for economizing eyesight, that 
 the date of its completion remains very uncertain. 
 I do not relinquish the hope of being able to place 
 before the public (or at least of that small portion 
 of the public which may be interested in the subject) 
 at some future date, the work as first planned, which 
 shall present a sketch of the development of prop- 
 erty in literature from the invention of printing to 
 the present day, but I have decided to publish in a 
 separate volume this preliminary study of the Hterary 
 conditions which obtained in ancient times. 
 
 In the stricter and more modern sense of the term, 
 literary property stands for an ownership in a specific 
 
IV 
 
 Preface 
 
 literary form given to certain ideas, for the right to 
 control such particular form of expression of these 
 ideas, and for the right to multiply and to dispose 
 of copies of such form of expression. In this imma- 
 terial signification, the term literary property is 
 practically synonymous with la propridti intellectuelle, 
 or das geistige Eigenthum. 
 
 It is proper to say at the outset that in this sense 
 of the term, no such thing as literary property can 
 be said to have come into existence in ancient times, 
 or in fact until some considerable period had elapsed 
 after the invention of printing. The books first 
 produced, after 1450, from the presses of Gutenberg 
 and Fust and by their immediate successors, were 
 the Latin versions of the Bible, editions of certain of 
 the writings of Cicero and of other Latin authors, 
 and a few other works which, if not all dating back 
 to Classic periods, were, with hardly an exception, 
 the works of writers who had been dead for many 
 generations. 
 
 The editions printed of these books constituted 
 for their owners, the printers, a property, which, as 
 distinguished from their buildings and from their 
 presses and type, might fairly enough be described 
 as a " literary property." It was, however, not until 
 the publishers began to make arrangements to give 
 
Preface v 
 
 compensation to contemporary writers for the prep- 
 aration of original works, or for original editorial 
 work associated with classic texts, and not until, in 
 connection with such arrangements, the publishers 
 succeeded in securing from the State authorities, in 
 the shape of " privileges," a formal recognition of 
 their right to control the literary work thus pro- 
 duced, that literary property in the sense of in- 
 tellectual property {geistiges Eigenthum), came into 
 an assured and recognized, though still restricted 
 existence. 
 
 Property of this kind, namely, in the form of a 
 right, duly recognized by the State, to the control of 
 an intellectual production, assuredly did not exist 
 in Athens, in Alexandria, or in classic Rome. There 
 is evidence, however, although often of a very frag- 
 mentary and inconclusive character, that in these 
 cities and in other literary centres of the later classic 
 world, there gradually came into existence a system 
 or a practice under which authors secured some 
 compensation for their labors. 
 
 Such compensation, doubtless at best but incon- 
 siderable as it did not depend upon any legal right 
 on the part of either author or publishers, must have 
 varied very greatly according to the personality of 
 the writer, the nature of the work, and the time and 
 
VI 
 
 Preface 
 
 place of its production. The evidences or indica- 
 tions of payments being made to authors are mainly 
 to be traced in scattered references in their own 
 works. Such references are in the writings of the 
 Greek authors, but infrequent, and in not a few in- 
 stances the passages have been variously interpreted, 
 so that it is difficult to base upon them any trust- 
 worthy conclusions. 
 
 It is only when we reach the Augustan age of 
 Roman literature that we find, in the works of such 
 authors as Cicero, Martial, Horace, Catullus, and a 
 few others, a sufficient number of references upon 
 which to base some theory at least as to the nature 
 of the relations of the authors with their publishers, 
 and also as to the publishing and bookselling methods 
 of the time. 
 
 I have attempted, in this volume, to present a 
 sketch of these " beginnings of literary property " — 
 that is, to outline the gradual evolution of the idea 
 that the producer of a literary work, the poet, norftoc?, 
 the maker, is entitled to secure from the community 
 not only such laurel-crown of fame as may be ad- 
 judged to his work, but also some material compen- 
 sation proportioned as nearly as may be practicable 
 to the extent of the service rendered by him. 
 
 I have prefixed to the study of literary and pub- 
 
Preface vii 
 
 lishing undertakings in Athens, Alexandria, and 
 Rome, in which cities definite relations between 
 authors and their public can first be traced, some 
 preliminary sketches concerning the beginnings of 
 literature in Chaldea, Egypt, India, Persia, China, 
 and Japan. I admit at once that descriptions of 
 legendary, prehistoric, or semi-historic periods, are 
 not directly pertinent to my main subject. I have 
 decided to include them, however, at the risk of 
 criticism on the ground both of (necessarily) super- 
 ficial treatment and of lack of relevance, because it 
 seemed to me that the character of the earliest liter- 
 ary ideals and of the legendary literary productions 
 of a people formed an important factor in helping to 
 develop its later literary conditions, and was not with- 
 out influence upon the relations of authors with their 
 public, when such relations finally began to take 
 shape. 
 
 It is, for instance, a matter of very decided interest, 
 in tracing the literary history of a nation, to ascertain 
 whether the source and initiative of its earliest litera- 
 ture was the temple, the court, or the popular circles 
 outside of temple or court ; whether the first compo- 
 sitions were produced by the priests, or by annalists or 
 poets working under the immediate incentive of the 
 favor of the monarch, or whether, like the epics of 
 
viii Preface 
 
 Greece and the folk-songs of China, they came from 
 authors among the people, and were addressed di- 
 rectly to popular sympathies and to popular ideals. 
 
 It will be noted that I take pains to speak of 
 " authors " and " public," rather than of " writers " 
 and " readers," because it is evident that there were 
 literary productions in advance, and probably very 
 far in advance, of the discovery or evolution of writ- 
 ten characters, and also that long after the use of 
 script by authors, the greater portion of the public 
 in all ancient lands received their literature, not 
 through their eyes, but through their ears, — not by 
 reading the text, but by listening to reciters, story- 
 tellers, and " rhapsodists." 
 
 In the preparation of this brief record, which makes 
 no claim to scholarly completeness, or to be anything 
 more considerable than a sketch, I have found my- 
 self hampered by lack of adequate classical knowl- 
 edge and by the lack of familiarity with the works 
 of even the more important of the Greek and Roman 
 writers. It is doubtless the case, therefore, that I 
 have failed to discover or to utilize not a few passages 
 and references that would have a bearing upon the 
 subject ; and I shall be under obligations to any 
 scholarly reader who will take the trouble to call my 
 attention to such omissions. 
 
Preface ix 
 
 I have given, in a brief bibliography, the titles of 
 the more important of the books upon the au- 
 thority of which my sketch has been based. I desire, 
 however, to express my special indebtedness to the 
 following works, the full titles of which will be found 
 in the bibliography : Clement's La PropriM Litti- 
 raire ckez les Grecs et chez les Romains, Schmitz's 
 Das Buckwesen in Athen, G^raud's Les Livres dans 
 r Antiquitd, Birt's Das Antike Buckwesen, Haenny's 
 Schriftsteller und Buchhdndler iin alten Rom, and 
 Simcox's History of Latin Literature. 
 
 As is indicated by the titles in the list of authori- 
 ties cited, the writers who have given attention to 
 the relations of authors of antiquity with their 
 readers, have been almost exclusively German or 
 French. I shall be well pleased if this brief study 
 of mine may serve as a suggestion to some compe- 
 tent American or English scholar for the preparation 
 in English of a comprehensive and final work on the 
 subject. 
 
 G. H. P. 
 
 New YoRii, November, 1893. 
 

 
 CONTENTS 
 
 '. 
 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. The Beginnings of Literature 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 
 I. 
 
 Preliminary 
 
 I 
 
 
 2. 
 
 Chaldea 
 
 
 s 
 
 
 3- 
 
 Egypt . 
 
 
 lO 
 
 
 4- 
 
 China 
 
 
 21 
 
 
 S- 
 
 Japan 
 
 
 38 
 
 
 6. 
 
 India 
 
 
 43 
 
 
 7- 
 
 Persia 
 
 
 47 
 
 
 8. 
 
 JUD^A 
 
 
 49 
 
 II. 
 
 Greece . 
 
 
 54 
 
 III. 
 
 Alexandria . 
 
 
 127 
 
 IV. 
 
 Book-Terminology in Classic Times 
 
 149 
 
 V. 
 
 Rome .... . . . 
 
 163 
 
 VI. 
 
 Constantinople .... 
 
 282 
 
 Index 
 
 . 
 
 
 297 
 
PRINCIPAL WORKS REFERRED TO AS AUTHORITIES. 
 
 Barthel^mi, J. The Travels of Anacharsis the Younger. London, 
 1832. 
 
 Becker, W. A. Charicles, or Illustrations of the Private Life of 
 the Ancient Greeks. Trans, by F. Metcalfe. 7th Edition. 
 London, 1886. 
 
 Gallus, or Roman Scenes of the Time of Augustus. Trans. 
 
 by F. Metcalfe. 8th Edition. London, 18S6. 
 
 Bergk, T. Griechische Literatur Geschichte. Leipzig, 1852. 
 
 BiRT, Theodor. Das j^ntike Buchiuesen. Berlin, 1882. 
 
 Breulier, Adolphe. Du Droit de Perptiuit^ de la Propridt^ Intel- 
 lectuelle. Paris, 1851. 
 
 Bruns, C. G. Die Testamente der Griechischen Philosophic. 
 2 vols. Leipzig, 1872. 
 
 Buchsenschutz. Besitz und Erwerb im Grischischen Alterthum. 
 Leipzig, 1879. 
 
 Bursian, C. Die Geographic Griechenlands. TVIunchen, 1882. 
 
 Bury, J. B. A History of the Later Roman Empire. 
 2 vols. London, i88g. 
 
 Cassiodorus. The Letters of. Translated, with an introduction, by 
 Thomas Hodgkin. London, 1886. 
 
 Catullus. Edited by Riese. Leipzig, 1884. 
 
 Edited by Ellis. Oxford, 1867. 
 
 Cicero. Letters. Edited by Watson. London, 1852. 
 
xiv Works Referred to as Authorities 
 
 Clement, Paul, ^tude sur le Droit des Auteurs, Fr^cMee d'une 
 Dissertation sur la Propriiti Litt^raire chez les Grecs et chez les 
 Romains. Grenoble, 1867. 
 
 Cruttwell, C. T. C. History of Roman Literature. New York, 
 
 1887. 
 
 Davidson, J. L. S. The Life of Cicero. New York and London, 
 1894. (From advance sheets.) 
 
 Donaldson, J. W. The Theatre of the Greeks. 8th Edition. 
 London, 1876. 
 
 Encyclopcedia Britannica. gth Edition. Edinburgh and New York, 
 1884-1892. 
 
 Freeman, E. A. History of Federal Government. 2d Edition. 
 London, 1892. 
 
 Frommann, E. Aufsdtze zur Geschichte des Buchhandels im iblen 
 yahrhundert. Jena, 1876. 
 
 Fronto. Edited by Naber. Leipzig, 1867. 
 
 Gellius, Aultjs. Noctes Attica. EdiSd by Hertz. 
 2 vols. Leipzig, 1865. 
 
 GfeAUD, H. Les Livres dans V Antiquite. Paris, 1840. 
 
 Gibbon, E. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Ameri- 
 can Edition. 6 vols. New York, 1889. 
 
 Haenny. Louis. Schriftsteller und Buchhdndler im Alten Rom. 
 Leipzig, 1885. 
 
 Herodotus. Histories of. Trans, by Rawlinson. 4 vols. 
 New York, 1886. 
 
 HoDGKiN, Thomas. Theodoric tJie Goth. New York and London, 
 1890 
 
 Horace. Edited by M&ller. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1874. 
 
 Odes and Epodes. Edited by WiCKHAM. London, 1874. 
 
 Jevons, F. B. History of Greek Literature. New York, 1886. 
 
Works Referred to as Authorities xv 
 
 Johnson, A. J. The Universal Encyclopadia. 6 vols. New York, 
 1884. 
 
 Juvenal. Trans, by Gifford. London, 1852. 
 
 Edited by Weidner. Leipzig, 1873. 
 
 Kapp, Friedrich. Geschichte des Deutschen Buchhandeh bis in das 
 lyte yahrhundert. Leipzig, 1886. 
 
 Karpeles, Gustav. Allgemeine Geschichte der LiUeratur. 
 12 parts. Berlin, iSgo. 
 
 Klostermann, R. Das Urheberrecht und das Verlagsrecht. Berlin, 
 1871. 
 
 Laertius, Diogenes. De Vitis Dogmatibus. Edited by W. H. 
 HObner. 4 vols. Leipzig. 
 
 Layard, Sir A. H. Nineveh and Babylon. American Edition. 
 New York, 1852. 
 
 Lecky, W. E. H. a History of European Morals. American 
 Edition. 2 vols. New York. 
 
 LouiSY, M. P. Le Livre, et les Arts qui s'y Rattachent. Paris, 
 1886. 
 
 Mahaffy, J. p. Social Life in Greece from Homer to Menander. 
 6th Edition. London, 1 891. 
 
 Greek Life and Thought, from the Age of Alexander to the 
 
 Roman Conquest. London, 1892. 
 
 The Greek World under Roman Sway. London, 1893. 
 
 Martial. Edited by Paley. London, 1875. 
 
 Edited by FriedlAnder. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1886. 
 
 Meineke, A. Historia Comosdice Grceca (in the Comicorum Greet. 
 Fragmentd). Berlin, 1857. 
 
 MCller, J. Die Lustspiele des Aristophanes. Leipzig, 1868. 
 
 MOller, Max. History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature. London, 
 i860. 
 
xvi Works Referred to as Authorities 
 
 Oman, C. W. C. The Story of the Byzantine Empire. New York 
 and London, 1892. 
 
 Plato. Works. Trans, by Jowett. 6 vols. Oxford, 1889. 
 
 Plautus. Edited by Fleckeisen. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1890. 
 
 Pliny. Works. Trans, by Melmoth. 5 vols. London, 1S78. 
 
 Plutarch's Lives. Trans, by Clough. 5 vols. Boston, 1878. 
 
 Ragozin, Zena!de. The Story of Chaldea. New York, 1886. 
 
 The Story of Assyria. New York, 1887. 
 
 Rawlinson, George. History of Ancient Egypt. 2 vols. 
 New York, i8go. 
 
 Rawnsley, H. D. Notes for the Nile, together with a Metrical 
 Rendering of the Hymns of Ancient Egypt and of the Precepts of 
 Pxah-Hotep. London and New York, 1892. 
 
 Records of the Past. Edited by S. Birch. 12 vols. London, i88^. 
 
 Renouard, Augustin Charles. Traits des Droits d'Auteurs. 
 2 vols. Paris, 1838. 
 
 RiTTER, H. History of Ancient Philosophy (translation). 
 
 4 vols. Oxford, 1849. 
 Romberg, Edouard. Etudes sur la PropriM Artistique et Lit- 
 
 te'raire. Bruxelles, 1892. 
 
 ROZOIR, A. Dictionnaire de la Conversation, etc. Paris, 1838. 
 SchAEFER, a. Demosthenes und Seine Zeii. 3 vols. Leipzig, 1858. 
 SchSll, a. Aufsdtse sur Klass. Liter. Berlin, 1884. 
 
 Hist. Lit. Grcec. 3 vols. Berlin, 1886, 
 
 SCHMITZ, G. Schriftsteller und Buchhdndler in Athen und in 
 Ubrigen Griechenland. Heidelberg, 1876. 
 
 SiMCOX, G. A. History of Ijitin Literature. 2 vols. London, 1883 
 Smith, George. The Chaldean Account of Genesis. London, 1880. 
 StAtius. Edited by MOller. Leipzig, 1871. 
 
Works Referred to as Authorities xvii 
 
 Strabo. Works. Edited by Meineke. 3 vols. Leipzig, i866. 
 
 Suetonius. Lives of the Twelve Casars. Trans, by Thomson. 
 London, 1855. 
 
 SuiDAS. Lexicon. Edited by Braun. (Cited by Schmitz.) Leip- 
 zig, 1832. 
 
 Wehle, J. H. Das Buck, Technik der Schriftstellerie. Leipzig, 
 1879. 
 
 Williams, S. Wells. The Middle Kingdom : A Survey of the 
 Geography^ Government^ Arts^ Literature, etc.^ of the Chinese 
 Empire. Revised Edition. 2vols., 8vo. New York, 1883. 
 
 Xenophon. Works. Trans, by J. S. Watson. 3 vols. London, 
 1862. 
 
 Zeller, E. Die Philosophie der Griechen. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1872. 
 
AUTHORS AND THEIR PUBLIC 
 IN ANCIENT TIMES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 The Beginning's of Literature. 
 
 WHEN Faust was puzzling his brain concern- 
 ing the everlasting problem of the nature 
 and origin of things, we find him questioning the 
 utterance of the Hebrew seer : " In the beginning 
 was the Word." " No," he says, " this must be 
 wrong. We cannot place the word first in the scale 
 of causation. The writer should have said ' In the 
 beginning was the Thought.' " On further reflection, 
 this statement also seemed to him inadequate. Is 
 it the Thought that creates and directs all things ? 
 Shall we not rather say " In the beginning was 
 the Power ? " Even this interpretation, however, fails 
 
Authors and Their Public 
 
 to stand the test, and, after further wrestling, Faust 
 presents as his solution of the problem the statement, 
 " In the beginning was the ^ Deed.' " 
 
 I shall not undertake to consider in this mono- 
 graph any questions concerning the line of evolution 
 of the universe, and Faust's questionings are recalled 
 to me only because his final answer is in accord with 
 the experience of man in what he knows of the 
 development of himself, considered either as an 
 individual or as a race. 
 
 Assuredly the first thing of which man was con- 
 scious was not the word, written or spoken, nor the 
 thought behind the word, nor the power back of the 
 thought, but the deed, which could be seen and felt 
 and estimated. Conscious thought came much later, 
 and the word spoken and the word written, later 
 still. A mental conception, realized as such, and 
 finally taking form as a production of the mind, is a 
 development of a comparatively advanced stage of 
 human existence, the youth of the individual or of 
 the race, while for any definition of the nature of a 
 mental production, and of its just relation to the 
 individual by whom and to the community for which 
 it was produced, we must look still further forward. 
 
 Literature — that is, mental conceptions in literary 
 form — had been known for many centuries before 
 
The Beginnings of Literature 
 
 the literary idea, and any individual ownership in 
 the form in which such idea was expressed, had been 
 thought out and defined. Literary property — that 
 is, an ownership, on the part of the producer, in a 
 definite expression of literary ideas — dates, never- 
 theless, from a comparatively early period, and, in 
 one sense, may be said to have existed from the 
 time in which the first " poet " (maker or creator) 
 received his first compensation from a grateful public 
 or an appreciative patron. In the more precise in- 
 terpretation of the term, it is doubtless more correct, 
 however, to say that literary property dates from the 
 time when authors first received compensation, not 
 from the state or from individual patrons, but from 
 individual readers throughout the community, who 
 were ready to make payment in return for the 
 benefit received. The labor, however, of placing the 
 literary production in the hands of the reader and 
 of collecting from these the compensation for the 
 authors, required an intermediary, — some one to 
 create the machinery for distribution and collection, 
 and usually also to assume the risk and investment 
 required. Literary property could, therefore, come 
 into an assured existence only after, or simultane- 
 ously with, the evolution of the publisher. This, 
 then, is the chain of causation at which we have 
 
Authors and Their Public 
 
 arrived : The deed, the thought awakened by the 
 deed, the consciousness of the thought, the power, 
 first of oral and then of written expression of the 
 thought (usually the description of the deed), which 
 marks the appearance of the poet, the " maker " or 
 author ; the consecration of this expression or literary 
 production to a definite purpose, usually the glorifi- 
 cation of an individual in the commemoration of his 
 deed ; the habit of receiving from such individual a 
 tangible recognition ; the widening of the purpose 
 of the production and its dedication to the commu- 
 nity as a whole ; the giving, by the community in 
 return, of a reward or honorarium ; the evolution of 
 the publisher who develops the system under which 
 the amount of the honorarium secured for the author 
 is proportioned (though somewhat roughly) to the 
 number of persons benefited by his productions. 
 
 It is when the higher stage of civilization has been 
 reached which is marked by the appearance of the 
 publisher, that we have a true beginning of property 
 in literature. 
 
 Centuries must, however, still elapse before we 
 find record of any noteworthy attempts to arrive at 
 precise definitions of the nature and origin of liter- 
 ary property, or to analyze the proper relations of 
 the literary producer as well to the generation for 
 
Chaldea 
 
 which he originally worked, as to such later gener- 
 ations as derived benefit from his creations. 
 
 Chaldea.— The earliest literature of which the 
 archaeologists have thus far found trustworthy evi- 
 dence appears to be that of the Chaldeans. Their 
 " books," consisting of baked clay tablets, on which 
 the cuneiform characters had been imprinted with a 
 stylus, were well fitted to withstand the ravages of 
 time, being practically imperishable by either fire or 
 water. The important discovery of specimens of 
 the earlier literature of Chaldea was due to Sir 
 Henry Layard. In 1845 he was fortunate enough, 
 while investigating the mounds at Koyunjik (ancient 
 Nineveh) now identified with the ruins of the palaces 
 of Sennacherib and Asshurbanipal (B.C. 650), to 
 stumble into the chambers which had contained the 
 royal library. Although he was not himself able to 
 decipher the early cuneiform characters with which 
 were covered the masses of clay tablets and frag- 
 ments of tablets brought to light by his excavations, 
 he readily recognized the importance of the discov- 
 ery, and took pains to forward to the British Museum 
 a large number of those in the best state of preserva- 
 tion. There they lay until 1870, when George Smith 
 
Authors and Their Public 
 
 undertook the task of arranging and deciphering 
 them. Smith had been originally employed in the 
 Museum as an engraver, but in the course of his 
 work in engraving cuneiform texts, he had become 
 interested in their study, and by dint of persistent 
 application he soon came to be one of the few ac- 
 knowledged authorities on the subject. 
 
 Months of patient labor were given to the piecing 
 together of the thousands of scattered fragments 
 contained in Layard's shipment. Then, owing to 
 the enterprise of the London Daily Telegraph (which 
 in 1876 made a novel precedent in journalism by 
 printing from week to week, in juxtaposition with 
 the news of the day, decipherings of the Chaldean 
 writings of five thousand years back), Smith was 
 enabled to go to Mesopotamia, and in three succes- 
 sive journeys very largely to increase the collections 
 of tablets, which finally comprised over 10,000 speci- 
 mens. 
 
 Smith's untimely death by fever during his third 
 sojourn in the East put a check for a time upon both 
 the collecting and the deciphering, but the latter was 
 later continued by workers who became equally 
 skilled, and of a large number of the tablets trans- 
 lations have been put into print. During the past 
 ten years, a great development has been given to 
 
Chaldea 7 
 
 the collecting and deciphering of the tablets by the 
 labors of such scholars as Dieulafoy, Fritz Hommel, 
 John P. Peters, and others. 
 
 Smith had found specimens of Chaldean literature 
 in such departments as agriculture, irrigation, astrol- 
 ogy, the science of government, the art of war, 
 prayers and invocations to the gods, and above all 
 and most frequent, records of campaigns. There 
 were also a few tablets which appeared to be examples 
 of children's primers and children's scribbling. As 
 far as it was practicable to judge from those frag- 
 ments that have been preserved of the literature of 
 the nation, the several works had for the most part 
 been prepared under the instructions and often ap- 
 parently for the special use of successive monarchs 
 or of the rulers of provinces. These books existed, 
 therefore, in strictly " limited editions," comprising 
 either single copies or but two or three copies for the 
 royal residences. The writers were apparently for 
 the most part officials in the public service and 
 often members of the royal household. On the 
 campaigns, the king, or the commander who took 
 the place of the king, appears to have been accom- 
 panied by scribes, who were expected to keep note 
 of the number of cities taken, the enemies slain, and 
 the prisoners captured, and of the amount of the 
 
Authors and Their Public 
 
 spoils appropriated, and the records of campaign tri- 
 umphs form by far the largest portion of the litera- 
 ture discovered. These campaign narratives finally 
 came to take the shape of annual records, often 
 beginning with the formula "and when the spring- 
 time came, the time when kings go out to war." 
 
 The next largest division of the Chaldean litera- 
 ture is made up of invocations to the gods, narratives 
 of the doings of the gods, and prayers and psalms. 
 Many of these last bear a very close family resem- 
 blance to the war psalms of the Hebrews, the com- 
 position of which took place ten or twelve hundred 
 years later. This religious literature was the work 
 of the priests whose annual stipends came from the 
 royal treasury, augmented probably by the offerings 
 of the faithful. Remains of these priestly libraries 
 were discovered by Layard and Smith in the ruins 
 of Agade, Sippar, and Cutha. 
 
 In the records that have come down to us, there 
 is absolutely no trace of compensation being paid for 
 the different classes of literary undertakings except 
 in the shape of annual stipends to the writers, whose 
 work included other services besides their literary 
 labors, although it is, of course, probable that special 
 gifts may have been given from time to time for 
 exceptionally eloquent and satisfactory accounts of 
 
Chaldea 9 
 
 successful campaigns. Whatever property existed 
 in these productions must, therefore, have been 
 vested in the king, but this hardly constituted a dis- 
 tinctive feature of literary property, as the kings 
 claimed and exercised a complete control over all 
 the property and all the lives within their realms. 
 
 The earliest specimen of Chaldean literature which 
 has as yet been discovered, and which is probably 
 the oldest example. of writing at present known, is 
 given on a tablet of baked clay now in the British 
 Museum. This tablet was made up by George Smith 
 out of a mass of scattered fragments which had been 
 brought from the Assyrian mounds. In going over 
 the collection of inscribed tiles. Smith came across a 
 small fragment the inscription on which evidently 
 referred to the Flood, and in the course of his own 
 three sojourns in Mesopotamia he was fortunate 
 enough, after many months of patient labor, to find 
 a large portion of the fragments required to com- 
 plete the tablet and to give the main portion of the 
 narrative. Such success could hardly have been 
 possible if the royal library of Nineveh had not con- 
 tained several copies of the Flood tablet, as was 
 evinced by the finding of duplicates or triplicates of 
 certain of the portions. The tablet, as now put to- 
 gether, comprises eighteen pieces, and presents, not- 
 
lo Authors and Their PubHc 
 
 withstanding a number of gaps, a fairly complete 
 account of the Flood. The incidents are so far 
 paralleled by those given in the Genesis narrative, 
 that it is evident either that the two scribes derived 
 their information from the same sources, or that the 
 Hebrew story has been based upon the Chaldean 
 record. According to Lenormant, Smith, and Hom- 
 mel, the former was inscribed about 4000 B.C., in that 
 case ante-dating by more than two thousand years 
 the actual writing of the Book of Genesis. Ragozin 
 speaks of " the ancestors of the Hebrews, during 
 their long sojourn in the land of Shinar, having be- 
 come familiar with the legends and stories contained 
 in the collection of the Assyrian priests, and after 
 working these over after their own superior religious 
 lights, having shaped from them the narrative which 
 was written down many centuries later as part of the 
 Book of Genesis." ' 
 
 Egypt. — The literature of Egypt probably ranks 
 next to that of Chaldea in point of antiquity. In 
 fact, not a few of the archsologists have contended 
 that the civilization of Egypt was of still earlier de- 
 velopment than that of the countries of Mesopotamia 
 or of any other portion of the world. 
 
 ' Story of Chaldea, 260. 
 
Egypt 1 1 
 
 The earliest Egyptian writings were, with few ex- 
 ceptions, theological in their character and appear 
 to have originated in the temples. First among the 
 authors of Egypt stands, according to tradition, 
 Thoth-Hermes, the ibis-headed god of wisdom and 
 of literature, the " Lord of the Hall of Books." His 
 companion is the beautiful Ma, goddess of truth and 
 justice, a very proper associate for the founder of a 
 nation's literature. 
 
 By later generations, Thoth-Hermes came to be 
 known as Hermes Trismegistus, the god of threefold 
 greatness or majesty. The forty-two works, the 
 authorship of which is ascribed to Thoth or Trisme- 
 gistus, formed, according to Karpeles, a kind of 
 national encyclopaedia, presenting the canon of the 
 faith and the knowledge of ancient Egypt. 
 
 Of these so-called Hermetic books, only portions 
 appear to have remained in existence with the begin- 
 nings of the historic period, but of these portions 
 certain fragments have been preserved for the inspec- 
 tion of scholars of to-day. In the examination in 
 1892 of some newly discovered tombs, papyri were 
 found which proved to contain religious writings 
 based upon the Hermetic books, and which were 
 themselves the work of scribes writing during the 4th 
 dynasty, 3733-3566 B.C. 
 
12 Authors and Their Public 
 
 The founder of the 4th dynasty was Khufa, better 
 known as Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid, 
 who is also ranked as an author, and to whose reign 
 belongs the first record of the famous Book of the 
 Dead. This Book of the Dead consisted of in- 
 vocations to the deities, psalms, prayers, and the 
 descriptions of the experiences that awaited the 
 spirit of the departed in the world to come, experi- 
 ences that included an exhaustive analysis of his 
 past life and his final judgment for the life hereafter. 
 The Egyptian title of the book was, according to 
 Karpeles, The Manifestation to the Light, that is, the 
 book revealing the light. Rawlinson specifies for it 
 another name. To Go Forth from Day. Portions of 
 the book of the dead are said to have been written 
 by Thoth, and other portions are spoken of as " the 
 composition of a great god." These belonged to 
 what might be called the permanent part of the text 
 or Ritual. Other divisions or pages containing 
 special references to the deceased would, of course, 
 be distinctive in each case. The copies prepared for 
 any particular funeral were more or less comprehen- 
 sive in their matter and more or less elaborate and 
 costly in their form according to the wealth and im- 
 portance of the departed, and according also to the 
 probable buying capacities of the mourners. The 
 
Egypt 13 
 
 material written upon was always papyrus, while for 
 the covers, tinted or stained sheepskin was used. 
 One copy of the book was always placed in the 
 tomb, as a safe-conduct for the pilgrim soul on its 
 journey through Amend (Hades), and for its guidance 
 in the world to come. This practice has secured 
 the preservation in the tombs of a great number of 
 copies of the Book of the Dead, more than one 
 half of the existing papyri being transcripts of 
 different portions of its text. The Book of the 
 Dead enjoys the distinction of being the first 
 literature of the regular sale of which there is any 
 evidence. The undertaker, acting probably under 
 the instructions of the priests, made a business of 
 disposing of copies of the " book " among the 
 mourners and friends of the deceased, for whom it 
 served as a memorial of the departed. The Egyptian 
 undertaker, distributing in this manner from a period 
 three thousand years or more before the Christian 
 era, authorized or authenticated copies of the sacred 
 scriptures, accompanied in some cases by memorial 
 pages concerning the deceased, must take rank as 
 the first bookseller known to history. I speak of 
 authenticated copies, for it is probable that the 
 authorized text of the scriptures was kept in the 
 temples or in the colleges of the priests, and that 
 
14 Authors and Their Public 
 
 the copies were prepared by the priests themselves 
 or by scribes working under their supervision and 
 direction. In this case the proceeds of the sales 
 were doubtless divided between the priests and the 
 undertakers, and the priests' portion may to some 
 extent have found its way into the treasury of the 
 temple. The scribes employed were sometimes as- 
 sistants or students attached to the temple, but not 
 infrequently slaves, although later the work of scribes 
 came to be regarded as honorable and as semi-pro- 
 fessional in its character, and some among them 
 held high stations. The control exercised by the 
 priests over the authorized texts of their sacred scrip- 
 tures, including certain writings in addition to those 
 belonging to the ritual of the dead, must have given 
 to them a practical copyright of the material. The 
 most complete copy of the Book of the Dead, ranking 
 as one of the oldest works of literature in the world, 
 is now in the British Museum. A small edition has 
 been printed under the editorship of Mr. Budge, in 
 precise fac-simile. 
 
 Apart from the Book of the Dead, the oldest book 
 of which there is record in the literature of Egypt, 
 and one of the oldest in the known literature of the 
 world, is a collection of Precepts, bearing the name 
 of Ptah-Hotep. Their author was a viceroy or 
 
Egypt 15 
 
 governor of Egypt, and was a younger son of Assa, 
 the seventh king of the Sth dynasty, whose reign 
 began 3366 B.C. The Prisse papyrus, discovered at 
 Thebes in 1856, and now in the Bibhothfeque Na- 
 tionale in Paris, is said by its discoverer, Chabas, to 
 be the oldest papyrus in existence, and to have been 
 written about 2500 B.C.' This papyrus contains a 
 copy of these Precepts of Ptah-Hotep, which have 
 apparently retained their interest for Egyptian 
 readers for nearly nine centuries, and which now, 
 more than five thousand years after their first publi- 
 cation, have been issued, for the benefit of modern 
 readers, in French and English versions. 
 
 The Precepts are characterized by simplicity, 
 directness, high-mindedness, great refinement of 
 nature, and a keen sense of humor, and they give to 
 the reader a very pleasant impression of their noble 
 author. The great importance laid by Ptah-Hotep 
 upon courtesy of manner and of action recall to 
 mind Lord Chesterfield, but the courtly Egyptian 
 had a heart and convictions. English and American 
 readers are under obligations to the Rev. H. D. 
 Rawnsley not only for placing before them this 
 antique and distinctively interesting production, but 
 also for his excellent metrical versions of some of 
 
 ' Revue Archceol.^ I §5 7* 
 
1 6 Authors and Their Public 
 
 the representative hymns of Ancient Egypt.' The 
 original translation from the papyrus of the Precepts 
 was made by P. Virey for Records of the Past. It 
 is Virey's impression that the Precepts were in part 
 original with the Viceroy, and in part collected by 
 him from older sources. In reading these pithy 
 words of wise counsel of the shrewd and kindly old 
 Egyptian, one naturally recalls the proverbs ascribed 
 to King Solomon, the sayings of Confucius, and 
 certain of the utterances of Socrates. I do not 
 mean that Ptah-Hotep, on the strength of the frag- 
 mentary utterances that have come down to us, is 
 to be ranked with these great teachers, but that it is 
 interesting to note how early in literature favor was 
 found for the form of expressing opinions, or of 
 giving counsel in the form of maxims or proverbs. 
 The proverbs of Solomon are said to have been 
 written about looo B.C. The conversations of Con- 
 fucius were held about Joo years later, and the 
 utterances of Socrates were closed with his death, 
 401 B.C. 
 
 Rawnsley gives, among other renderings, metrical 
 versions of the following specimens of early Egyptian 
 poetry: "A Festal Dirge of King Antef," 2533- 
 2466 B.C. ; "The Song of the Harper," about 1700; 
 
 ' Rawnsley, Notes for the Nile. London and New York, 1892. 
 
Egypt 1 7 
 
 "Hymn to Pharaoh," about 1400; "Dirge of 
 Meneptah," about 1333 ; " Hymn to Amen Ra," 
 about 1300; "Hymn to the Nile," about 1300; 
 " Lamentations of Isis and Nepathys," about 320 ; 
 " The Poem of Penta-on on the Exploits of Rameses 
 II.," written in 1326 B.C. The last-mentioned is inter- 
 esting as being almost the sole example of an 
 Egyptian epic. It is not clear whether Penta-on 
 won his position as court poet-laureate by the pro- 
 duction of this poem, or whether, being already 
 laureate, the epic was written as one of his official 
 compositions. Under the instructions of the king, 
 however, whose exploits it commemorated, the poem 
 was made a national epic, and copies of it appear to 
 have been officially distributed throughout the king- 
 dom. The reign of Rameses, which covered the 
 years 1350-1300B.C., marked, according to Rawlinson 
 and Karpeles, the culmination of a period which was 
 important not only for success in war, but for 
 literary production. Under Rameses, literary activ- 
 ity, no longer confined to the temple, was in part at 
 least transferred to the court. He collected about 
 him scholars and philosophers, and gave great re- 
 wards for successful literary efforts. The approval 
 given by royalty to Penta-on's poem doubtless 
 secured for the author much better results than 
 
Authors and Their Public 
 
 would have come to him through the royalty en- 
 joyed under the modern literary system. 
 
 The king took pride in the great library which had 
 been brought together under his instructions. Over 
 the entrance to the great hall of the library was 
 engraved the inscription, " A place of healing for the 
 soul." 
 
 By some historians, Rameses II., this king of a 
 long reign and of great exploits, the patron of liter- 
 ature, whose massive and well-preserved figure has 
 only recently been disentombed, has been identified 
 with the Pharaoh of the Exodus. I believe, how- 
 ever, that the better authorities have decided that 
 the Exodus took place under the Pharaoh who was 
 the son of the great Rameses. 
 
 Rawlinson speaks of the Egyptians as possessing 
 at a very early date an " extensive literature, com- 
 prising books on religion, morals, law, rhetoric, 
 arithmetic, mensuration, geometry, medicine, books 
 of travel, and above all, novels ! " He says further, 
 however, that, as far as can be judged from the 
 specimens which have been preserved, " the merit of 
 the works is slight. The novels are vapid, the medi- 
 cal treatises interlarded with charms and exorcisms, 
 the travels devoid of interest, the general style of all 
 the books forced and stilted." 
 
Egypt 19 
 
 Rawlinson adds that, while "intellectually the 
 Egyptians must take rank among the foremost 
 nations of remote antiquity, they cannot compare 
 with the great European races whose rise was later, 
 the Greeks and Romans. . . . Egypt may in some 
 particulars have stimulated Greek thought, directing 
 it in new lines, and giving it a basis to work upon ; 
 but otherwise it cannot be said that the world owes 
 much of its intellectual progress to this people, 
 about whose literary productions there is always 
 something that is weak and childish." ' 
 
 On the other hand, the long list of distinguished 
 Greeks who sought learning in Egypt shows the 
 respect in which Egyptian culture was held. In the 
 list of the subjects considered in Egyptian literature, 
 Rawlinson appears also to have overlooked astrono- 
 my, in which the investigations of Egyptian scholars 
 were certainly of the first importance. Notwith- 
 standing the production of a very considerable body 
 of literature, there appears to be no evidence of any 
 compensation being secured by the authors, or of 
 literary productions taking shape as property. The 
 scribes, who did the copying, must of course have 
 been paid, for the Egyptians were probably not able, 
 as were later the Romans, to secure the labor of 
 
 '^Ancient Egypt, American edition, i., 106, 107. 
 
20 Authors and Their Public 
 
 skilled and educated slaves. These scribes were for 
 the most part natives and freemen, and they came 
 to form a very important class, in which class the most 
 important were those engaged in what might be called 
 the civil service of the government. Of payment to 
 the authors, however, there is no trace, and they must 
 have written solely for their own satisfaction or for 
 hopes of favor. There is also nothing to inform us 
 of the manner in which the copies of the books which 
 had been " manifolded " were distributed amongst 
 the readers, and we can only conjecture the existence 
 of collections or libraries from which the books 
 could be borrowed, or a practice on the part of the 
 wealthy writers (a practice not unknown in modern 
 times) of a wide distribution of presentation copies 
 to friends whose appreciation was hoped for. 
 
 The royal library of Rameses contained, says 
 Karpeles, works under such headings as annals, 
 sacred poetry, royal poetry {i. e., poetry addressed to 
 the king), travels, works on agriculture, irrigation, 
 and astronomy, correspondence and fiction. 
 
 Rawlinson speaks of some characteristic tales 
 which were preserved from generation to generation, 
 such as the Tale of the Two Brothers (charmingly 
 narrated by the late Amelia B. Edwards), The 
 Doomed Prince, The Possessed Princesses, etc. He 
 
China 21 
 
 also refers to collections of correspondence appar- 
 ently preserved to serve as models or patterns, after 
 the fashion of the " complete letter-writers " of to- 
 day. 
 
 Karpeles points out that the early Egyptian 
 literature was particularly rich in folk-tales, or 
 Mdrchen. It is possible that in Egypt, as in Greece 
 and Persia, the folk-tales as well as the folk-songs, 
 and such an occasional epic as the Poem of Penta-on, 
 were recited to the people by peripatetic reciters or 
 rhapsodists. There are references to such recitations 
 taking place at court and at the banquets of the 
 rich. 
 
 It would have been interesting if it had occurred 
 to some Hebrew scribe, endowed with a sense of 
 humor, to send for the royal library in Thebes, as a 
 remembrance of the guests who had gone out of 
 Egypt, an Egyptian rendering of the Book of Ex- 
 odus, or even of the Song of Miriam. 
 
 China. — The dates of the beginnings of literature 
 in China are uncertain. If we could accept as au- 
 thentic the claims of the Chinese historians, the 
 origins of their civilization must be traced back to a 
 period antedating by thousands of years the accepted 
 
22 Authors and Their Public 
 
 records of Chaldea and Egypt. It is, however, I 
 understand, the present conclusion of the archaeolo- 
 gists that the beginnings of the development of the 
 civilization of the Chinese, as also of that of the 
 East Indian peoples, are to be placed at a time con- 
 siderably later than the date of the earliest records 
 of the peoples of Mesopotamia. According to cer- 
 tain authorities, written characters existed in China 
 as early as 5000 B.C. According to others, they first 
 took shape more than a thousand years later. The 
 Emperor Fu-hi, reigning about 3500 years before 
 Christ, is credited with the invention of the Chinese 
 alphabet. As the Emperor was walking near his 
 palace, possibly musing on the inconveniences of 
 ruling a country without an alphabet, his attention 
 was attracted by the beautiful markings of a very 
 large toad that he encountered. He took the beast 
 home with him, and (under the guidance of the 
 proper deity) evolved from the designs on the toad's 
 back the figures of the original Chinese characters. 
 He very probably said to himself (paraphrasing the 
 old nursery saying), "It looks like an alphabet, 
 and it hops like an alphabet, why not call it an 
 alphabet ? " One can imagine a scholar in later 
 years, puzzling over the lengthy series of Chinese 
 characters, wishing that his Imperial Highness had 
 
China 23 
 
 happened to meet a smaller or a less variegated 
 toad. 
 
 About the year 3000 B.C., the Emperor Hoang-ti 
 is said to have invented the decimal system and the 
 measurement of time, and also to have completed 
 the organization of the Empire. If this date is to be 
 relied upon, the organization of the Chinese State 
 was taking shape about eight centuries after the 
 time of the great Sargon of Agade, who brought to 
 its highest power the earlier Chaldean empire. The 
 national ballads or folk-songs, later collected under 
 the title of the Book of Odes, are believed by Legge 
 to antedate the Empire — that is, to have come into 
 circulation while the territory was still separated into 
 a number of independent states or principalities. 
 These folk-songs were collected by the minstrels and 
 historiographers working under the direction of the 
 feudatory princes, and the complete collection, when 
 reshaped by Confucius, is said to have comprised as 
 many as three thousand songs. The writer of the 
 article on China in the EncyclopcBdia Britannica 
 (9th edition) speaks of the collection as probably 
 antedating any other known work of literature. 
 The folk-songs themselves certainly existed from a 
 very early date, but, according to Karpeles, the 
 collection did not take the form of a book until 
 
24 Authors and Their Public 
 
 after locx) B.C. Karpeles believes that the earliest 
 known work in Chinese literature is the Y-king, the 
 Book of the Metamorphoses, or of Developments, which 
 dates from 1 1 50 B.C., about two centuries earlier than 
 the generally accepted date of the Homeric poems. 
 The author, Wang-wang, having been put into prison 
 for some political offence, employed his enforced 
 leisure in working out a philosophical system based 
 upon the maxims of the Emperor Fu-hi.' 
 
 The Book of the Developments continued in high 
 honor for many centuries, and early in the fifth 
 century B.C. was reissued by Confucius, with an 
 elaborate analysis and commentary, serving to make 
 its teachings available for later generations. He 
 also issued a " final edition " of the Book of Songs, 
 which comprised, out of the three thousand of the 
 old collection, the three hundred which were best 
 worth preservation. Confucius takes rank in China 
 as practically the founder of its literature, of its 
 system of morals, and of its religious ideal or stand- 
 ard. The name Confucius is the Latinized form of 
 Kung Fu-tsze — Kung, the teacher or master. He 
 was free, says one of his disciples, from four things : 
 foregone conclusions, arbitrary determinations, ob- 
 stinacy, and egoism. A good American of the 
 
 ' Karpeles, Gesch. der Lilt, lies Orient., i., lo. 
 
China 25 
 
 present time may express the regret that Confucius, 
 or some disciples like him, had not been spared to 
 occupy seats in the Senate Chamber at Washington. 
 
 What is known as the religion of Confucius, com- 
 prises in substance the old-time national or popular 
 faith freshly interpreted into the thought and lan- 
 guage of the later generation, and shaped into a 
 practical system of morals as a guide for the action 
 of the state and for the daily life of the individual 
 citizen. 
 
 It is interesting to compare the different forms 
 taken by the earliest literary traditions of the dif- 
 ferent peoples of antiquity. The Greek brings to 
 us as the corner-stone of his literature and of his 
 beliefs, the typical epics, the Iliads and the Odyssey ; 
 poems of action and prowess, commemorating the 
 great deeds of the ancestors, and describing the days 
 when men were heroes, and heroes were fit com- 
 panions and worthy antagonists for the gods them- 
 selves. 
 
 The imagination of the East Indian has evolved a 
 series of gorgeous and grotesque dreams, in which 
 all conditions of time and space appear to be obht- 
 erated, and in which the universe is pictured as it 
 might appear in the visions of the smoker of ha- 
 schisch. It is difficult to gather from these wild 
 
26 Authors and Their Public 
 
 fancies of the earlier Indian poets (and the earlier 
 writers were essentially poets) any trustworthy data 
 concerning the history of the past, or any practical 
 instruction by which to guide the life of the present. 
 The present is but a tiny point, between the im- 
 measurable aeons of the past and the nirvana of the 
 future, and seems to have been thought hardly 
 worthy the attention of thinking beings. 
 
 The Egyptian literary idea has apparently been 
 thought out in the temple, and it is from the priests 
 that the people receive the record of the doings of 
 its gods and of the immeasurable dynasties of mon- 
 archs selected by the gods to express their will, 
 while it is also to the priests that the people must 
 look for instruction concerning the duty of the 
 present. 
 
 The Assyrian records read, on the other hand, as 
 if they were the work of royal scribes, writing under 
 the direct supervision of the kings themselves. The 
 gods are described, and their varied relations to the 
 world below are duly set forth. But the emphasis 
 of the narrative appears to be given to the glory and 
 the achievements of such great monarchs as Sargon 
 and Asshurbanipal, as if a long line of scribes, writing 
 directly for the king's approval, had continued the 
 chronicles from reign to reign. 
 
China 27 
 
 The early literary and religious ideals of China 
 took a very different form. We find here no priestly 
 autocracy, controlling all intellectual activities and 
 giving a revelation as to the nature of the universe, 
 the requirements of the gods, and the obligations of 
 men, obligations which have never failed to include 
 the strictest obedience to the behests of the priests, 
 the representatives of the gods. There are no court 
 chronicles, dictated under royal supervision, and de- 
 voted not to the needs of the people, but to the 
 glorious achievements of the monarchs. Nor is 
 there any great epic, commemorating the deeds of 
 heroes and demi-gods. In place of these we find 
 what may be called a practical system of applied 
 ethics. Confucius was evidently neither a visionary 
 dreamer nor a poet, nor did he undertake to estab- 
 lish any priestly or theological authority for his 
 teaching. He gives the impression of having been 
 an exceptionally clear-headed and capable thinker, 
 who devoted himself, somewhat as Socrates did a 
 century later, to studying out the problems affecting 
 the life of the state and of the individual. With Soc- 
 rates, however, the chief thing appears to have been 
 the intellectual interest of the problem, while with 
 Confucius, the controlling purpose was evidently the 
 welfare of his fellow-men. It was his aim, as he 
 
28 Authors and Their Pubhc 
 
 himself expressed it, through a rewriting of the wise 
 teachings left us by our ancestors, so as to adapt 
 them to the understanding of the present generation, 
 to guide men to wise and wholesome lives, and to 
 prepare them for a better future." 
 
 The work of Confucius stands as the foundation- 
 stone of the literature, the morals, and the state- 
 craft of China. It was continued by such writers as 
 Mencius, 350 B.C., and Tsengtze, 320 B.C. 
 
 The works of the earlier authors secured, we are 
 told, an immediate circulation, but we have no knowl- 
 edge as to the methods employed for their distribu- 
 tion. It seems probable that in the earlier as in 
 the later centuries, the authors whose works found 
 approval with the authorities received directly from 
 the state compensation for their literary and philo- 
 sophic labors. 
 
 The material used for the earliest known writings 
 was made from bamboo fibre, and was prepared in 
 the shape of tablets. Early in the third century B.C. 
 (curiously enough, during the reign of Hwang-ti, the 
 destroyer of literature), brushes were invented, with 
 which characters could be traced upon silk. The 
 bamboo was either scratched upon with a sharp 
 stylus, or the characters were painted upon it with a 
 
 ' Karpeles, i., 11. 
 
China 29 
 
 dark varnish. Sometimes also the characters were 
 burned into the bamboo, with a heated metal 
 stylus. India ink was first used in the seventh 
 century. The invention of paper took place about 
 100 B.C., the first material utilized for the manufac- 
 ture being bark, fishing-nets, and rags. Printing, 
 from solid blocks was done as early as the first cen- 
 tury A.D. The invention of the art of printing from 
 movable type is credited to a blacksmith named Pi- 
 Shing. The blacksmith's first books were turned out 
 towards the close of the tenth century A.D., or early 
 in the eleventh century, more than three centuries 
 before the presses of Gutenberg began their work in 
 Mayence. 
 
 The movable type used by Pi-Shing were made of 
 plastic clay. At the same time, or shortly there- 
 after, porcelain type were utilized. The printing 
 from movable type never seems to have developed 
 to such extent as to supersede block printing. The 
 Emperor Kang-He had engraved about two hundred 
 and fifty thousand copper type, which were used for 
 printing the publications of the government. These 
 type were afterwards melted for use as cash, but were 
 replaced by his grandson with type made from lead.' 
 
 There is record of books being printed in Corea 
 ' Middle Kingdom, i., p. 603. 
 
30 Authors and Their Public 
 
 (at that time a province of the Empire) from mov- 
 able clay type, as early as 13 17 A.D.' 
 
 Literature has always been an honored profession 
 in China, and seems even in the earliest times to 
 have attracted a larger proportion of workers than, 
 during the same period, were engaged in literary 
 pursuits in any other countries in the world. The 
 mass of literature was very much added to after the 
 introduction of Buddhism into the country, which 
 took place during the first century of the Christian 
 era. Karpeles states that a selection of the early 
 Chinese classics, with commentaries, undertaken 
 under the direction of one of the emperors in the 
 eighteenth century, would, it was calculated, com- 
 prise when completed, 163,000 volumes. By the 
 year 181 8, there had been published of the series, 
 78,731 volumes." From this enormous mass of ma- 
 terial a few books only stand out as possessing dis- 
 tinctive importance by reason of their influence on 
 the thought and the life of many generations. 
 
 There are the five King and the four Schu, or 
 "books." The term " king" means literally a web, 
 a thing woven, or fabricated. Its use in this connec- 
 tion recalls the rkapsos of the Greek rhapsodists, a 
 term which, originally meaning a thing spun or a 
 
 > Encyclopo'dia Britannica, article " China," ' Karpeles, i., 13. 
 
China 31 
 
 yarn, came also to stand for a literary production of 
 a certain class, a "yarn " that could be recited. The 
 five King were the " webs " or productions of wise 
 and holy writers, but the names of these writers 
 have not been preserved, even as a tradition. The 
 first in order is the Y-king, already mentioned, the 
 Book of the Developments, 'w\m^ is much the oldest 
 in the series. The second is the Schu-king or Book of 
 Chronicles, which begins its narrative with the time 
 of Noah, and gives the record of the dynasties from 
 24CX) to 721 B.C. In addition to the historical chron- 
 icles, the Schu-king zovi\.^\n?,, in the form of dialogues 
 between the emperors and the councillors, the in- 
 struction in the principles of state-craft, in philosophy, 
 in the science of war, in music, in astronomy, and in 
 general culture. The headings of some of the chap- 
 ters recall the matters treated in The Prince of 
 Machiavelli. The following " royal maxims " do 
 not, however, sound Machiavellian :" Virtue," says 
 the great councillor Yih, speaking to this Emperor, 
 " is the foundation of your realm " ; " The ruler must 
 lead his people in the paths of virtue " ; " Guard your- 
 self from false shame, and if you have committed an 
 error, hasten to make frank acknowledgment of the 
 same. Otherwise you will mislead your subjects."' 
 ' Karpeles, i., I2. 
 
32 Authors and Their Public 
 
 The third of the canonical books is the Schi-king 
 or Book of Songs, aheady referred to. This presents 
 the selection made by Confucius of the hymns, 
 ballads, and folk-songs collected from the earliest 
 generations. The fourth is the Tschurutshien, or 
 Spring and Autumn Year-Book, which, is ascribed to 
 Confucius. It is a brief chronicle of events covering 
 a space of 240 years. The fifth is the Li-kt, or Book 
 of Ritual, or of Conduct. This gives detailed instruc- 
 tions concerning the proper ceremonials for all events 
 of life, from the cradle to the grave. 
 
 With these classics should be grouped certain 
 books prepared by the followers of Confucius, the 
 most important of which, the Liin-yil, or Conversa- 
 tions, is a record of the instruction given by Confucius 
 to his pupils in the form of talks. In these conver- 
 sations we find questions shaped in a method quite 
 Socratic. With this should be grouped the Mengtsze, 
 the record of the work of the philosopher Mencius. 
 His instruction seems, like that of his great fore- 
 runner, to have been very practical in its character. 
 Associated with the earlier teachings of Confucius, 
 the instruction of Mencius was accepted as the basis 
 of the moral and the educational system of the 
 nation. 
 
 The enormous respect which the Chinese have 
 
China 33 
 
 given to the works produced during their classical 
 period is believed by authorities like Williams and 
 Wade to have exercised an influence on the whole 
 detrimental to the development and to the originality 
 of their later literature. 
 
 The first active literary period preceded Confucius, 
 500 B.C. From this period have been preserved the 
 classics already referred to. The next important 
 epoch is that of the " interpreters," the counsellors 
 and the lawgivers, extending from Confucius to 
 Mencius, 350 B.C. They were followed by a long 
 line of annalists and commentators, whose work 
 came to an abrupt close with the reign of the Em- 
 peror Che Hwang-ti, 221-226 B.C. Hwang-ti was 
 evidently a man with opinions of his own. He ob- 
 jected to what seemed to him an exaggerated and 
 mischievous reverence for the " good old times," and 
 he proposed to discourage the laudator temporis acti. 
 He issued an edict directing all books to be burned 
 excepting those treating of medicine, divination, and 
 husbandry. This index expurgatorius (possibly the 
 earliest in history) included all the writings of Con- 
 fucius and Mencius, comprising both their original 
 work and their compilations and editions of the 
 earlier classics. It was further ordered that any one 
 who dared to mention the Book of History or the Book 
 
34 Authors and Their Public 
 
 of Odes should be put to death. Any one possessing, 
 thirty days after the issue of the edict, a copy of the 
 books ordered destroyed, was to be branded and put 
 to labor for four years upon the great wall. This is 
 probably the most drastic and comprehensive policy 
 for the suppression of a literature that the world has 
 ever seen. Fortunately, like similar attempts in later 
 centuries, it was only partially successful. While the 
 destruction of books was enormous, and while, of 
 long lists of works, it is probable that all existing 
 copies actually did disappear, the texts of the most 
 important, including the specially obnoxious Book of 
 History and Book of Songs, were preserved. Accord- 
 ing to one tradition, a large number of the songs 
 were saved only by having been retained in the 
 memory of public reciters and their hearers. After 
 the death of the Emperor Che, the text of these was 
 taken down and again committed to writing. This 
 instance is, one recalls, fully in line with the methods 
 by which in Greece, before the general use of writing, 
 the earlier classics were preserved in the memories 
 of the rhapsodists and their hearers. 
 
 It is the opinion of Dr. Williams that the com- 
 mand of the Emperor Tsin for the destruction of all 
 books was so thoroughly executed that " of many 
 classical works not a single copy escaped destruction. 
 
China 35 
 
 The books were, however, recovered in great part by 
 rewriting them from the memories of old scholars. 
 . . . If the same literary tragedy should be en- 
 acted to-day, thousands of persons might easily be 
 found in China who could rewrite from memory 
 the text and the commentary of their nine classical 
 works." 
 
 Williams is also my authority for the statement 
 that not only were the books destroyed as far as 
 copies could be found, but that nearly five hundred 
 literati were burned alive, in order that no one 
 might remain to reproach in his writings the em- 
 peror for the commission of so barbarous an act.' 
 
 One of the most celebrated female writers in China 
 was Pan Whui-pan, also known as Pan Chao, the 
 sister of the historian Pan Ku, who wrote the history 
 of the Han dynasty. She was appointed histori- 
 ographer after the death of her brother, and com- 
 pleted, about A.D. 80, his unfinished annals. A little 
 later she wrote the first work in any language on 
 female education, which was called Nil Kiai or 
 Female Precepts, and which has formed the basis of 
 many succeeding books on female education. In 
 the writings of this and of other Chinese authoresses, 
 instructions in morals and in the various branches 
 
 ' Middle Kingdom, i., 600. 
 
36 Authors and Their Public 
 
 of domestic economy are insisted upon as the first 
 essentials in the education of women, and as more 
 important than a knowledge of the classics or of 
 the annals.' 
 
 1050 A.D. Wang Pih-ho, of the Sung dynasty, 
 compiled for his private school a horn-book or 
 manual of education, entitled the San-tsz' King. 
 The manual is interesting not merely as giving a 
 general study of the nature of man and the exist- 
 ence of modes of education, but because it includes 
 a list of books recommended for the student, a list 
 which gives an impression of the extent of the edu- 
 cation and literature of that date." 
 
 The golden age of Chinese literary production is 
 fixed by Sir Thomas Wade at the period of the 
 Tang dynasty, 620-907 A.D. In 922 A.D. an edition 
 of the classical writers was printed and published 
 under the instructions of the Emperor. The tendency 
 of writers since the tenth century has been to de- 
 vote their energies to commentaries on the ancient 
 works, and to analyses and interpretations of these 
 rather than to original production. The writing of 
 historical annals has, however, gone on with great 
 regularity, and the series of Chronicles of the Kingdom 
 is very comprehensive in its completeness. 
 
 ' Middle Kingdom, i., 574. ''■ Middle Kingdom, i., 526. 
 
China 37 
 
 The rewards of authors are given in the shape of 
 ofificial appointments and preferments, and of honors 
 and honorariums bestowed directly by the state. It 
 seems probable that in modern as in ancient times 
 the writers of China could look for no direct returns 
 from the circulation of their productions. It is never- 
 theless the case that from the time of Confucius to 
 the present day, that is for a period of two thousand 
 four hundred years, the direct influence of scholars, 
 thinkers, and writers has been greater in China than 
 in any other part of the world. The state as a whole 
 and the individual citizen, from the Emperor down, 
 have, as a rule, been ready to recognize and accept 
 the authority and the guidance of literary ideals 
 and of intellectual standards. The case would be 
 paralleled if the French Academy had existed from 
 the time of Charlemagne to the present day, if the 
 counsellors and rulers of the state had always been 
 appointed from the forty, and if the remaining offi- 
 cials of all grades had been selected by competitive 
 examinations, instituted and supervised by the forty. 
 The parallel would not be complete, however, unless 
 the Academy of to-day were still basing its examina- 
 tions on the codex of Charlemagne. 
 
 The imperial government of China and the Chi- 
 nese community as a whole have for many cen- 
 
38 Authors and Their Public 
 
 turies, apparently ever since the time of the 
 boolc-burning Hwang-ti, rendered a larger measure 
 of honor (and also of direct reward as far as 
 this could be given by official station) to stu- 
 dents and scholars, than has been given by any 
 state in the history of the world. The literary 
 ideal and the literary productions, the study of 
 which has thus been honored, have, however, been in 
 the main those of a thousand years or more back. 
 The fact, says Legge, that the earlier literary period 
 was so fruitful, and that the works produced in it 
 have been held by later generations in so great 
 honor, is one cause why original or creative literary 
 productiveness has been discouraged, and why the 
 later literary activities continue in so large propor- 
 tion to take the shape of commentaries. It has also, 
 he thinks, been an important influence in keeping 
 the language in an inflexible and undeveloped con- 
 dition. It was the language of the fathers, and it 
 would be sacrilege to modify it. 
 
 Japan. — The civilization of Japan is an off- 
 shoot or development of that of China, and the 
 Japanese literature is based upon Chinese mod- 
 els and standards. The literary relation strikes 
 
Japan 39 
 
 one as in some respects similar to that which 
 existed between Great Britain and the American 
 Colonies, or later with the American States. 
 The literature of Japan is described, however, 
 as characterized by much more elasticity, vari- 
 ety, and creative originality than is possessed by 
 that of China, and in place of stereotyping itself 
 upon the models of old-time classics, it has shown 
 from century to century a wholesome power of de- 
 velopment. 
 
 At one time, says Karpeles, Japan possessed an 
 alphabet of its own, but later, the Chinese characters 
 were introduced, and were used together with the 
 older alphabet. It is only the very earliest writings 
 in which the Japanese characters alone are employed. 
 The Japanese scribes have from the beginning 
 worked with brushes rather than with pens, and in 
 so doing, have been able to utilize such substances 
 as silk, which would have been unsuitable for the 
 work of the pen. The invention of paper, however, 
 took place at an early date, possibly simultaneously 
 with its first use in China. Printing from blocks, 
 and later from type, was promptly introduced from 
 China early in our era. 
 
 According to the native chroniclers, the earliest 
 literary production of Japan was the work of the two 
 
40 Authors and Their Public 
 
 gods Izanaghi and Izanami. These gods, having 
 created the country, thought it was incomplete with- 
 out some poetry, and the poetry was therefore 
 added. Tsurayuki, a poet of the tenth century, 
 takes the ground that all true expression of feeling 
 is poetry. The nightingale sings in the wood, the 
 frog croaks in the pool ; each is giving utterance to 
 a feeling, and each, therefore, is pouring forth a 
 poem. There is no living being, he continues, who 
 is not a producer of poetry. (This is as startling to us 
 ordinary mortals as the discovery of Molifere's Mon- 
 sieur Jourdain that he had been talking prose all his 
 life without knowing it.) As poetry, says Tsuray- 
 uki, begins with the expression of feeling, it must 
 have come into existence with the beginning of crea- 
 tion.' In the earliest times, he says, when the gods 
 were poets, the arrangement of sounds into syllables 
 had not been made, and rhythm had not been in- 
 vented. These early divine poems or utterances of 
 the gods are, therefore, very difficult to understand. 
 Later, however, Susanoo-no-mikoto fixed sounds 
 into syllables, and then, according to the tenth-cen- 
 tury poet, Japanese literature had its actual begin- 
 ning, but he does not give us the date of this useful 
 piece of work. We are inclined to wonder what 
 
 ' Karpeles, i., 23. 
 
Japan 41 
 
 the wise Susanoo, etc., did about the announcing of 
 his own name, say on really formal occasions, before 
 the little matter of the invention of syllables had 
 been accomplished. 
 
 While it is claimed that from prehistoric times 
 there had been in Japan an active production and a 
 wide distribution of poetry (folk-songs), the first 
 collection of the " people's ballads " appears to have 
 been made as late as 700 a.d. At this time the 
 Emperor, whose residence was at Nara, took an in- 
 terest in literature, and during the quarter century 
 from 700 to 725 A.D. lived " the noble poet " 
 Yamabe-no-Akahito, and the " wise man of the 
 poets," Kakino-mo-to-Hito-Maro. (The god above 
 referred to, who bestowed upon Japan the invention 
 of syllables, seems to have done his work thoroughly.) 
 The compilation which took shape during this 
 period is known as the Man-yo-sin, or the " collec- 
 tion of ten thousand leaves." The two later collec- 
 tions are known as The Old and the Neiv Songs of 
 Japan, and The Hundred Poets. 
 
 A special feature in the literature of Japan is the 
 great number of poetesses. The fashion of women 
 interesting themselves in the writing of poetry was 
 initiated by the poetic Empress Soto-oro-ime, in the 
 third century A.D. 
 
42 Authors and Their Public 
 
 The great epic of Japanese literature is the Fei-ke- 
 mono-£^aiari, that is The Annals of the Fei-ke Dynasty, 
 which is said to have been composed in 1083 A.D., 
 and which was sung among the people by blind 
 rhapsodists. An epic of later date, in twelve books, 
 is credited to the poet Ikanage. The literary record 
 shows a long series of tales and romances, which are 
 described as possessing a graceful fancy and imagina- 
 tion much in advance of Chinese compositions of the 
 same class. 
 
 The theatre has from early times played a very 
 important part in the social life of Japan, and 
 dramatic composers are held in high honor. The 
 first dramas written for performance date from 
 about 807 A.D. The people of Japan have from the 
 early times of Japanese literature given cordial ap- 
 preciation to literary producers, and especially poets 
 and dramatists. The official recognition of literature 
 and of men of letters appears, however, to have been 
 much less distinctive and less important than in China. 
 We do not find record of official positions and prefer- 
 ments being bestowed on the ground of proficiency in 
 philosophy or literature, or by reason of a knowledge 
 of the learning of the past ; nor have the smaller 
 government places been distributed by competitive 
 examinations arranged for students of literature. 
 
India 43 
 
 The distribution of literature among the people 
 appears to have been from an early date very 
 general, and the knowledge of the great classics has 
 certainly been widespread. Of the methods by 
 which such distribution was accomplished in the 
 early centuries of literary production we know 
 nothing. It seems probable from certain references 
 by later authors, that in Japan, as in Greece, the 
 rhapsodists and reciters were the principal dis- 
 tributors. 
 
 Of rewards or compensations given to the earlier 
 Japanese authors there is no record. The national 
 treasury does not appear to have been utilized as in 
 China and Assyria. It is possible that the dramatists 
 may have secured some share of the stage receipts, 
 but it is probable that the other authors must have 
 contented themselves with such prestige or honors 
 as came to them from the readers of, or the listeners 
 to, their compositions. 
 
 India. — In India, the typical early Hterature is the 
 myth. There is no national epic in the Greek use 
 of the term, in which are described the doings of 
 heroic men. The literary productions are the work 
 of poets whose imagination has been impressed with 
 
44 Authors and Their Public 
 
 the immensity and with the mystery of the universe, 
 and whose poetic fancies take the form of visions. 
 These fancies or visions are concerned with the doings 
 of the gods, while man plays but a small part in the 
 narrative. 
 
 Sanscrit literature is said to date back to the 
 fifteenth century B.C. The written characters have 
 an origin common with that of the Greek letters. 
 The oldest existing monuments of Indian script are 
 the edicts of the King Acoka, cut into the stone at 
 Girnar and elsewhere " so that they might endure 
 for ever." They date back to the third century B.C. 
 
 The first literary period of India presents the 
 poetry of the Vedas, the sacred scriptures of the 
 Sanscrit peoples. The hymns and invocations com- 
 prising the Vedas are supposed to have been col- 
 lected about looo B.C. This is about a century 
 earlier than the date generally accepted for the 
 collecting of the Homeric poems, but corresponds 
 nearly with the time fixed for the writing of the 
 Chinese Book of the Metamorphoses. It also tallies 
 with the period to which is ascribed the production 
 of the Persian Zend-Avesta. 
 
 The term Veda means knowledge, or sacred knowl- 
 edge. The collection of the Vedas comprises four 
 divisions. The Rig-Veda, or Veda of Praises or 
 
India 45 
 
 Hymns; the Sama-Veda, or Veda of Chants or Tunes; 
 the Yajur- Veda, or Veda of Prayers ; and \he:Atharva- 
 Veda, or Brahma-Veda. 
 
 The second literary period, beginning about the 
 fifth century B.C., is that of the Folk-Songs, in which 
 the myth becomes legend, and the gods, approach- 
 ing a little closer to the earth, assume more nearly 
 the character of heroes. The third period is that of 
 the classic poets, whose productions in lyric and 
 dramatic poetry are ranked with the great works of 
 literature of the world. This period appears to have 
 reached its height of productiveness between the 
 sixth and tenth centuries of our era. 
 
 The earliest prose works are the theological writ- 
 ings of the Brahmanic priests, which take the form 
 of commentaries on the Vedas, and which elucidate 
 the sacred texts, principally from a sacrificial point 
 of view. The production of these theological com- 
 mentaries is supposed to date back to the seventh 
 or sixth century B.C. 
 
 Buddha, or Gautama, philosopher, poet, reformer, 
 and redeemer of his people, began his work towards 
 the close of the sixth century B.C. His teachings 
 gave rise to an enormous production of theological 
 literature in India, Ceylon, China, and Japan. 
 
 The information concerning the materials used by 
 
46 Authors and Their Public 
 
 the earlier writers of India, and as to the methods 
 by which their books were placed before the public, 
 is very meagre. According to Louisy, the use of 
 diphtherai, or dressed skins, prevailed to some extent. 
 Prepared palm-leaves were also utilized, particularly 
 by the Buddhist writers of Ceylon. There appears 
 to have been no general or popular circulation of 
 the manuscripts. These were costly, and were beyond 
 the means of any but the very wealthy, while it was 
 also the case that the knowledge of reading was con- 
 fined to but limited circles. 
 
 It seems probable that the manuscripts were in the 
 main prepared in the monasteries or temples, and 
 that they were exchanged between the temples. The 
 teachings of the writers were brought before the 
 people by preaching or recitations. Certain of the 
 princes also attached to their courts poets and phi- 
 losophers, and practically the only libraries or collec- 
 tions of manuscripts outside of those in the temples, 
 must have been those contained in the palaces of the 
 few princes who possessed literary tastes. 
 
 There could have been no other way of securing 
 for an author compensation for his work excepting 
 through princely favors or from the treasuries of the 
 temples. 
 
Persia 47 
 
 Persia. — The first name that comes down to us 
 connected with the literature of Persia is that of 
 Zoroaster. The Persian form of his name is Zara- 
 thustra, meaning the gold-star. The date of his 
 birth is said to be more uncertain than that of 
 Homer, but he is supposed to have lived about 
 1000 B.C. 
 
 He is credited with the authorship of the Gdthas, 
 hymns partly religious, partly political. To Zoroas- 
 ter were also revealed the teachings which later took 
 shape in the sacred scriptures of the Persians, the 
 Zend-Avesta (commentary-lore). Of these scriptures, 
 only one division, the Vendidad, has been preserved 
 complete. Of the other parts only fragments re- 
 main. It is estimated that the Vendidad (which 
 means the regulations against demons) represents 
 about one twentieth of the original collection. 
 
 The oldest portion of the Avesta is the Yasna, or 
 sacrificial liturgy. This is a grouping together of 
 the commentaries surrounding the Gdthas. A third 
 division is the Visparad, or the Seasons, in which are 
 set forth the lists of the objects sacred to each sea- 
 son. A fourth division is the Yescht-Sade, or little 
 Avesta, comprising prayers and hymns. 
 
 The monotheistic or dualistic nature of the faith 
 as originally taught by Zoroaster has, in the later 
 
48 Authors and Their Public 
 
 religious writings and practices, been overlaid and 
 obscured by the different phases of nature worship. 
 Fire is accepted as the symbol of holiness, but, ac- 
 cording to the views of the educated Parsees, is not 
 itself the thing worshipped. 
 
 The existing canon of the Avesta was compiled 
 and published under the direction of King Sapor 
 II., who reigned 309-330 A.D. Among the poems 
 of the Avesta we find the legend of which the hero 
 is Rustem, who stands as the representative of Iran 
 in its long contest with Turan. 
 
 The literature of Persia prJior to the fourth cen- 
 tury of the Christian era was probably controlled in 
 great part by the priests. The exceptions would 
 have been in the case of the court poets or court 
 historians, writing under the incentive of royal re- 
 muneration. It is probable that songs and recita- 
 tions were to some extent given to the public by 
 minstrels or rhapsodists. There is some evidence 
 also of the development in later centuries of the 
 story-teller or improvisatore, who made a business 
 of exchanging, for the pence of the public, stories 
 partly original, but chiefly borrowed from older 
 sources. The Oriental capacity for story-telling, 
 and the Oriental readiness to devote an abundance 
 of leisure time to listening to stories, is clearly indi- 
 
Judaea 49 
 
 cated not only by modern practices, but also by the 
 history of such collections as the Arabian Nights. 
 Of this famous series of tales, neither the nationality 
 nor the date of origin has been fixed with any de- 
 gree of certainty. It is probable, however, that the 
 collection first took shape in Bagdad about 1450 
 A.D., the date of the invention of printing. Von 
 Hammer is of opinion that the Bagdad Tales are 
 based upon a Persian collection called Hezar Afsaneh, 
 The Thousand Fancif-'l Stories. From a passage in 
 the Golden Meadows c • ^.1 Mesondee (quoted by von 
 Hammer) this Persiai. collection is known to have 
 been in existence as early as 987 A.D. 
 
 It seems probable, as suggested, that the practice 
 of publicly reciting poems or of narrating stories 
 prevailed in Persia from a very early date, and con- 
 stituted here, as in Greece, the first method for the 
 distribution or the publication of literary composi- 
 tions. The material employed for manuscripts was 
 first diphtherai, or skins, and later papyrus and 
 parchment. 
 
 Judsea. — There is a similar lack of evidence con- 
 cerning the existence among the Hebrews of any- 
 thing that could be called literary property. The 
 
50 Authors and Their Public 
 
 great body of the earlier Hebrew literature belonged, 
 of course, to the class of sacred writings, best known 
 to us through the books of the Old Testament and 
 of the Apocrypha. In addition to these, and partly, 
 of course, included with these, were the various col- 
 lections of the law and of the comments on the law, 
 while later years produced the long series of com- 
 mentaries known to the reader of to-day under the 
 general name of the Talmud. The various tran- 
 scripts required of these writings of the law and the 
 prophets gave employment to numbers of scribes, 
 who, "in the first place, apparently were usually con- 
 nected with the Temple, and must have derived their 
 support from the ecclesiastical revenues, but who 
 later formed a separate commercial class, receiving 
 payment for their work as done. 
 
 Professor Peters speaks of the age of Hezekiah as 
 the golden age of Hebrew literature. He quotes 
 the text, Prov. xxv., i, which says that " the men of 
 Hezekiah translated " or transcribed, or wrote down 
 the Proverbs of Solomon, as evidently an effort to 
 collect and preserve the literary treasures of the 
 past. He says, further : 
 
 " It is not unnatural to suppose that the writing down of Solomon's 
 Proverbs was for the purpose of a library in Jerusalem, such as the 
 Assyrian kings had long since collected at Nineveh. The Book of 
 Amos was edited (somewhere about 711 B.C.) apparently for this 
 
Judaea 51 
 
 library . . . and I suppose Hosea and Micah also to have been 
 edited about this time and for tlie same purpose. It was the forma- 
 tion of this library at just this time and the desire to collect and pre- 
 serve all the literary remains of the past, which led to the collection 
 and preservation of so much of the literature of the Northern King- 
 dom, but lately brought into Judah by the Israelite emigris. No 
 tales of the valor of the heroes of Judah, no Judtean folk-lore ante- 
 dating the time of David, have been handed down to us ; this litera- 
 ture belonged to the Northern Kingdom. Literary and antiquarian 
 zeal led to the collection and reception of these northern tales and 
 poems into Hezekiah's library . . . where their use in historical 
 works, owing to the awakened zeal for a knowledge of the past, was 
 assured. So with the transfer of intellectual activity from Samaria, 
 a new era begins in Judah, and soon the charming tales and poems of 
 the north, preserved in the library of Hezekiah, begin to be woven 
 into the more solid and ambitious works of the historians and lawyers 
 of Jerusalem. 
 
 " This literary awakening could not fail to act upon the priests. 
 They were the custodians of those ancient religious and legal tradi- 
 tions, which, coming down from the age of Moses, had grown with, 
 and been modified by, changing times and conditions. While some 
 portions of the ' law ' were written, presumably the larger part of it 
 was handed down mainly by word of mouth. 
 
 " Moreover, that which was written probably existed in various in- 
 dependent codes relating to different subjects. Some of these — such 
 as a tariff of offerings, or tables of civil and criminal law, like those 
 contained in the Book of the Covenant — may have been published, or 
 set up at the Temple gates, where they could be read by the wor- 
 shippers. The greater part of the ' law,' however, seems to have 
 been the exclusive, if not esoteric, possession of the priesthood of the 
 Jerusalem Temple. The literary activity of the Renaissance made 
 itself felt within the circle of the priests, leading them to begin to 
 commit to writing their unwritten law as well as the ancient tradi- 
 tions, customs, and ceremonies. Thus was commenced the work 
 which has given us the middle books of the Pentateuch, as well as 
 much of Genesis and Joshua." ' 
 
 ' Prof. J. P. Peters, Journal of the Exegetical Society, 1887, 
 116, 117. 
 
52 Authors and Their Public 
 
 It appears, therefore, as if the Hebrew Hterature 
 of the time (the reign of Hezekiah, covering the 
 period referred to, lasting from 728 to 699 B.C.) con- 
 sisted substantially of the " law," that is of the 
 authoritative teachings of the " church," and was 
 almost exclusively in the hands of the priests. They 
 exercised a control, which amounted practically to 
 an ownership, over the sacred, that is the ofificial, 
 records of the " law," and it appears as if the at- 
 tested copies or transcripts could be made only with 
 their permission and under their supervision. It is 
 probable, therefore, that the copyists were attached 
 to the Temple, and that such moneys as were re- 
 ceived from the sale of their transcripts belonged to 
 the treasury of the Temple, — but the manner of 
 such sales can only be guessed at, as the records 
 give us no information. If, however, this under- 
 standing of the practice should prove to be correct, 
 we should have an example, if not of literary prop- 
 erty, at least of a species of " copyright " control. 
 
 The severe Jewish law, directing the penalty of 
 death to be inflicted upon prophets speaking " false 
 words," or uttering as inspirations of their own, 
 words which had originated with others, has been 
 quoted as an early example of regulation of plagiar- 
 ism, but it appears evident, says R^nouard,' that the 
 
 ' Renouard, Traiti des Droits ri'Atiteurs, i., 15. 
 
Judaea 
 
 53 
 
 crime here to be punished was not plagiarism but 
 sacrilege, Vaies mendax qui vaticinatur et quce non 
 audivit, et qua ipsi non sunt dicta, ab hominibus est 
 occidendus." ' The utterance of the prophet Jeremiah 
 (c. xxiii. V. 30) evidently refers to the same regu- 
 lation. 
 
 ' Sanhedrim, c. xiv., 5. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 Greece. 
 
 TH E literature of Greece has become the property 
 of the world, but of the existence of literary 
 property in Greece — that is, of any system or practice 
 of compensation to writers from their readers or 
 hearers, either direct or indirect — the traces are 
 very slight ; so slight, in fact, that the weight of 
 authority is against the probability of such practice 
 having obtained at all. 
 
 It is fortunate for the literature of the world that 
 the Greek poets, dramatists, historians, and philoso- 
 phers were content to do their work for the approval 
 of their own generation, for the chance of fame with 
 the generations to come, or for the satisfaction of 
 the work itself, as their rewards in the shape of any- 
 thing more tangible than fame appear to have been 
 either nothing or something very inconsiderable. 
 
 Clement says: "After the most painstaking re- 
 searches through the records left us by the Greeks, 
 
 54 
 
Greece 55 
 
 we are compelled to conclude that in none of the 
 Greek states was any recognition ever given under 
 provision of law, to the right of authors to any con- 
 trol over their own productions." ' Breulier writes : 
 " Literary property, in any sense in which the term 
 is understood to-day, did not exist at Athens." ' 
 Wilhelm Schmitz concludes that " no such relation 
 as that which to-day exists between authors and 
 booksellers (publishers) was known among the 
 Greeks. In none of the writings of the time, do 
 we find the slightest reference to any such publish- 
 ing arrangements as Roman authors in the time of 
 Martial were accustomed to secure." ' This treatise 
 of Schmitz's is a painstaking and interesting study 
 of the conditions of Greek literature in classic times 
 and of the relations of Greek writers to their public, 
 and for certain portions of this chapter I am largely 
 indebted to the results of his investigations. 
 
 G^raud remarks that in the first development of 
 written language and literature among the Hebrews 
 and Egyptians, it is easy to recognize the " fatal 
 
 ' £,tude sur la ProprUU LitUraire chez les Grecs et chez les Romains, 
 par Paul Clement, Grenoble, 1867. 
 
 ' Du Droit de PerpHuiU de la Propria Inlellectuelle, par Adolplie 
 Breulier. 
 
 2 Schrifisteller und Buckhandler in Athen, und im ilbrigen Grie- 
 ckenland, von Wilhelm Schmitz, Heidelberg, 1876. 
 
56 Authors and Their Public 
 
 influence of the spirit of priestly caste, an influence 
 from which the Greek peoples were comparatively 
 free." ' The richest literature of antiquity, he goes 
 on to say, is that of Greece, and it was also in Greece 
 that the art of writing made the most rapid advances. 
 The teaching of the priests, whether given through 
 the oracles or not, was purely oral, so that the 
 Greeks did not come into possession of any body 
 of sacred scriptures such as formed the original 
 literature of other peoples. On the other hand, the 
 ardent nature, inquiring and active intellect, and 
 brilliant imagination of the Greeks, gave an early 
 and rapid development to the arts, to poetry, and 
 to speculative philosophy. 
 
 The old-time tradition credits the introduction of 
 the alphabet in Greece to Cadmus, and fixes the 
 date of the first Hellenic spelling-school at about 
 the fifteenth century before Christ. I believe the 
 authorities are divided as to whether this mythical 
 Cadmus represents a Phcenician or an Egyptian 
 influence, but this is a question which need not be 
 considered here. I understand the philologists are 
 in accord in the conclusion that the Cadmus story 
 represents, not a first instituting of a Greek alpha- 
 bet, but merely certain important modifications in 
 
 ' Essai sur les Livres dans V Aniiquite, par H. Geraud, Paris, 1840. 
 
Greece 5 7 
 
 the form of letters already in use. Birt asserts, as if 
 it were now a settled fact, that while the Greeks de- 
 rived their written characters from the Phoenicians, 
 they were indebted to Egypt for their first ideas in 
 the making of books. There is a very distinct family 
 resemblance between the Greek characters as known 
 in literature and those of the Hebrew, Phoenician, 
 and Syriac alphabets, while the names of the Greek 
 letters Alpha and Beta are found in all the Semitic 
 dialects. It seems further to be certain that the 
 earlier peoples of Greece, after for a time having 
 written perpendicularly according to the fashion of 
 the Chinese, began later to write from right to left 
 according to the Oriental manner. 
 
 The so-called Boustrophedon, a term meaning 
 " turning like oxen when they plough," was a method 
 of writing from left to right, and from right to left 
 in alternate lines. Among the earher specimens of 
 this method are the laws of Solon (about 610 B.C.) 
 and the Sigean inscription (about 600 B.C.). This 
 system represents a period of transition between the 
 earliest style and that of which the invention is 
 credited to Pronapis, which is simply the modern 
 European fashion of writing from left to right. The 
 inscriptions of the Etruscans are largely written in 
 Boustrophedon. Neither in Greece, however, nor 
 
58 Authors and Their PubHc 
 
 elsewhere, did this method remain in use for any 
 writings which are to be classed as literature. 
 
 While Greek literature, as far as known to us, 
 must be considered as beginning with the Homeric 
 poems, the date of which is estimated by the ma- 
 jority of the authorities at about 900 B.C., there 
 appears to be no trustworthy example of Greek 
 writing earlier than about 600 B.C. Curiously 
 enough, this specimen was found not in Greece but 
 in Egypt. Jevons describes it as follows : 
 
 " On the banks of the Upper Nile, in the temple of Abu Simbel, 
 are huge statues of stone, and on the legs of the second colossus from 
 the south are chipped the names, witticisms, and records of travellers 
 of all ages, in alphabets known and unknown. The earliest of the 
 Greek travellers who have thus left their names were a body of mer- 
 cenaries, who seemed to have formed part of an expedition which was 
 led up the Nile by King Psammaticus." ' 
 
 Jevons goes on to give the grounds for the conclu- 
 sion (based mainly on the formation of certain of the 
 letters, and in part, of course, on the references to 
 King Psammaticus) that the inscription was written, 
 or rather was cut, upon the statue between 620 B.C. 
 and 600 B.C., according as we take the king mentioned 
 to have been the first or second of his name. We have, 
 then, a date fixing a time at which the art of writing 
 certainly existed among the Greeks, while it is fur- 
 
 ' Jevons, Hist. Greek Lit. , 42 et seq. 
 
Greece 59 
 
 ther evident that if in the year 600 the art of writing 
 was so well established that it was understood by a 
 number of mercenaries, it must have been quite gen- 
 erally diffused through certain classes of society, and 
 the date for its introduction into Greece must have 
 been considerably earlier than 600. Jevons knows, 
 however, of no example of Greek writing which can 
 be ascribed to an earlier date than that above 
 quoted. 
 
 The conclusion, based upon this inscription, that 
 in the year 600 B.C. writing had for some time been 
 known in Greece, enables us, however, says Jevons, 
 to accept as probably authentic a reference to writing 
 ascribed to an author who lived nearly a century 
 earlier. Archilochus, a poet who is believed to have 
 flourished about 700 B.C., uses in one of his fables 
 the expression " a grievous sky tale." 
 
 ' ' A skytale was a staff on which a strip of leather for writing pur- 
 poses was rolled slant-wise. A message was then written on the 
 leather, and the latter being unrolled, was given to the messenger. 
 If the messenger were intercepted, the message could not be deciph- 
 ered, for only when the leather was rolled on a staff of precisely the 
 same size {i. e. , thickness) as the proper one, would the letters come 
 right. Such a staff, the duplicate of that used by the sender, was of 
 course possessed by the recipient." 
 
 This primitive method of cipher was for a long 
 time in use with the Spartans for conveying State 
 
6o Authors and Their PubHc 
 
 messages. In the figure of speech used by Archilo- 
 chus, his fable was to outward appearance innocent 
 of any recondite meaning, but would prove a griev- 
 ous " skytale " for the person attacked. 
 
 It seems reasonable, continues Jevons, to accept 
 this passage as indicating a knowledge of writing 
 in Greece as early as 700 B.C. This date allows 
 a century for the diffusion of the art and for the 
 spread of the Ionic alphabet which are implied 
 by the Abu Simbel inscription. And the passage 
 does not prove too much. It does not imply even 
 that Archilochus himself could write. The inven- 
 tion or introduction was sufficiently novel and ad- 
 mirable to furnish a poet with a metaphor ; and the 
 skytale was probably then, as in later times, a gov- 
 ernment institution. This mention of it accords 
 with the probable supposition that writing was used 
 for government purposes for some time before it 
 became common among the people. 
 
 The next date or period which in connection with 
 my subject it is of interest to fix, however approxi- 
 mately, is that when it is possible to speak of the 
 existence of a reading public. On this point also I 
 take the liberty of quoting one or two paragraphs 
 from Jevons in which the probabilities are clearly 
 presented : 
 
Greece 6 1 
 
 ' ' Reading and writing were certainly taught as early as the year 
 5CX3 B.C., and half a century later, to be unable to read or write was a 
 thing to be ashamed of. Herodotus speaks of boys' schools existing 
 in Chios in the time of Histiseus, who lived about 500." ' 
 
 " Instruction of this kind does not, however, prove the existence 
 of a reading public. Enough education to be able to keep accounts, 
 to read public notices, to correspond with friends or business agents, 
 may have been in the possession of every free Athenian in the period 
 between 500 and 450 B.C., and the want of such education may have 
 caused a man to be sneered at ; but this does not prove the habit of 
 reading literature." 
 
 There are, however, various references which indicate 
 that by the year 450 B.C. the habit of reading was begin- 
 ning to become general, at least in certain circles of 
 society. Jevons quotes a passage from the Tagenistce 
 of Aristophanes, in which, speaking of a young man 
 gone wrong, the dramatist ascribes his ruin to " a book, 
 to Prodicus or to bad company." Jevons also finds in 
 fragments of an old comedy such expressions as 
 " an unlettered man," " a man who does not know 
 his A B C." A passage in the lyric fragments of 
 the poet Theognis (who lived 583-500) is of in- 
 terest not merely as an evidence of some public 
 circulation of literature, but as possibly the earliest 
 example of an author's attempting to control the 
 circulation of his own productions. Theognis says 
 he has hit on a device which will prevent his verses 
 from being appropriated by any one else. He will 
 
 ' Herod., vi., 27. 'Jevons, Greek Lit.,^. 45. 
 
62 Authors and Their Public 
 
 put his name on them as a seal (or trade-mark) and 
 then " no one will take inferior work for his when the 
 good is to be had, but every one will say ' These are 
 the verses of Theognis, the Megarian.' " As Jevons 
 says : " This passage certainly implies that Theognis 
 committed his works to writing." It also appears 
 to imply that there was likely to be sufificient liter- 
 ary prestige attaching to the poetry of Theognis to 
 tempt an unscrupulous person to claim to be its 
 author, while it is at least possible to infer that the 
 plan of Theognis had reference not only to his pres- 
 tige as an author, but also to certain author*s pro- 
 ceeds from the sales of his works, which proceeds 
 he desired to keep plagiarists from appropriating. 
 Clement does not, however, believe that there is ade- 
 quate ground for the latter supposition, but contends 
 that if the poet caused copies of his poems to be 
 multiplied and distributed, it was not for the purpose 
 of having them sold, and not even in order that they 
 might be read, but to enable his friends to learn 
 them and to sing them at drinking parties or other 
 social gatherings. In his opinion, the nature of the 
 poetry of Theognis shows that it was not composed 
 for a reading public. 
 
 Giving the fullest possible weight to the evidences 
 for the early development of the knowledge of read- 
 
Greece 63 
 
 ing and writing, and the possible facilities for the 
 multiplication and distribution of books in manu- 
 script, it is certain that Greek literature between the 
 ninth and the sixth centuries B.C. cannot have been 
 prepared for a reading public. The epics which have 
 come down to posterity from that period must have 
 been transmitted by word of mouth and memory. 
 Mahaffy and Jevons are in accord in pointing out 
 that the effort of memory required for the composi- 
 tion and transmission of long poems without the aid 
 of writing, while implying a power never manifested 
 among people possessing printed books, is not in it- 
 self at all incredible. Memory was equal to the task, 
 and the earlier Greek poems, memorized by the 
 authors as ■ composed, were preserved by successive 
 generations of Bards. They were also evidently 
 composed with special reference to the requirements 
 of the reciters whose recitations were in the earlier 
 periods usually given at the banquets of the royal 
 courts or of great houses to which the bards were at- 
 tached. The practice of reciting before public audi- 
 ences can hardly have been begun before the year 
 600 B.C. 
 
 The early epics were as a rule much too long to 
 be recited within the limits of a single evening, and 
 they must therefore have been continued from ban- 
 
64 Authors and Their Public 
 
 quet to banquet. The authors have apparently kept 
 this necessity in mind, and have provided for it by 
 dividing their narratives into clearly defined episodes, 
 at the close of which the reciters could leave their 
 audiences with some such word as that given at the 
 close of a weekly installment in the " penny dread- 
 ful " — " to be continued in our next." 
 
 As the practice was introduced of entertaining 
 larger audiences in the open air with the recital of 
 the Homeric and other epics, a class of professional 
 reciters arose, known as RJiapsodists, who declaimed 
 in a theatrical manner, with much gesture and vary- 
 ing inflection of the voice. (The term rhapsody is 
 derived from panrw, to sew or stitch together. It 
 was originally applied only to a collection of works 
 like the Homeric poems, which, having for a long 
 time been dispersed in fragments, were at length 
 sewed together or connected.) ' These rhapsodists 
 travelled from place to place to compete for the 
 prizes offered by the different cities, and made for 
 themselves a property as well of the possession (in 
 their memories) of the national poems, as of certain 
 
 ' The word is by some authorities derived from ^d/38oi a staff, — 
 just as we have a staff in music. Rhapsodists wrould thus mean men 
 of the staff, ^d/3Soi also (according to Liddell and Scott edited by 
 Drisler) means grammatically a line or a verse and ficcifiaiSta would 
 mean a division of a poem for recitation. 
 
Greece 65 
 
 special methods of declaiming these. This practice 
 helps to account for the transmission and for the 
 diffusion of the earlier epics, and also for the diffu- 
 sion of the lyric poems that followed these. The 
 rhapsodists may, therefore, be said to have served in 
 a sense as the publishers of the period. The deriva- 
 tion of the word comedy throws some light on the 
 literary customs of the time. It means literally " a 
 song of the village," from Koafxrj, a village, and 
 ocEidew, I sing. 
 
 The purposes of Greek writers were either politi- 
 cal or purely ideal. The possibility of earning 
 money by means of authorship seems hardly ever 
 to have occurred to them, and this freedom from 
 any commercial motive for their work was doubtless 
 an important cause for the high respect accorded in 
 Greece to its authors. In the time of Plato, the 
 Sophists, who prepared speeches and gave instruc- 
 tion for gain, were subject to more or less criticism 
 on this account — a criticism which Plato himself 
 seems to have initiated.' 
 
 At the threshold of Greek literature stands the 
 majestic figure of Homer; and to Pisistratus, the 
 Tyrant of Athens, is to be credited the inestimable 
 service of securing the preservation of the Homeric 
 
 ' Plato, Phcedo. 
 
66 Authors and Their Public 
 
 poems in the form in which they have been handed 
 down to posterity. The task of compiling or of 
 editing the material was confided to four men, 
 whose names, as predecessors of a long list of 
 Homeric editors, deserve to be recorded : Kone- 
 hylus, Onomakritus, Zopyrus, and Orpheus, and the 
 work was completed about 550 B.C.' 
 
 Another creditable literary undertaking of Pisis- 
 tratus was the collection of the poems of Hesiod, 
 which was confided to the Milesian Cecrops. We 
 have the testimony of Plutarch that by these means 
 the Tyrant did not a little towards gaining or re- 
 gaining the favor of the Athenians, which speaks 
 well for the early interest of the city in literature. 
 There are no details on record as to the means by 
 which these first literary products were placed at 
 the service of the community, but there can be no 
 question that the service rendered by the Tyrant 
 and the editors selected by him, consisted simply in 
 providing an authoritative text, from which any who 
 wished might transcribe such number of copies as 
 they desired. This Pisistratus edition of the Homeric 
 books is said to have served as the standard text for 
 the copyists and for Homeric students not only in 
 Greece but later in Alexandria, and is, therefore, the 
 
 ' Ritschl. Philolog. Schriften, Bd. i. 
 
Greece 67 
 
 basis of the Homeric literature that has come down 
 to modern days. 
 
 Prof. Mahaffy remarks that the writings of Hesiod 
 differed from those of the other early Greek authors 
 in being addressed, not to " the powers that were," 
 but to the common people.' Referring to the style of 
 Hesiod's works, Simcox says, rather naively, " Hesiod 
 would certainly have written in prose, if prose had 
 then existed." Works and Days (the only one of 
 Hesiod's poems which the later Greek commentators 
 accept as certainly genuine) consists of ethical and 
 economic precepts, written in a homely and unimagi- 
 native style, and setting forth the indisputable 
 doctrine that labor is the only road to prosperity. 
 Mahaffy is my authority for the statement that 
 Hesiod's poems came into use " at an early period as 
 a favorite handbook of education." " 
 
 I wish this brilliant student of Greek life had given 
 us some clue as to the methods by which copies of 
 this literature were multiplied and brought into the 
 hands of the country people and common people to 
 whom it was more particularly addressed. The dif- 
 ficulty of circulating books among this class of readers 
 must have been very much greater than that of 
 reaching the scholarly circles of the cities. 
 
 ' Social Greece, lo. ^ Social Greece, 14. 
 
68 Authors and Their Public 
 
 While it was a long time before authors were to 
 be in a position to secure any compensation from 
 those who derived pleasure from their productions, 
 they began at an early date (as in the case before 
 mentioned of Theognis) to raise questions with each 
 other on the score of plagiarisms, and to be jealous 
 of retaining undisturbed the full literary prestige to 
 which they might be entitled. 
 
 Clement remarks that "an enlightened public 
 opinion helped to defend Greek authors against the 
 borrowing of literary thieves, by stigmatizing pla- 
 giarism as a crime, and by expressing for a writer 
 detected in appropriating the work of another a well 
 merited contempt instead of the approbation for 
 which he had hoped." ' It seems probable, however, 
 that this is too favorable a view to take as to the 
 effectiveness of public opinion in preserving among 
 Greek writers a spirit of exact conscientiousness, as 
 the complaints in the literature of the time concern- 
 ing unauthorized and uncredited " borrowings " are 
 numerous and bitter. 
 
 Such terms as " accidental coincidence," " identity 
 of thought," " unconscious cerebration " (in absorb- 
 ing the expressions of another), were doubtless used 
 in these earlier as in the later days of literature to 
 
 ' Le Droit des Auieurs, i6. 
 
Greece 69 
 
 explain certain suspicious cases of " parallelisms " or 
 similarities. In fact, at least one Greek author, the 
 sophist Aretades, wrote a volume, unfortunately lost, 
 on the similarity or identity of thought creations.' 
 
 Clement gives some examples of borrowings or 
 appropriations on the part of writers and orators, 
 and his list is so considerable as to leave the impres- 
 sion that the public opinion to which he refers was 
 either not very active in discovering the practice, or 
 was not a little remiss in characterizing and in con- 
 demning it. Isocrates copies an entire oration from 
 Gorgias ; ^schines makes free use in his discourses of 
 those of Lycias and Andocides. Even Demosthenes, 
 the chief of orators, occasionally yielded to the temp- 
 tation ; and among other instances, Clement cites 
 extracts from the orations in Aphobos and Pantcenetos 
 which are identical with passages in the Discourses on 
 Ciron by the old instructor of Demosthenes, Is£us. 
 
 Rozoir tells us that an anonymous work of six 
 volumes (rolls) was published under the title Passages 
 in the Writings of Menander which are Not the Work 
 of Menander, and that Philostrates of Alexandria 
 accused Sophocles of having pillaged ^schylus, 
 ^schylus of having permitted himself to draw too 
 much inspiration from Phrynichus, and, finally, 
 ' Rozoir, Dictionnaire de la Conversation, Art. " Plagiaire." 
 
70 Authors and Their Public 
 
 Phrynichus of having taken his material from the 
 writers who preceded him. Such charges become, 
 of course, too sweeping to be pertinent, and can 
 probably in large part be dismissed with the con- 
 clusion that each generation of writers ought to 
 familiarize itself with the work of its predecessors, 
 and may often enough with propriety undertake the 
 reinterpretation for new generations of readers of 
 themes similar to those which have interested their 
 fathers and grandfathers. 
 
 One evidence that the subject of plagiarism was a 
 matter which in later days engaged public attention 
 is given by the Fable of ^sop on the Jay masquer- 
 ading in the plumes of the Peacock. 
 
 Clement points out that in connection with the 
 fierce competition between the poets of Athens for 
 dramatic honors, no means were neglected by the 
 friends of each writer to bring discredit upon the 
 productions of his rivals, and that very many of 
 the charges of plagiarism can be traced to such an 
 incentive. Aristophanes, who amused himself by 
 utilizing for his comedies the strifes between his 
 literary contemporaries, puts into the mouth of 
 .(Eschylus, whom he makes one of the characters in 
 The Frogs, the following biting words, addressed to 
 Euripides : 
 
Greece 71 
 
 "When I first read over the tragedy which you placed in my 
 bands, I found it difficult and bombastic ; I at once made a severe 
 condensation, freeing the play from the vi'eight of rubbish with which 
 you had overloaded it ; I then enlivened it with bright sayings, with 
 pointed philosophic subtleties and with an abundance of brilliant witti- 
 cisms drawn from a crowd of other books ; and finally I added some 
 pithy monologues, which are in the main the work of Ctesiphon." ' 
 
 In the same comedy, ^schylus is made to accuse 
 Euripides of having carried on literary free-booting 
 in every direction. Further on, Bacchus, in express- 
 ing his admiration for some striking thought ex- 
 pressed by Euripides, asks whether it is really his or 
 Ctesiphon's, and the tragedian frankly admits that 
 the credit for the idea properly belongs to the latter. 
 Clement concludes that there must have been foun- 
 dation for the raillery of the comedian, and refers, in 
 this connection, to the remarks of Plato that if one 
 wished to examine the philosophy of Anaxagoras, 
 the simplest course was to read the tragedies of 
 Euripides, the choruses of which reproduced faith- 
 fully the teachings of the philosopher. Aristophanes, 
 while scoffing sharply at the misdeeds of others, was 
 himself not beyond criticism, being charged with 
 having made free use of the comedies of Cratinus 
 and Eupolis." 
 
 The philosophers and historians appear to have 
 been little more conscientious than the poets in their 
 
 ' The Frogs, v. gsg et seq. " Scholia ad Equites, v. 528 et 1291. 
 
72 Authors and Their Public 
 
 literary standard. The historian Theopompus in- 
 cluded, without credit, in the eleventh book of his 
 Philippics a whole harangue of Isocrates, and with a 
 few changes pi names and places, he was able to 
 make use of long passages from Andros and Xeno- 
 phon. His appropriations were so considerable that 
 they were collected in a separate volume to which 
 was given the fitting title of The Hunters^ Lysima- 
 chus wrote a book entitled The Robberies of Ephorus. 
 Timon, in some lines preserved by Aulus Gellius, 
 charges Plato with having obtained from a treatise 
 of the Pythagorean philosopher Philolaus the sub- 
 stance of his famous dialogue the Timceus^ The 
 lines, from the version of Clement, read as follows : 
 " You also, Plato, being ambitious to acquire knowl- 
 edge, first purchased for a great sum a small book, 
 and then with its aid proceeded yourself to instruct 
 others." 
 
 Even our moral friend Plutarch does not escape 
 from the general charge of borrowing from others. 
 
 " In reading," says Rozoir, " the text of many of 
 the Lives, one cannot but be struck with the very 
 great differences of style and of forms of expression, 
 differences so marked, that it is difficult to avoid 
 
 ' Bayle, Dicty., Art. "Theopompus." 
 ^ Attic Nights, Book iii., Chap. 17. 
 
Greece 73 
 
 the conclusion that many portions are extracts taken 
 literally and without credit, from other authors." ' 
 
 From these examples, out of many which might 
 be cited, it seems evident that during the centuries 
 in which Greek literature was at its height, the prac- 
 tice of plagiarism was very general, even among 
 authors whose originality and creative power could 
 not be questioned. Emerson's dictum that "man is 
 as lazy as he dares to be " was assuredly as true two 
 thousand years ago as at the time it was uttered. 
 
 We may further conclude that while plagiarism, 
 when detected, called forth a certain amount of 
 criticism and raillery, especially when the author 
 appropriated from was still living, it did not bring 
 upon the " appropriators " any such final condemna- 
 tion as would cause them to lose caste in the literary 
 guild or to forfeit the appreciation of the reading 
 public. This leniency of judgment could doubtless 
 be more safely depended upon by writers who had 
 given evidence of their own creative powers. The 
 acknowledged genius could say with Molifere : " ^e 
 prends mon Men ok je le trouve," and such a claim 
 would be admitted the more readily as, when a 
 genius does to the work of another the honor of 
 utilizing it, the material so appropriated must usu- 
 Dict. de la Canvers., art. " Plagiaire." 
 
74 Authors and Their Public 
 
 ally secure in its new setting a renewed vitality, a 
 different and a larger value. 
 
 The case of a small writer venturing to appropriate 
 from a greater one was naturally judged much more 
 harshly, and if a literary theft was detected in a pro- 
 duction which was submitted in open contest for 
 public honors, the verdict was swift and severe. 
 
 An instance of such public condemnation is re- 
 ferred to by Vitruvius.' One of the Ptolemies had 
 instituted at Alexandria some literary contests in 
 honor of Apollo and the Muses. Aristophanes, the 
 grammarian, who on a certain day acted as judge, 
 gave his decision, to the surprise of the audience, 
 in favor of a contestant whose composition had 
 certainly not been the most able. When asked to 
 defend his decision, he showed that the competing 
 productions were literal copies from the works of 
 well known writers. Thereupon the unsuccessful 
 competitors were promptly sentenced before the 
 tribunal as veritable robbers, and were ignominiously 
 thrust out of the city. 
 
 " Itaque rex jtissit cum his agifurti, condemnatosque 
 cum ignominia dimisit." 
 
 This was, however, certainly an exceptional case, 
 as well in the clumsiness of the plagiarism as in the 
 
 ' De Archil., liv. vii. 
 
Greece 75 
 
 swiftness of the punishment. The weight of evi- 
 dence is, I am inclined to beheve, in favor of the 
 view, that in the absence of any protection by law 
 for the author's " rights," whether literary or com- 
 mercial, in his productions, the protection by public 
 opinion, even for living writers, was very incidental 
 and inadequate ; while it seems further probable 
 that, especially as far as the works of dead authors 
 were concerned, but a small proportion of the " bor- 
 rowings " were ever brought to light at all or became 
 the occasion for any criticism. Much, of course, de- 
 pended upon the manner in which the appropria- 
 tion was made. As Lamothe cleverly says : " L'on 
 pent derober h la faqon des abeilles sans fair e tort h 
 personne ; mats le vol de la fourmi, qui enlkve le 
 grain entier, ne doit jamais itre imitS." 
 
 There is one ground for forgiving these early 
 literary " appropriators " even of les grains entiers — 
 namely, that by means of such transmissal by later 
 writers of extracts borrowed from their predecessors, 
 a good deal of valuable material has been preserved 
 for future generations which would otherwise have 
 been lost altogether. 
 
 In considering such examples of plagiarism as are 
 referred to by Greek writers and the general attitude 
 of these writers to the practice, it is safe to conclude 
 
76 Authors and Their Public 
 
 that authors cannot depend upon retaining the 
 literary control of their own productions and cannot 
 be prevented from securing honor for the produc- 
 tions of others unless public opinion can be supple- 
 mented with an effective copyright law. 
 
 Suidas, the lexicographer, relates that Euphorion, 
 the son of .lEschylus, and himself also a writer, gave 
 to the world as his own certain tragedies which were 
 the work of his father, but which had not before 
 been made known {nonduni in lucent editis). It does 
 not appear that any advantage other than a brief 
 prestige accrued to Euphorion through his unfilial 
 plagiarism. 
 
 Such advantage was, however, more possible for 
 the author of a drama than for the author of any 
 other class of literature, for seats in the theatre, 
 which had at first been free, were later sold to the 
 spectators at a drachme (Plato's Apology of Socra- 
 tes). The drachme was equal in cash to about 
 eighteen cents, and in purchasing power to perhaps 
 seventy-two cents of our money. This price was, 
 according to Bartheldmi,' reduced by Pericles to an 
 obolus, equal in cash value to about three cents. 
 
 The expenses of the presentation of a drama were 
 very slight, and even this smaller payment by the 
 
 ' Travels of Anacharsis the Younger, vi., 91. 
 
Greece 'j'j 
 
 audience should have afforded means after the actors 
 had been reimbursed for some compensation to the 
 dramatist. 
 
 Instances of compensation to orators are of not 
 infrequent occurrence, and, as Paul Clement remarks, 
 it seems reasonably certain that experienced orators 
 were not in the habit of writing gratuitously the dis- 
 courses so frequently prepared for the use of others. 
 Isocrates is reported to have received not less than 
 twenty talents (about $21,500) for the discourses 
 sent by him to Nicocles, King of Cyprus.' 
 
 Aristophanes speaks of the considerable sums 
 gained by the jurists, but the service for which Isoc- 
 rates was paid was of course of a different character. 
 
 The intellectual or literary life of Athens, initiated 
 by the popularization (at least among the cultivated 
 circles) of the poems of Homer and Hesiod, was 
 very much furthered through the influence of Plato. 
 Curiously enough, notwithstanding Plato's great ac- 
 tivity as a writer, he placed a low estimate on the 
 importance of written as compared with that of oral 
 instruction. This is shown in his reference to the 
 myth concerning the discovery of writing." 
 
 The two books of Plato's Republic were undoubt- 
 
 ■ Pseudo-Plutarch, Vitee dec. Orat. -Isocrates, c. viii. 
 ^ Phcedo, 274. 
 
78 Authors and Their Public 
 
 edly prepared in the first place for presentation in 
 the shape of lectures to a comparatively small circle 
 of students, and were through these students first 
 brought before the public. Plato's hearers appear 
 to have interested themselves in the work of circu- 
 lating the written reports of his lectures, of which 
 for some little time the number of copies was natu- 
 rally limited. We also learn that the fortunate 
 possessors of such manuscripts were in the habit of 
 lending them out for hire. From a comedy of the 
 time has been quoted the following line : " Hermo- 
 doros makes a trade of the sale of lectures." ' 
 
 Hermodoros of Syracuse was known as a student 
 of Plato, and this quotation is interpreted as a refer- 
 ence to a practice of his of preparing for sale written 
 reports "of his instructor's talks. Plato had evidently 
 not yet evolved for himself the doctrine established 
 over two thousand years later by Dr. Abernethy, 
 that the privilege of listening to lectures did not 
 carry with it the right to sell or to distribute the 
 reports of the same. Abernethy's student had at 
 least made payment to the doctor for his course of 
 lectures, while if, as seems probable, the teachings of 
 Plato were a free gift to his hearers, his claim to the 
 
 ' Diogenes Laertius, iii., 66, and Bergk. Griech. Liieratur Gesch.y 
 218. 
 
Greece 79 
 
 control of all subsequent use of the material would 
 have been still better founded than that of the 
 Scotch lecturer. But the time when it was not con- 
 sidered incompatible with the literary or philosophi- 
 cal ideal for the authors or philosophers to receive 
 compensation from those benefited by their instruc- 
 tion, had not yet arrived. This reference to Her- 
 modoros has interest as being possibly the first 
 recorded instance of moneys being paid for literary 
 material. The date was about 325 B.C. 
 
 Suidas calls Hermodoros a hearer {aHpoattj?) of 
 Plato, and says, further, that he made a traffic of his 
 master's teachings {XoyoiGiv 'Epfiodcopoe spiTropsve- 
 rai). Cicero, in writing to Atticus, makes a jesting 
 comparison of the relations of Hermodoros to Plato 
 with those borne by his publishing friend to himself, 
 when he says : Placetne tibi libros " De Finibus " edere 
 inJTissu meo f Hoc ne Hermodorus quidem faciebat is 
 qui Platonis libros solitus est divulgare f " Possibly 
 you may be inclined to publish my work De Finibus 
 without securing the permission of the author, fol- 
 lowing the example of that Hermodoros, who was in 
 the habit in this fashion of publishing the books of 
 Plato." 
 
 The term libros, employed by Cicero, is of course 
 not really accurate, and ought properly to be inter- 
 
8o Authors and Their Public 
 
 preted as teachings, as Hermodoros appears not to 
 have had in his hands any of Plato's manuscripts, 
 and to have used for his " pubHcations " simply his 
 own reports of his instructor's lectures. It seems 
 probable from these several references that Hermo- 
 doros secured from his sales certain profits, but it 
 was evidently not believed that he considered him- 
 self under any obligation to divide such profits with 
 Plato. 
 
 We have no word from Plato himself concerning 
 the method by which his writings were brought be- 
 fore the public, but we find references in Aristotle 
 to the " published works of Plato." ' Cephisodorus, 
 a pupil of Isocrates, makes it a ground for reproach 
 against Aristotle (considered at the time as a rival 
 of his own instructor) that the latter should have 
 published a work on Greek proverbs, a performance 
 characterized as " unworthy of a philosopher."" 
 
 The greater portions of the writings of Aristotle 
 appear to have been composed in the course of his 
 second sojourn in Athens, during which he was 
 specially indebted to, and was possibly maintained 
 by, the affectionate liberality of his royal pupil 
 Alexander the Great. A curious claim was made 
 
 ' Poet., XV., ixiAPoli., viii., 541. 
 ' Stahr, Aristotle, 67. 
 
Greece 8 1 
 
 by the latter to the ownership, or at least to the 
 control, of such of the philosopher's lectures as had 
 been originally prepared for his own instruction. 
 " You have not treated me fairly," writes Alexander 
 to Aristotle, " in including with your published 
 works the papers prepared for my instruction. For 
 if the scholarly writings by means of which I was 
 educated become the common property of the world, 
 in what manner shall I be intellectually distinguished 
 above ordinary mortals ? I would rather be note- 
 worthy through the possession of the highest knowl- 
 edge than by means of the power of my position." 
 
 Aristotle's reply is ingenious. He says in sub- 
 stance : " It is true, O beloved pupil, that through 
 the zeal of over-admiring friends these lectures, origi- 
 nally prepared for thy instruction, have been given 
 out to the world. But in no full sense of the term 
 have they been published, for in the form in which 
 they are written they can be properly understood 
 only if accompanied by the interpretation of their 
 author, and such interpretation he has given to none 
 but his beloved pupil." ' 
 
 Alexander's claim to the continued control of 
 literary productions prepared for him and for the 
 first use of which he, or his father on his behalf, had 
 ' Gellius, XXV. Plutarch, Alexander, c. vii. 
 
Authors and Their Public 
 
 made adequate payment, raises an interesting ques- 
 tion. It is probable, however, that the principle 
 involved is at the bottom the same as that upon 
 which have since been decided the Abernethy case 
 and other similar issues between instructors and 
 pupils; such decisions limiting the rights of the 
 students in the material strictly to the special use 
 for which he has paid, and leaving with the instructor, 
 when also the author, all subsequent control and all 
 subsequent benefit. 
 
 Aristotle made a sharp distinction between his 
 " published works " {iSoorspiKOt or SHdedofiavot Xoyoi) 
 and his Academic works {aKpoaasii). The former, 
 written out in full and revised, could be purchased 
 by the general public (outside of the Peripatos). 
 The latter were apparently prepared more in the 
 shape of notes or abstracts, to serve as the basis of 
 his lectures. Copies of these abstracts, such as 
 would to-day be known in universities as Precis, 
 were distributed among (and possibly purchased by) 
 the students,' and could not be obtained except 
 within the Peripatos. 
 
 From the bequests made by certain of the philoso- 
 phers of their books, it appears that such a distinction 
 between the two classes of books was general. In 
 
 ' Zeller, Philos. d. Griechen, ii., 112, iig. 
 
Greece 83 
 
 these legacies the copies of current pubhcations, 
 purchased for reading {Ta avayvcos/ziva), are dis- 
 tinguished from the unpublished works {dvsKdora). 
 It was from such an unpublished manuscript 
 {dveMdoTov) ' that in the Theatet. of Plato a reading 
 is given. 
 
 It is easy to understand that the more abstruse 
 works of Plato and Aristotle were not fitted for any 
 such general distribution as was secured for the then 
 popular treatises of Democritus on the Science of 
 Nature, or for the writings of the Sophist Protagoras. 
 It is by no means clear by what channels were dis- 
 tributed these works, which appear very shortly after 
 their production to have come into the hands of a 
 large number of readers not only in Greece itself, 
 but throughout the Greek colonies. The sale of 
 copies, made by students and by admiring readers, 
 seems hardly to furnish a sufificiently adequate pub- 
 hshing machinery, but of publishers or booksellers, 
 with staffs of trained copyists, we have as yet no 
 trustworthy record. 
 
 Protagoras, who came from Abdera, was said to 
 
 have been intimate with Pericles. He was the first 
 
 lecturer or instructor who assumed the title of 
 
 Sophist, and what is more important for our subject, 
 
 • Bruns, Die Testamente der Griech. Philos., cited by Birt, 437. 
 
84 Authors and Their Public 
 
 was said to be the first who received pay for his 
 lessons. Plato, whose view of the responsibilities of 
 a literary or philosophical worker seems to have been 
 extremely ideal, makes it a charge against Protag- 
 oras that during the forty years in which he taught, 
 he received more money than Phidias. And why 
 not, one is tempted to enquire, if his many hearers 
 felt that they received a fair equivalent in the 
 services rendered ? The receipts of Protagoras ap- 
 pear to have come entirely from the listeners or 
 students who attended his lectures ; at least there is 
 nothing to show that he himself derived any busi- 
 ness benefit from the large sales of the copies of 
 these lectures. His remunerated work is therefore 
 an example of property produced from an intellec- 
 tual product but not yet of property resulting for 
 the producer of a work of literature. 
 
 The history, or histories of Herodotus were first 
 communicated to the world in the shape of lectures 
 or readings of the separate chapters of the earlier 
 portions. We find references to four such lectures 
 delivered respectively at Olympia,' Athens," Corinth,' 
 and Thebes' between the years 455 and 450, B.C. 
 
 ' Lucian, Herodotus, t. i. and ii. 
 '^ Plutarch, Herodotus. 
 ' D. Chrysost., op. xxxvii., t. ii., 103. 
 ' Plutarch, i., c. 31. 
 
Greece 85 
 
 In 447 B.C. Herodotus was sojourning in Athens, still 
 ^"g'lged in the work of his history, and becoming 
 known, through his public readings, to Pericles, 
 Sophocles, and other leaders of Athenian thought 
 and culture. In 443 he joined the colonists whom 
 Pericles was sending out to Italy, and became one 
 of the first settlers at Thurium, where he remained 
 until his death in 424. It was at Thurium that the 
 great work, in the shape in which we now know it, 
 was finally completed, about 442. The promptness 
 with which the History became known in Greece and 
 the very general circulation secured for it, seems to 
 have been in large part due to the personal interest 
 in it of Pericles and Sophocles and possibly also to 
 the financial aid of the former in providing funds for 
 the copyists. It is related, on uncertain authority, 
 says Clement, that in 446, the Athenian Assembly 
 decreed a reward to Herodotus for his History, after 
 certain chapters of it had been read publicly. There 
 appears to be no other reference to any compensa- 
 tion secured by the author for this great work to the 
 preparation of which he had devoted his life and 
 which had cost him so many toilsome and costly 
 journeys. The History of Herodotus, the first work 
 of any lasting importance of its class in point of 
 time, and in the estimate of twenty-three centuries 
 
86 Authors and Their Public 
 
 not far from the first by point of excellence, was 
 practically a free gift from the historian to his 
 generation and to posterity. 
 
 The system of instruction or literary entertain- 
 ment by means of readings or lectures became one 
 of the most important features of intellectual life in 
 Greece. Mahaffy speaks of the culture and quick- 
 ness of intellect of an Athenian audience as being 
 far in advance of that of a similar modern assembly. 
 Freeman says : " The average intelligence of the 
 assembled Athenian citizens was unquestionably 
 higher than that of the House of Commons." ' 
 
 It is stated by Abicht " that the young Thucydides, 
 then a boy of twelve, was one of the listeners to a 
 recital of Herodotus at the great Olympian festival, 
 and, moved to tears, resolved that he would devote 
 himself to the writing of history. Later, when he 
 had entered upon his own historical work, Thucydi- 
 des remarks with a confidence which later centuries 
 have justified, that he " was not writing for the 
 present only, but for all time." ' 
 
 His History was left unfinished, apparently owing 
 to the sudden death of the author, although the 
 
 ^ History of Federal Government, i., 37. 
 ^ Einleitung zu Herodot., 13 ff. 
 ^ Thucydides, t. 22. 
 
Greece 87 
 
 exact date of this death is not known. It does not 
 appear who assumed the responsibility for the first 
 pubHcation of the History. Marcellinus speaks of 
 a daughter of Thucydides having undertaken the 
 transcribing of the eighth book, and having pro- 
 vided means for the issue of the same.' If this 
 daughter inherited the gold mine in Thrace which 
 her father tells us he owned, there should have been 
 no difficulty in finding funds for the copyists. 
 
 According to others the work was cared for by 
 Xenophon and Theopompus. Demosthenes is re- 
 ported to have transcribed the eight books with his 
 own hand eight times, and there were doubtless many 
 other admiring readers who contributed their share 
 of labor in copying and distributing the eloquent 
 chronicles of the Peloponnesian war. In the fourth 
 century B.C. the dedication of literature to the pub- 
 lic seems to have been emphatically a labor of love. 
 Xenophon had at one time thought of writing a 
 continuation of the narrative of Thucydides, but 
 until the time of his withdrawal to Scillus, he had 
 neither the leisure nor the service of the skilled 
 slaves requisite for the work. Xenophon takes to 
 himself the credit of having brought into fame the 
 previously unknown books of Thucydides which he 
 
 ' Marcellinus, 43. 
 
88 Authors and Their Public 
 
 had been in a position to suppress (or to supplant)'. 
 Xenophon's own literary activity, resulting in a con- 
 siderable list of narratives and treatises, was com- 
 prised between the years 387 and 355 B.C., that is 
 during the last thirty years of his long life. He 
 died in 355, at the age of ninety-eight. On the 
 estate at Scillus which the Spartans had presented 
 to him, for services rendered against his native state 
 of Athens, he had gathered a large staff of slaves 
 skilled as scribes, by whom were prepared the copies 
 of his works distributed amongst his friends. He 
 speaks of having taken some of the scribes with him 
 to Corinth, where the Cyropcedia was completed. 
 
 In Xenophon's Anabasis we find that each chapter 
 or book is preceded by a summary in which are re- 
 peated the contents of the preceding chapter. The 
 work was, as was customary, divided into books of 
 suitable length for reading aloud from evening to 
 evening, and such summaries were, says Isocrates, 
 of decided convenience in recalling to the hearers 
 the more important occurrences related in the pre- 
 vious reading, and in this manner sustained the 
 interest in the narrative. In the dialogues of 
 Aristotle we find proems, in which are presented 
 summaries of the preceding conclusions together with 
 ' Diog. Laertius, ii., 57. 
 
Greece 89 
 
 an outline of the new situation. The similar proems 
 in the Tusculan Disputations of Cicero are not pref- 
 aces to books but to situations, and occur only in 
 those books in which a new situation is introduced. ' 
 For the preservation of the writings of the earlier 
 Greek authors, we are indebted to the first book 
 collectors or bibliophilists. Athenseus'' names as 
 founders of some of the more important earlier 
 libraries, Polycrates of Samos (570-522 B.C.), Pisis- 
 tratus of Athens (612-527), Euclid of Megara (about 
 440-400), Aristotle (384-321), and the kings of Per- 
 gamum (350-200). Pisistratus, who died 527 B.C., be- 
 queathed his books to Athens for a public library, 
 and the Athenians interested themselves later in 
 largely increasing the collection. This is possibly the 
 earliest record there is of a library dedicated to the 
 public. On the capture of Athens by Xerxes, the 
 collection was taken to Persia, to be restored two 
 centuries later by Seleucus Nicator.' The library of 
 the kings of Pergamum, which Antony afterward 
 presented to Cleopatra, is said by Plutarch ' to have 
 grown to 200,000 rolls, which stands of course for a 
 much smaller number of works. 
 
 ' Birt, 475. 
 
 ^ Athenseus, i., 3. 
 
 * Gellius, vi., c. 17. 
 
 * Plut., Vit., Antonius, c. 58. 
 
go Authors and Their Public 
 
 The most comprehensive of the earlier private 
 collections of books was undoubtedly that of Aris- 
 totle, to whose house Plato gave the name of " the 
 house of the reader." ' Diogenes Laertius speaks of 
 his possessing a thousand avyypdfxfxara and four 
 hundred fiiftXia. According to one account, the 
 books of Aristotle were bequeathed to or secured by 
 Neleus, and by him were sold to Ptolemy Phila- 
 delphus, who transferred them to Alexandria, to- 
 gether with a collection of other manuscripts bought 
 in Athens and in Rhodes.' Strabo says that the 
 heirs of Neleus, ignorant people, buried the manu- 
 scripts in order to keep them from falling into the 
 hands of the kings of Pergamum, and that they were 
 seriously injured through damp and worms. When 
 again dug up, they were, however, sold for a high 
 price to Apellikon, who had certain of the works 
 reproduced, in very defective editions, from the 
 imperfect manuscripts. On the capture of Athens, 
 Sylla took possession of such of the books as still 
 remained and carried them off to Rome, where they 
 were arranged by the grammarian Tyrannion, and 
 served as the text for the later editions issued by 
 the Roman publishers." 
 
 ' Stahr, Aristotle, 45. 
 ' Athenseus, i., 3. 
 ' Stahr, Aristotle, 70. 
 
Greece 91 
 
 It is probable, says Schmitz, that Ptolemy secured 
 only a portion of the collection, while a number of 
 the manuscripts came into the possession of Apel- 
 Hkon, and reached Rome through Sylla. Another 
 large library, according to Memnon, one of the 
 largest of the time, was that of Clearchus," Tyrant 
 of Heraklea, who had been a student of Plato and 
 Isocrates. 
 
 From the instances above quoted, it appears that 
 it was as a rule only persons of considerable wealth 
 who were able to bring together collections of books. 
 An exception to this is the case of Euripides, who 
 possessed no great fortune, but who had in his slave, 
 Cephisophon, a perfect treasure. Cephisophon not 
 merely took charge of the household affairs, but, as 
 a skilled scribe, prepared for his master's library 
 copies of the most noteworthy literary works of the 
 time." Educated slaves were in the time of Euripi- 
 des still scarce among the Greeks, while later it 
 was principally from Greece that the Roman 
 scholars and publishers secured the large number 
 of copyists who were employed on literary work in 
 Rome. 
 
 These references to the earlier collections of books 
 
 ' Memnon, reported by Photius, 322. 
 ° Aristophanes, v. , 944, 140S. 
 
92 Authors and Their Public 
 
 are of interest in indicating something of the value 
 in which literature was held as property, and of the 
 estimates placed on books by their readers, while it 
 must be admitted that they do not throw much 
 light on the relations of these readers with the 
 authors to whom they were indebted, and they are 
 absolutely silent as to any remuneration coming to 
 the authors for their labors. The earlier collections 
 were comprised almost exclusively of works of 
 poetry, and it is only when we get to the time of 
 Aristotle that we begin to find in the libraries a fair 
 proportion of works of philosophy and science, 
 although Boeckh' mentions references to works on 
 agriculture as early as the lifetime of Socrates. For 
 a long period, however, poetry formed by far the 
 most important division of the libraries, indicating 
 the great relative importance given in the earlier 
 development of Greek culture to this branch of litera- 
 ture. It is interesting to bear in mind that at 
 a somewhat similar stage of their intellectual develop- 
 ment, the literature of the Egyptians was almost 
 exclusively religious and astronomical, that of the 
 Assyrians religious and historical (provided the 
 rather monotonous narratives of the royal campaigns 
 are entitled to the name of history), while that of 
 ' Boeckh, Gesprdche des Sokratikus Simon, 226. 
 
Greece 93 
 
 the Hebrews was limited to the sacred chronicles 
 and the law. 
 
 It appears from such references as we find to the 
 prices paid that, as compared with other luxuries, 
 books remained very costly up to the time of the 
 Roman occupation of Greece, or about 150 B.C. This 
 is a negative evidence that there was as yet no effec- 
 tive publishing machinery through which could be 
 provided the means required for keeping up a staff 
 of competent copyists, and that the multiplication 
 of books was therefore practically dependent upon 
 the enterprise of such individual owners as may have 
 been fortunate enough to be able to secure slaves of 
 sufficient education to serve as scribes. Plato is re- 
 ported to have paid for three books of Philolaiis, 
 which Dion bought for him in Sicily, three Attic 
 talents,' equal in our currency to $3540, — and the 
 equivalent, of course, of a much larger sum, esti- 
 mated in its purchasing power for food. Aristotle 
 paid a similar sum for some few books of Spen- 
 sippus, purchased after the death of the latter." 
 
 If such instances can be accepted as a fair expres- 
 sion of the market value of literature, it is evident 
 that the ownership of books must have been Hmited 
 
 ' Diog. Laert., iii., g. 
 ^ Gellius, iii., i,. 17. 
 
94 Authors and Their Public 
 
 to a very small circle. The cost of books depended, 
 of course, largely upon the cost of papyrus, for which 
 Greece was dependent upon Egypt. An inscription 
 of the year 407 B.C., quoted by Rangabd, gives the 
 price of a sheet of papyrus (o x^'^P'^V^) at one 
 drachme and two oboli, the equivalent of about 
 twenty-five cents. 
 
 On the other hand, Aristophanes, in his comedy 
 of The Frogs, represented in 405 B.C., or about fifty 
 years before the above purchase of Aristotle, uses 
 some lines which have been interpreted as evidence 
 of some general circulation, at least of dramatic 
 compositions. According to the scheme of the play, 
 .^schylus and Euripides, contestants for the public 
 favor, have set forth each for himself the beauties 
 and claims of their respective masterpieces. The 
 Chorus then speaks, cautioning the poets that it will 
 be proper for them to present more fully the distinc- 
 tive features of their tragedies, and to explain the 
 same for the judgment of the audience. That the 
 audience is capable of such judgment is asserted in 
 the following words : 
 
 ' ' Are you troubled with the fear that your hearers lack the intelli- 
 gence to appreciate the fine points of your analyses ? Let such fear 
 vanish, for there can be no lack of understanding with these hearers. 
 Some of them are men of experience in campaigns ; others are in 
 
 ' Milller Lustspiele des Aristophanes, 1041 ff. 
 
Greece 95 
 
 the habit of instructing themselves from books, and have come to 
 the performance each furnished with a scroll with which to freshen 
 his memory, while each also is fully armed with mother-wit. Have 
 no fear therefore. They will have full understanding of all that you 
 may wish to discuss before them. " 
 
 Miiller proceeds to make an analysis of the pur- 
 port of the references in this passage, pointing out 
 that the experience of old campaigners would help 
 them to the appreciation of the robust and stirring 
 compositions of .iEschylus, while the scholarly habits 
 of the lovers of books would keep them in close 
 sympathy with the complex intellectual problems 
 considered by Euripides. 
 
 The sharper edge of the comparison is directed 
 against Euripides, who is always referred to by 
 Aristophanes as a book-worm. Miiller further con- 
 tends that the references to each hearer being " pro- 
 vided with his little book " (or book of the play) 
 must be understood as merely a piece of humorous 
 exaggeration, as during the last years of the Pelo- 
 ponnesian war, when the resources of Athens had 
 been seriously diminished, when poverty was general, 
 and men's minds were agitated with the excitement 
 of the campaign, few people could have had the 
 money for the buying, or the leisure for the reading, 
 of books. 
 
 Athenaeus concludes, from a fragment of the 
 
96 Authors and Their Public 
 
 comedy writer Alexis (a contemporary of Alexander), 
 that it was not until the time of Alexander that the 
 reading of books played any important part in the 
 intellectual life of the Greeks.' In the poem of 
 Prodicus, entitled The Choice of Hercules, portions 
 of which have been preserved in the Memorabilia 
 of Xenophon, Linus, the instructor of Hercules, is 
 represented as directing his pupil to select for his 
 reading one out of a number of books which are 
 lying before him. Among the authors whose works 
 are specified in the list are Orpheus, Hesiod, Homer, 
 Choerilus, and Epicharmus. (The last named is the 
 first Greek writer of comedy of whom we have any 
 trustworthy account. His first work was produced 
 about 500 B.C.) " Hercules, passing by the poetry, 
 seizes a volume on cookery, the work of an actor 
 named Simos, who was also famous as a cook.' 
 
 Artemon, a grammarian of Cassandria in Mace- 
 donia, who wrote shortly after the death of Aris- 
 totle and who made a collection of the letters of 
 Aristotle, published a dissertation on the collecting 
 and the use of books, which gives ground for the 
 impression that in his time there was already in 
 Macedonia or Northern Greece a circle of bibliophil- 
 
 ' Athen^^us, iv., 57. 
 ''Aristotle, Poet., v., 5. 
 ^AthenjEus, xii., 11. 
 
Greece 97 
 
 ists, ready to give attention to the counsels of this 
 forerunner of Dibdin, and possibly able also to pay 
 for the books. 
 
 A piece of evidence against the contention that 
 the price of books was high in the time of Plato, is 
 supplied, according to certain commentators, by 
 Plato himself. From a paragraph in the Apology 
 Boeckh ' understands that some kind of book-trade 
 must have been carried on in the orchestra of the 
 theatre (during the time, of course, when no per- 
 formance was going on), and that the writings of 
 Anaxagoras were offered for sale for one drachme ; 
 and Buchsenschutz ' takes the same view of Plato's 
 reference. The words used by Plato are put into the 
 mouth of Socrates, who is represented as contend- 
 ing; first, that the opinions for the utterance of 
 which he has been charged with heresy or impiety, 
 are in substance the same as those already given to 
 the world by Anaxagoras and others ; second, that 
 these views have been so widely published that 
 they have become public property, for the quoting 
 of which no single person can properly be held re- 
 sponsible ; and thirdly, that they can be obtained 
 in the theatre for a drachme. The particular writ- 
 
 ' Eoeckh, Staatsh., p. 68. 
 
 ^ Buchsenschutz, Besitz und Erwerb im Griech, Alterthum, 572. 
 
 7 
 
98 Authors and Their Public 
 
 ings of Anaxagoras to which Socrates here refers, 
 contain his theories concerning the nature- of the 
 sun, the moon, the earth, and the creating power of 
 divinity. Schmitz is, however, inclined to beHeve 
 not that the books containing these doctrines could 
 be purchased in the theatre, but that the theories of 
 Anaxagoras were at the time freely quoted in the 
 popular dramas (such as those of Euripides), and 
 that it was in listening to these plays in the theatre 
 that the public could without difificulty obtain a 
 knowledge of the new views.' 
 
 The usual price of admission to the Athenian 
 theatres was, in the time of Pericles, two oboli, or 
 about six cents, but on special holidays, when the 
 performance continued for several days, this price 
 was often raised to a drachme, or eighteen cents." 
 In the absence of any other references to this sup- 
 posed practice of turning orchestra stalls into book- 
 stalls, the weight of probability appears to favor the 
 conclusions of Schmitz rather than those of Boeckh. 
 
 Schmitz admits that it is not practicable to find 
 in the existing dramas of Euripides examples of such 
 presentation of the Anaxagorian theories of the uni- 
 verse, but he points out that a large portion of the 
 
 ' Schmitz, Schriftsteller in Athen, 68. 
 ' Hermann, Stoats Alterthum, 466. 
 
Greece 99 
 
 writings of this author was undoubtedly lost in the 
 destruction of the great war, and that this same war 
 prevented any wide distribution of the authenticated 
 copies, although many of the tragedies were so 
 popular that the songs from them were sung 
 throughout the land. By the end of the war 
 the fame of the tragedies had reached Sicily, 
 although very few of the manuscripts could yet have 
 got across the sea. After the defeat of the Athen- 
 ians before Syracuse, some of those who had been 
 captured or who, escaping from the Syracusans, had 
 wandered over the island, found a temporary liveli- 
 hood or even purchased their freedom by reciting 
 the plays of Euripides, and on their return to Athens 
 they took occasion to express to the poet their grati- 
 tude for the timely service rendered by his genius.' 
 
 To the coast cities of Asia Minor, as well as 
 throughout the Greek colonies of the Mediterra- 
 nean, had come the fame of the new tragedian, al- 
 though here also copies of the plays themselves 
 appear to have been very scarce. Plutarch relates ' 
 that the inhabitants of Caunus (a city of Caria), when 
 besought for shelter by an Athenian vessel chased 
 by pirates, wanted first to know whether the Athen- 
 ians could recite for them the songs of Euripides." 
 ' Plutarch, Nicias. '' Ibid. 
 
lOO Authors and Their Public 
 
 It is to be hoped that the Caunusians did not insist 
 upon being paid in advance, and upon having the 
 recitations made before they permitted the hard- 
 pressed vessel to gain the shelter of the harbor. In 
 all places and among all classes where Greek was 
 the language, the songs of Euripides appear to have 
 secured an immediate popularity, while by the 
 scholars also was given an appreciation no less 
 cordial. Both Plato ' and Aristotle " ranked Euripides 
 above Sophocles and .^schylus. 
 
 Alexander the Great entertained the guests at his 
 banquets by reciting long passages from Euripides." 
 Throughout Greece these tragedies appear for many 
 years to have been the compositions most frequently 
 selected for public readings. Lucian relates' that 
 the Cynic Demetrius, who lived in Corinth in the 
 first century, and whom Seneca refers to as a new 
 friend, heard an " uneducated man " read before an 
 audience The Bacchantes of Euripides. As the 
 reader came to the lines in which the messenger 
 announces the " terrible deed " of Agave and the 
 fearful fate of Pentheus, Demetrius snatched the 
 book from his hands with the words : " It is better 
 
 ^ Plato, De Republica, viii., 568. 
 
 ' Aristotle, Poet., xiii. 
 
 ^ Athenfeus, xii. , 53. 
 
 '' Lucian, Adv. Indoct., c. 19, 
 
Greece 
 
 lOI 
 
 for poor Pentheus to be murdered by me than by 
 you." The point of interest for Lucian (who wrote 
 about 150 A.D.) was the play on the term "mur- 
 dered," and for us the example of the practice, in 
 the first century, of the public reading of standard 
 literature, so general that an audience (rather than 
 not to hear the composition) would listen even to an 
 " ignorant reader." 
 
 Returning to the question of the distribution and 
 price of books, we find a reference by Xenophon' 
 to some " chests full of valuable books " having 
 been saved " with other costly articles " from the 
 cargo of an Athenian vessel shipwrecked at Salmy- 
 dessus, a city on the Euxine. 
 
 This appears to be the earliest reference on record 
 to any sending of supplies of books from Greece to 
 the colonies, but even here there is no evidence that 
 the volumes were forwarded by dealers, and it is 
 probable that the " chests " contained the private 
 library of some wealthy Athenian collector who had 
 migrated to Pontus. There is no question, how- 
 ever, but that in the time of Xenophon (445- 
 355 B.C.) Athens was the centre not only of the 
 literary activity of Greece, but of any book-trade 
 that existed. 
 
 ' Anabasis, vii., i,. 5. 
 
I02 Authors and Their Public 
 
 It seems evident that in Greece, as later in Rome, 
 the earliest booksellers were the scribes, who with 
 their own labor had prepared the parchment or 
 papyrus scrolls which constituted their stock in 
 trade. 
 
 The next step in the development of the business 
 was a very natural one, namely, the introduction of 
 the capitalist, who, instead of working with his own 
 hands, employed a staff of copyists and sold the 
 products of their labor. It is only surprising that 
 the continued high price paid for fair copies of 
 noted works and the steady demand for such copies, 
 should not have tempted dealers more rapidly into 
 the business. The principal obstacle was for many 
 years the difiSculty of securing a sufficiency of skilled 
 copyists the accuracy of whose work could be trusted. 
 According to Schmitz, there is no mention of the 
 appearance of booksellers in Athens earlier than the 
 fifth century B.C. 
 
 The Athenian comedy, which touched with its 
 keen raillery every phase of life, whether public or 
 private, did not overlook this new mode of occupa- 
 tion. The references are as a rule not compliment- 
 ary, but, as the comedians spared nothing in their 
 mockery, the fact need not stand to the discredit of 
 the first booksellers. Possibly the earliest mention 
 
Greece 103 
 
 of the trade is by Aristomenes, who, in a comedy 
 entitled The Deceivers (performed about 470 B.C.), 
 speaks of a " Dealer in Books." Cratinus, in his 
 play The Mechanics (written about 450 B.C.), men- 
 tions a copyist {fiifiXioypaqioi) ' ; Theopompus, writ- 
 ing about 330 B.C., uses the term " bookseller " ' 
 {fiifiXionaih]?) ; Nicophon gives a list of " men who 
 support themselves with the labor of their hands " 
 (jceipoyasrsi), and in this list groups the bibliopoles 
 in with the dealers in fish, fruit, figs, leather, meal, 
 and household utensils.' It would seem as if in this 
 instance the term fii^Xionrnhji must have been 
 used as synonymous with or at least as including 
 ^i^Xioypacpov, the scribe and the seller of the manu- 
 scripts being one and the same person. Antiphanes, 
 born in Rhodes B.C. 408, who is credited by Suidas 
 with having written over three hundred dramas, 
 which were very popular in Athens, refers to " book- 
 copyists," and also to books which had been " sewed 
 and glued." ' The comic writer, Plato, who was a 
 contemporary of Socrates, makes first mention of 
 " written leaves," i. e., papyrus. The term used by 
 
 ' Meineke, Fragm. Comic, ii., 2732 ; Pollux, vii., 2H. 
 2 Meineke, ii., 2821 ; Zonaras, Lex., 388. 
 ^ Meineke, ii., 2852. 
 
 ^ Meineke, iii., 114 ; Pollux, vii., 21 ; and Meineke, iii., 88 ; Pollux, 
 vii., 201. 
 
I04 Authors and Their Public 
 
 him, ;tap7m, was, according to Birt, when standing 
 alone, more usually applied to leaves of papyrus 
 prepared for writing, but still blank ; ;fapT«i yeypafi- 
 fxsvat standing for the inscribed leaves. 
 
 We may conclude from Nicophon's having included 
 the booksellers in his list of traders that they had 
 their shops or stalls on the market-place. Eupolis 
 also speaks of the " place where books are sold," 
 {oil ra ^ipikia covia)^ and it appears therefore that 
 as early as 430 B.C. a special place in the market 
 must have been reserved for the book-trade — an 
 Athenian Paternoster Row, or, more nearly perhaps, 
 a Quai Voltaire. It was, however, not until the 
 time of Alexander the Great that the business of 
 making and selling books — that is, attested copies 
 of the works of popular writers — appears to have 
 developed into importance. 
 
 Until the business of book-making had become 
 systematized, the admirers of a poet or philosopher 
 were obliged to supply themselves with his works 
 through their own handiwork, unless they were for- 
 tunate enough to possess slaves educated as scribes. 
 This test of the reader's admiration was assuredly 
 rather a severe one. It is certgiin that the number 
 of disciples of modern authors would be enormously 
 'Meineke, iii., 378 ; Pollux, vii., 211. 
 
Greece 105 
 
 limited if, as a first condition for the enjoyment of 
 their writings, the would-be readers were under the 
 necessity of transcribing the copies with their own 
 hands. Imagine the extent of the task for the ad- 
 mirers of Clarissa Harlowe, or for those who absorbed 
 their history through the ninety odd romances of 
 G. P. R. James ! 
 
 As the supply of educated slaves increased, there 
 was, of course, less need for individual scholars to 
 devote their own handiwork to copying of manu- 
 scripts for their libraries. It was cheaper to employ 
 the labor of slaves, and to use their own time for 
 more important work. The names of some of the 
 slaves who did good service as scribes have been 
 preserved in history. Mention has already been 
 made of Cephisophon, the steward, secretary, and 
 personal friend of Euripides. One of Plato's dia- 
 logues is distinguished by the name of Phcsdon of 
 Elis, who had been sold as a slave in his youth and 
 had been employed as a scribe. The attention of 
 Socrates was attracted by his capable work, and he 
 persuaded Crito to purchase his freedom." 
 
 The poet Philoxenus of Cythera was sold as a 
 slave to Melanippides (the younger), whom he served 
 as a scribe, and whose poetry he was said to have 
 'Dibg. Laert, ii., 105. 
 
io6 Authors and Their Public 
 
 surpassed with his own productions. There are many 
 similar instances both of slaves who succeeded in se- 
 curing an education and in doing noteworthy literary 
 work, and of men of education who had, through 
 the fortunes of war or through the loss of their 
 property, fallen into the position of slaves, and who 
 were then utilized by their masters for literary work. 
 
 There is also evidence that the state caused 
 intelligent slaves to be instructed in writing in order 
 to be able to use them for work on the public records 
 or as clerks for the officials.' 
 
 It is to be borne in mind that the (to us) extra- 
 ordinary extent to which the Greeks were able to 
 develop their power of memorizing enabled them 
 often to trust to their memory where modern stu- 
 dents would be helpless without the written (or the 
 printed) word. " My father," says Niceratus in The 
 Banquet of Xenophon, " compelled me to learn by 
 heart all the poetry of Homer, and I could repeat 
 without break the entire Iliad and Odyssey." " The 
 boys in school were given as their daily task the 
 memorizing of the works of the poets, and what was 
 begun under compulsion appears to have been con- 
 tinued in later life as a pleasure. 
 
 'Demosth., Olynth., ii., 19. 
 
 'Xenophon, The Banquet of Philosophers, iii., 5. 
 
Greece 107 
 
 Such an exceptional development of the power of 
 memory, making of it almost a distinct faculty from 
 that which the present generation knows under the 
 name, may properly be credited with some influence 
 upon the slowness of the growth among the ancients 
 of any idea of property in an intellectual produc- 
 tion. As long as men could carry their libraries 
 in their heads, and when they desired to enter- 
 tain themselves with a work of literature, needed 
 only to think it to themselves (or even to re- 
 cite it to themselves) instead of being under the 
 necessity of reading it to themselves, they could 
 hardly have the feeling that comes to the modern 
 reader (if he be a conscientious person) of an in- 
 debtedness to the author, an indebtedness which is 
 in large part connected with the actual use of the 
 copy of the work. In the early Greek community, 
 a very few copies (or even a single copy) of a great 
 poem were sufficient in a short space of time to 
 place the work of the poet in the minds of all the 
 active-minded citizens, such men as would to-day 
 be frequenters of the bookstores. In the Homeric 
 times it proved, in fact, to be possible to permeate a 
 community with the inspiration of the national epics 
 without the aid of any written copies whatever. For 
 the service rendered by these early bards, the com- 
 
io8 Authors and Their Public 
 
 munity might, and very possibly did, feel under an 
 obligation of sonae kind, but the individual reciter 
 who had absorbed the poems into the possession of 
 his memory, and the readers to whom he transmitted 
 the enjoyment of these poems, could not have sug- 
 gested to them any such feeling of personal obliga- 
 tion to the poet as is experienced by the reader of 
 to-day who is called upon to buy from the author, 
 through the publisher, the text of any work of which 
 he desires the enjoyment. The Greek of these 
 earlier times needed no texts and dreamed of no 
 bookseller. He inherited from his ancestors the 
 poetry of the preceding generation with the same 
 sense of natural right as that with which he took 
 possession of his ancestral acres ; and he absorbed 
 into his memory for his daily enjoyment the poetry 
 of his own day with the same freedom and almost 
 the same unconsciousness as that with which he 
 took into his lungs the air about him. In this way 
 the literature with which he had to do became really 
 a part of himself, and he may be said to have be- 
 come possessed of it in a way which would hardly be 
 possible for one who was simply a reader of books. 
 It is not easy to realize how much we have lost in 
 these days of printed books in losing this magnificent 
 power of memorizing our literature and carrying it 
 
Greece 109 
 
 about with us, instead of going to our libraries for it 
 and taking it in by scraps. How much more to us, 
 for instance, would Shakespeare's plays stand for, if 
 they could be stored in our heads ready for use 
 when wanted, instead of being available, as at pres- 
 ent, only in the occasional reading circle, or the still 
 less frequent Shakespearian revival. 
 
 An author who seems to have taken exceptional 
 pains to secure a circulation for his productions was 
 Demosthenes, but it is to be borne in mind that his 
 interest as a politician, or perhaps it is fairer to say 
 as a statesman, desiring to arouse public opinion in 
 behalf of his policy, was probably even keener than 
 his ambition as an author hoping for a popular appre- 
 ciation of his eloquence. Whatever the motive or 
 combination of motives, it appears that after the 
 delivery of an oration he would act as his own 
 reporter, writing out revised copies and distributing 
 the same among his friends for distribution.' He 
 had a special interest in securing a wide popular 
 circulation for his speeches in the matter of the 
 guardianship, and for those against ^schines and 
 in behalf of Phormion, and the copies of these,' pre- 
 pared by his own hand or under his orders, certainly 
 
 ' Schaefer, Demosthenes und seine Zeit., 322. 
 ^ Isocrates, Letters to Philip, ii. 
 
no Authors and Their Public 
 
 came into the hands of many readers. Copies of 
 the speeches made by Demosthenes against Philip 
 must have been brought to the latter by some of the 
 orator's opponents. Such at least is the interpreta- 
 tion given by Schmitz to the well known exclamation 
 of Philip : " If I had heard him speak these words, 
 I should myself have been compelled to lead the 
 campaign against Philip." ' 
 
 An early reference to the practice of making 
 publication of a book in any formal manner (as dis- 
 tinguished from the permission accorded to friends 
 to make transcripts for their own use) is given by 
 Isocrates, writing about 400 B.C. He speaks of 
 hesitating to publish his Panathenaicus (jcpavipav 
 Ttoirfaai diadovai). He began the work, says Birt, 
 when he was already ninety-four, was obliged to 
 leave it on account of illness, but took it up again 
 three years later, and it was then that (conscientious 
 author as he was) he hesitated to give the volume to 
 the public, because some friend to whom he had 
 read it was not fully in accord with its conclusions." 
 
 The development of the trade of making and sell- 
 ing books came but slowly, but received no little 
 impetus through the taste for literature implanted by 
 
 1 Plutarch, Philip, 17. 
 ^ Birt, 435. 
 
Greece 1 1 1 
 
 Aristotle in his royal pupil Alexander. The latter 
 appears to have given frequent commissions to his 
 friend Harpalus for the purchase of books. From 
 the mention by Plutarch ' it has been thought Har- 
 palus must have been sent from Asia with instruc- 
 tions to procure for Alexander a long series of works 
 whose titles are given. Schmitz points out, how- 
 ever, that Alexander could hardly have been in a 
 position during his Asiatic campaigns and journey- 
 ings to collect a library, and these commissions to 
 Harpalus must have been made at an earlier date, 
 before Alexander had left Macedonia and while 
 the " friend of his youth " was sojourning in 
 Athens. 
 
 The one point that is clear and that is of interest 
 to us in this connection is that, at about 330 B.C., 
 Harpalus was able to purchase in Athens, which was 
 already referred to as the centre of the book-trade of 
 Greece, " many tragedies of Euripides, ^schylus, 
 and Sophocles, dithyrambic poems by Tilestus and 
 Philoxenus, the historical writings of Philistus of 
 Syracuse, together with a number of rare works." 
 From Athens also, at about the same time, Mnaseas, 
 the father of Zeno, brought to his son, in the course 
 of " various business journeys," copies of all the 
 ' Plutarch, Alexander, c. 8. 
 
112 Authors and Their Public 
 
 " published writings of Socrates." ' There is also a 
 reference in Dionysius of Halicarnassus ' to the 
 many volumes of Isocrates which had been published 
 (literally " placed among the people " ) by the Athen- 
 ian booksellers. Schmitz speaks of the great impetus 
 given to the production of books, that is, to the 
 reproduction of copies of the works of the writers 
 accepted as standard, by the literary taste and ambi- 
 tion of many of the successors of Alexander, notably 
 the Ptolemies in Alexandria and the Attali of 
 Pergamum. He mentions further that as one result 
 of the greater and more rapid production of manu- 
 scripts there was a considerable deterioration in the 
 quality and standard of accuracy of the copies. The 
 complaints of readers and collectors concerning the 
 errors and omissions in the manuscripts begin from 
 this time to be very frequent. It would, in fact, 
 have been very surprising if the larger portion of the 
 manuscripts that came into the market had not been 
 more or less imperfect. As soon as their production 
 became a matter of trade instead of, as at first, a 
 labor of love on the part of scholars, the work of 
 copying came into the hands of scribes working for 
 pay, or of slaves, and partly from lack of literary 
 
 ' Diog. Laert., vii., 31. 
 
 * Dionysius Hal., Ve Isocrate, 18. 
 
Greece 1 1 3 
 
 interest, partly also doubtless from pure ignorance, 
 the many opportunities for blunders appear to have 
 been taken full advantage of. Fortunately it was 
 only the readers who suffered, and the authors, long 
 since dead, were spared the misery of knowing how 
 grievously their productions were mutilated. Differ- 
 ent sets of copyists naturally came to have varying 
 reputations for accurate or inaccurate manuscripts. 
 Diogenes Laertius ' speaks of skilled scribes sent 
 from Pella by Antigonus Gonatas to Zeno, the Stoic, 
 to be employed in making trustworthy transcripts of 
 that philosopher's works, for which the Macedonian 
 king had a great admiration. Diogenes tells us 
 further that when Zeno, who came from Cetium in 
 Cyprus, first arrived in Athens, he had suffered ship- 
 wreck and had lost near the Piraeus, just as he was 
 reaching his journey's end, both his vessel and the 
 Phoenician wares which constituted its cargo. Dis- 
 couraged by his misfortune, he strolled gloomily 
 along the avenue from the harbor ("by the dark 
 rows of the olive trees ") toward the city in which he 
 was now a poverty-stricken stranger. As he reached 
 the market-place and passed a bookseller's shop, he 
 heard the bookseller read aloud. He stopped to 
 hsten, and there came to him words of good counsel 
 ' Diog. Laert., viii., 36. 
 
114 Authors and Their Public 
 
 from the Memoirs of Xenophon. " Cultivate a cheer- 
 ful endurance of trouble and an earnest striving 
 after knowledge, for these are the conditions of a 
 useful and happy life." Cheered by this hope- 
 ful counsel, Zeno entered the bookseller's shop 
 and inquired where he should find the teachers 
 from whom he could learn such wise philosophy. 
 In reply, the bookseller, evidently well informed 
 as to the literary life of his city, pointed out the 
 cynic Krates who happened to be passing at the 
 moment. ' 
 
 The intellectual life of Athens, which a century 
 before had centred about the dramatic'poets, appears 
 at this time to have been principally devoted to the 
 study of philosophy. Among the other noteworthy 
 changes that had been brought about during the 
 hundred odd years since the death of Euripides, 
 was the evolution of the bookseller or publisher who 
 had not evidently become a permanent institution, 
 and whose shop is recognized as a centre of literary 
 information. 
 
 We can imagine some European student landing, 
 two thousand years later, in Boston and applying, 
 with an inquiry similar to that put by Zeno, at the 
 corner shop of Ticknor & Fields. How easy would 
 have been the answer if at the moment had passed 
 
 ' Diog. Laert., vii., 2. 
 
Greece 115 
 
 along Washington Street the slender figure of 
 Emerson ! 
 
 The question has been raised whether the passage 
 from Diogenes, above quoted, might not indicate 
 that booksellers or others, owning manuscript copies 
 of popular works, made a regular business of reading 
 aloud to hearers paying for the privilege. Such a 
 practice would apparently have fitted in very well 
 with the customs of the time, and would have met 
 the needs of many of the poorer students for whom 
 the purchase of manuscripts was still difficult. It 
 would also have formed a very natural sequence to 
 the long-standing custom of the recital from memory 
 of the works of the old poets. While it seems very 
 possible from the conditions that public readers 
 found occupation in this way, there is no trustworthy 
 evidence to such effect. 
 
 While Zeno was teaching in Athens, a certain Kal- 
 linus appears to have won distinction among the 
 scribes of Athens for the accuracy and beauty of his 
 manuscripts. The Peripatetic philosopher LyCon, 
 who died about 250 B.C., bequeathed to his slave 
 Chares such of his writings as had already been 
 " published," while the unpublished works were left 
 to Kallinus " in order that accurate transcripts of the 
 same might be prepared for publication." ' 
 ' Diog. Laert., v., 73. 
 
ii6 Authors and Their Public 
 
 As the rivalry which continued for some time be- 
 tween the Ptolemies and the Attali in the collecting 
 of libraries caused the price of books in Athens to 
 remain high, a further result was the establishing of 
 other centres of book-production, of which for a 
 long time the island of Rhodes was the most impor- 
 tant. By about 250 B.C., the literary activity of the 
 Alexandrian scholars, encouraged by Ptolemy Phila- 
 delphus, to whom the founding of the great library 
 was probably due, caused Alexandria to become one 
 of the great book-marts of the world. 
 
 After the first conquest of Greece by the Romans 
 had been practically completed by the capture of 
 Corinth in 146 B.C., there appears to have been a re- 
 vival in Athens of the trade in books, owing to the 
 increased demand from the scholars of Rome, where 
 Greek was accepted as the language of refined litera- 
 ture and where Greek authors were diligently studied. 
 Lucullus is said by Plutarch ' to have brought from 
 Rome (about 66 B.C.) many books gathered as 
 booty from the cities of Asia Minor, and many more 
 which he had purchased in Athens, together with a 
 great collection of statues and paintings. 
 
 The great hall or library in which his collections 
 were stored became the resort of the scholarly and 
 ' Plutarch, Lucullus, u. 42. 
 
Greece 1 1 7 
 
 cultivated society of the city, and its treasures of 
 art and literature were, according to Plutarch, freely 
 placed at the disposal of any visitors fitted to ap- 
 preciate them. Sylla, without claiming to be a 
 scholar, was also a collector of Greek books. He 
 secured in Athens the great library of Apellikon of 
 Teos, which included the writings of Aristotle and 
 of Theophrastus. Apellikon, who died in Athens in 
 the year 84 B.C., had a mania for collecting books, 
 and was reputed to be by no means scrupulous as to 
 the means by which he acquired them. If he saw a 
 rare work which he could not purchase, he would, if 
 possible, steal it ; and once he was near losing his 
 life in Athens in being detected in such a theft. His 
 Aristotle manuscripts, which were said to be the 
 work of the philosopher's own hand, had been found 
 in a cave at Troas where they had suffered greatly 
 from worms and dampness.' After the manuscripts 
 reached Rome they were transcribed by Tyrannion 
 the grammarian. He sent copies to Andronicus of 
 Rhodes, which became the basis of that philosopher's 
 edition of Aristotle's works." Pomponius Atticus 
 utilized his sojourn in Athens (in 83 B.C.) not only 
 to familiarize himself with the great works of Greek 
 
 ' See on page 90 another version of the same story. 
 ^ Ritter, Hisi. Ancient Philos., iii., 24. 
 
ii8 Authors and Their Public 
 
 literature, but to cause to be naade a number of 
 copies of some of the more popular of these, which 
 copies he afterwards sold in Rome " to great advan- 
 tage." ■ 
 
 There is a reference in Pliny to a miniature copy of 
 the Iliad prepared about this time, which was so 
 diminutive that it could be contained in a nutshell. 
 He speaks of it as Ilias in nuce. Pliny refers to 
 Cicero as his authority for the existence of this manu- 
 script, in which he is interested principally as an 
 evidence of the possibilities of human eyesight. Its 
 interest in connection with our subject is of course 
 as an example of the perfection which had been at- 
 tained in the first century before Christ in the art of 
 book production." 
 
 Notwithstanding the stimulus given to the pro- 
 duction of manuscripts by the increasing demand for 
 these in Italy, books continued to be dear, even 
 through the greater part of the first century. The 
 men of Ephesus who were induced under the teach- 
 ings of Paul to burn their books concerning " curious 
 arts " counted the price of them and found it to be 
 fifty thousand pieces of silver. 
 
 The history of Greek hterature presents few 
 
 ^ Drumann, v., 66, quoting Cicero, Epist. ad Atiicum. 
 'Plin., Hist. Nat., yii., 21. 
 
Greece 119 
 
 other instances of the destruction of books, whether 
 for the sake of conscience or for the good of the com- 
 munity, or under the authority of the state. There 
 are, however, occasional references to the exercise on 
 the part of the rulers of a supervision of the literature 
 of the people on the ground of protecting their 
 morals or religion. Probably the earliest instances 
 in history of the prosecution of a book on the ground 
 of its pernicious doctrines is that of the confiscation, 
 in Athens, of the writings of Protagoras, which were 
 in 41 1 B.C. condemned as heretical. 
 
 All owners of copies of the condemned writings 
 were warned by heralds to deliver the same at the 
 Agora, and search was made among the private 
 houses of those believed to be interested in the 
 heretical doctrines. The copies secured were then 
 burned in the Agora. Diogenes Laertius, by whom 
 the incident is narrated, goes on to say that the de- 
 struction was by no means complete, even of the 
 copies in Athens, while no copies outside of Athens 
 were affected.' The attempt to suppress the doctrines 
 of the philosopher by means of putting his books 
 on an index expurgatorius was probably as little suc- 
 cessful as were similar attempts with the doctrines of 
 other " heretics " in later centuries. 
 ' Diog Laert., ix., 52. 
 
I20 Authors and Their Public 
 
 The fact that high prices could be depended upon 
 for copies of standard works ought to have insured a 
 fair measure of accuracy in the manuscript. Com- 
 plaints, however, appear repeatedly in the writing 
 of the time {i. e., the century before and that suc- 
 ceeding the birth of Christ) of the bad work fur- 
 nished by the'scribes. Much of the copying appears 
 to have been done in haste, and with bad or careless 
 penmanship, so that words of similar sound were 
 interchanged and whole lines omitted or misplaced, 
 and the difificulties of obtaining trustworthy texts 
 of the works of older writers were enormously and 
 needlessly increased. In order to enable a number 
 of copyists to work together from one text, it ap- 
 pears that the original manuscript was often read 
 aloud, the work of the scribes being thus done by 
 ear. This would account for the interchanging of 
 words resembling each other in sound. 
 
 Strabo, writing shortly before the birth of Christ, 
 refers to an example of this unsatisfactory kind of 
 bookmaking. 
 
 The grammarian Tyrannion, in publishing in com- 
 pany with certain Roman booksellers his edition of 
 the writings of Aristotle, confided the work to 
 scribes, whose copies were never even compared 
 with the original manuscript. And, says Strabo, 
 
Greece 121 
 
 editions of other important classics, offered for sale 
 in Alexandria and Rome, had been prepared with 
 no more care.' The reputation of the manuscripts 
 transcribed at this period in Athens appears to have 
 been but little better. The making, that is to say 
 the duplication and publishing of books, had come 
 to be a trade, and a trade of considerable import- 
 ance, but the men who first engaged in it appear to 
 have had little professional or literary standard, and 
 not to have realized that profits could be secured from 
 quality of work as well as from quantity, and that 
 for a publisher a reputation for accurate and trust- 
 worthy editions could itself be made valuable capital. 
 The publishers of Greece appear to have been 
 characterized by modesty, for not one of those who 
 did their work at the time of the greatest prosperity 
 of the book-trade in Greece has left his name on 
 record for posterity. The days were still to come 
 when every book would bear its imprint bringing 
 into lasting association the name of its publisher 
 with that of the author. The Greek publishers ap- 
 pear not to have assumed, like the later Tonson, an 
 ownership in their poets, nor do we, on the other 
 hand, find in the utterances of the poets any expres- 
 sions corresponding to the famous " My Murray " of 
 
 ' Strabo, xiii., c. 54. 
 
122 Authors and Their Public 
 
 Lord Byron. Curtius speaks of a reference in an 
 inscription to the " Ptolemy " or " Ptolemaic " book- 
 store, but the name of the bookseller is not given. 
 It is only later, when the Greek book-trade was in 
 its decline, that we come across the names of two 
 dealers in books, Kallinus and Atticus. They are 
 mentioned as famous during the lifetime of Lucian 
 (about 1 20 to 200 A.D.), the former for the beauty 
 and the latter for the accuracy of his manuscripts. 
 It is an interesting coincidence that this Kallinus, 
 noted for the beauty of his texts, bears the same 
 name as the scribe commended three centuries be- 
 fore by Zeno for the beauty and accuracy of his 
 manuscripts. Their copies were much prized and 
 brought high prices, not in Athens only, but in 
 scholarly circles elsewhere. It is evident that each 
 of these booksellers began business as a scribe, sell- 
 ing only the work produced by his own hands, but 
 that as their orders increased it became necessary 
 for them to employ a number of copyists, whose 
 script, receiving a personal supervision and doubt- 
 less a careful collation with the original texts, could 
 be guaranteed as up to the standard of their own 
 handiwork. Of the other booksellers who were in 
 Athens in his time Lucian speaks very contemp- 
 tuously. " Look," he says, " at these so-called book- 
 
Greece 123 
 
 sellers, these peddlers ! They are people of no 
 scholarly attainments or personal cultivation ; they 
 have no literary judgment, and no knowledge how 
 to distinguish the good and valuable from the bad 
 and worthless." ' Lucian had evidently a high 
 standard of what a publisher ought to be. 
 
 Some of these Athenian booksellers whom Lucian 
 thus berates for stupidity, appear also to have borne 
 a poor reputation for honesty. Among other mis- 
 deeds charged against them was one, the ethics of 
 which might have belonged to a much later period 
 of bookmaking. In order to give to modern manu- 
 scripts the appearance of age, and to secure for them 
 a high price as rare antiquities, they would bury them 
 in heaps of grain until the color had changed and 
 they had become tattered and worm-eaten. Lucian 
 also satirizes the ambition of certain wealthy and 
 ignorant individuals to keep pace with the literary 
 fashion of the time, and to secure a repute for learn- 
 ing by paying high prices for great collections of 
 costly books, which, when purchased, gave enjoy- 
 ment " to none but the moths and the mice." " It 
 was partly due to the competition of wealthy collec- 
 tors of this kind that, notwithstanding the great 
 
 ' Lucian, c. iv., as quoted by Schmitz, 55. 
 
 ' Lucian, Adv. Ind., 4, quoted by Schmitz, 56. 
 
124 Authors and Their Public 
 
 increase in the production of copies, the price of 
 books remained high, much to the detriment of all 
 impecunious students. 
 
 The beauty of the calligraphy of the manuscripts 
 of Kallinus is known to us only through Lucian, but 
 there are several writers who bear testimony to the 
 accuracy of the transcripts prepared by his rival 
 Atticus, who must, by the way, not be confused with 
 the Roman Atticus, the friend of Cicero. Harpocra- 
 tion of Alexandria, known principally as the author 
 of one of the first Greek dictionaries, makes several 
 references to the authority of the Atticus editions of 
 the speeches of ^schines and Demosthenes. The 
 famous Codex Parisinus of Demosthenes is believed 
 by Sauppe to be based upon the excellent textual 
 authority of a manuscript of Atticus, and Sauppe 
 further contends that, if Atticus did not work from 
 an absolute original, he must have had before him a 
 very well authenticated copy. In the fragment of a 
 work by Galen (who wrote in Rome about 165 A.D.) 
 upon certain passages in the Timceus of Plato which 
 had to do with medicine, Galen makes Atticus his 
 authority for the passages quoted by him, as if we 
 were indebted to this bookseller for the text of the 
 Timceus that has been preserved.' 
 
 ' Schmitz, 57. 
 
Greece 125 
 
 From the time of Lucian the interest in books 
 steadily increased, book-collecting became fashion- 
 able, especially in Rome, and bibliophiles and bibho- 
 maniacs were gradually evolved. At this time the 
 beautifully written and carefully collated manuscripts 
 which emanated from Athens bore a high reputation 
 as compared with the much cheaper but less attract- 
 ive and less trustworthy copies, which were produced 
 in Alexandria and in Rome. In the book-shops of 
 these two cities, during the first two centuries, a 
 swifter and less accurate system of transcribing ap- 
 pears to have prevailed, the work being largely done 
 by slaves or by scribes who did not have accurate 
 knowledge of the literature on which they were en- 
 gaged, while the necessity of a careful collating of 
 each copy with the original appears frequently to 
 have been overlooked. Origen, writing about 190 
 A.D., speaks of confiding his works to the "swift 
 writers of Alexandria " in order to secure for them 
 a speedy and a wide circulation. He was looking 
 for no other return for his labors than a large circle 
 of readers, and a large influence for his teachings, 
 and the proceeds of the sales of these " swiftly writ- 
 ten copies " were in all probability entirely appropri- 
 ated by the booksellers who owned or who employed 
 the scribes. 
 
126 Authors and Their Public 
 
 After the conquest of Greece by the Romans the 
 centre of book production passed from Athens first 
 to Alexandria and later to Rome. For centuries 
 to come, however, the book production of the world 
 was chiefly concerned with the works of Greek 
 authors, and the literary activity of successive genera- 
 tions drew its inspirations from Greek sources ; and 
 the writers of Greece, whose brilliant labors brought 
 no remuneration for the laborers, gave to their coun- 
 try and to the world a body of literature which at 
 least in one sense of the term can properly be called 
 a magnificent literary property. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 Alexandria. 
 
 DURING the middle of the third century be- 
 fore Christ, the centre of literary activity 
 was transferred from Athens to Alexandria, which 
 became, under Ptolemy Philadelphus, and for more 
 than three centuries remained, the great book-pro- 
 ducing mart of the world. The literature of Alex- 
 andria was not, like that of Athens, and later that 
 of Rome, something of slow growth and gradual 
 development ; the literary ambition and the resources 
 of the second Ptolemy proved sufficient to bring 
 together in a few years' time a great body of writers 
 and students and to place at their disposal the 
 largest collection of books known to antiquity. 
 
 The most important step in the undertaking of 
 securing for the royal young city of the Nile the 
 literary leadership of the world was the establish- 
 ment of the great Museum, which appears to have 
 comprised in one organization a great lending and 
 
128 Authors and Their Public 
 
 reference library, a series of art collections, a group 
 of colleges endowed for research (of the type of 
 " All Souls " at Oxford), a university of instruction, 
 and an academy with functions like those of the 
 Paris Academy, assuming authority to fix a standard 
 of language and of literary expression, and possibly 
 even to decide concerning the relative rank of 
 writers. The Museum (whose name is of course 
 evidence of its Greek origin and character) is said to 
 date from the year 290 B.C., in which case the found- 
 ing of it must be credited to Ptolemy Soter, the 
 father of Philadelphus, but its full organization and 
 effective work certainly belonged to the reign of 
 the latter. 
 
 Schools of instruction and courses of lectures had, 
 as we have seen, existed at Athens for a century 
 or more, and Athens had also possessed as early 
 as 300 B.C., at least one public library. Alexandria, 
 however, presents the first example of a university 
 established on a state foundation, and offering to 
 literary and scientific workers an assured income 
 through salaried positions. Mahaffy finds in these 
 positions a fair parallel to the institution of fellow- 
 ship existing in the British universities. He says : 
 " The fellows of the Alexandrian University, brought 
 together into a society by the second Ptolemy, de- 
 
Alexandria 129 
 
 veloped that critical spirit which sifted the wheat 
 from the chaff of Greek literature, and preserved for 
 us the great masterpieces in carefully edited texts." ' 
 
 A peculiarity of the literature of the Alexandrian 
 school was that it had no connection with the 
 country in which it was produced. No inspiration 
 was derived by the Alexandrian writers from Egypt. 
 The traditions and the accumulated learning of the 
 civilization of the Nile (possibly the oldest civiliza- 
 tion the world has known), appear to have been 
 contemptuously ignored by the immigrant writers of 
 the Museum, whose interests and whose literary con- 
 nections remained exclusively Greek. The literature 
 of Alexandria, as well during the reign of the 
 Ptolemies as after the absorption of Egypt into the 
 empire of Rome, remained a direct outgrowth of 
 that of Greece (including, of course, in the term. 
 Magna Graecia as well as the Peninsula). It pre- 
 sented certain distinctive characteristics of its own, 
 but these seem to have been due rather to the 
 academic influence, and in the later period to the 
 growth of the theological spirit, than to the Egyptian 
 environment or to the relations of the city with im- 
 perial Rome. 
 
 Of the several divisions of the Museum, that most 
 
 ' Greek Life and Thought, 195. 
 
130 Authors and Their Public 
 
 frequently referred to in literature, and therefore the 
 best known to later generations, is the Library, but 
 concerning this the accounts are in many respects 
 conflicting. John Tzetzes, a Greek scholar of the 
 twelfth century, writing in Constantinople, tells us 
 on the authority of the Alexandrian writer, Callima- 
 chus, that " the outer library " contained 42,000 
 rolls, while in the inner were placed 490,000 rolls. 
 Callimachus noted " from an examination of the 
 catalogue " that of the latter, 90,000 were fiifiXoi 
 a/AiSet? or " unmixed rolls, that is, rolls containing 
 each only a single work, while 400,000 were fiipkoi 
 avfifii^Ei? or " mixed " rolls, containing each two or 
 more distinct works.' Josephus quotes Demetrius 
 Phalerius as saying to Ptolemy Soter (the first 
 Ptolemy) that the library already contained 200,000 
 volumes, and would soon include 500,000. In con- 
 sideration of what is known of the extent of the 
 literature of the time in existence, these figures have 
 been considered by many authorities as too large 
 to be credible. Birt points out, however, that the 
 wholesale purchases which Philadelphus caused to 
 be made throughout Greece and the Greek cities of 
 Asia Minor had unquestionably brought to Alex- 
 andria not only single copies and duplicates of all 
 
 Birt, 486. 
 
Alexandria 131 
 
 the existing works, but supplies of them by the 
 dozens or hundreds. The unlimited prices offered 
 from the King's treasury by the librarians of the 
 Museum caused a steady flow of books to set in tow- 
 ards Alexandria from all parts of the civilized world, 
 and in addition to the purchase of all the manu- 
 scripts that were offered, the ' representatives of the 
 King appear to have made a thorough ransacking of 
 all the public and private collections that could be 
 reached, and even to have taken by force volumes 
 which the owners did not wish to sell. Ptolemy is 
 said to have refused food to the Athenians during a 
 famine except on condition that they would give 
 him certain authenticated copies of the tragedies of 
 ^schylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. It is fair to 
 add that he paid for these tragedies, in addition to 
 the promised shipment of corn, the sum of fifteen 
 talents in silver, the equivalent of about $15,750. 
 
 One result of this absorption of the book supplies in- 
 to Alexandria was that the Greek world was now, and 
 for a considerable time to come remained, dependent 
 upon Alexandria for copies of all of the old writers. 
 The measures of the King had succeeded not only in 
 making it necessary for students and scholars to come 
 to Alexandria for their reading, but in compelling 
 book-buyers to come to Alexandrian dealers for their 
 
132 Authors and Their PubHc 
 
 books. The publishers of Alexandria secured at once a 
 monopoly for their editions, and through their enter- 
 prise in training numbers of skilled scribes (including 
 now not only educated slaves but many of the impe- 
 cunious scholars of the university) and by means of 
 the distributing facilities afforded by the commercial 
 connections of their capital, these publishers retained 
 in their hands for about three centuries the control 
 of the greater part of the book production of the 
 world. The publishers of Athens disappeared, and 
 the publishers who in the first century B.C. and 
 the first century A.B. were carrying on book busi- 
 ness in Rome, were obliged to have done in Alex- 
 andria the work of transcribing such of their issues 
 as were in the Greek language, forming until the 
 time of Trajan a very large, if not the larger, 
 portion of their total production. The writers who 
 formed what is known as the earlier Alexandrian 
 school, comprised a considerable group of poets, of 
 whom the most noteworthy were Theocritus, Calli- 
 machus, Timon, and Lycophon, and some original 
 workers in original science, of whom the most im- 
 portant were Euclid, the father of geometry, Nicho- 
 machus, the first scientific arithmetician, Appollo- 
 nius, whose work on conic sections still exists, and 
 Aratus, the astronomer. If the first named of these 
 
Alexandria 13^ 
 
 scientists could have discounted some small portion 
 even of the compensation due to him from the many 
 generations of students who have utilized his prob- 
 lems in geometry, he would have been one of the 
 nabobs of literature. 
 
 The writers who were perhaps the most character- 
 istic of the academic circle of Alexandria, were, how- 
 ever, the so-called " grammarians," who rendered to 
 their own generation and to posterity the invaluable 
 service of preparing authoritative editions of the 
 great writers of the past. It is to these Alexandi'ian 
 editions that we are indebted for the larger portion 
 of the works of the Greek writers which have been 
 preserved, while the fact of the existence of many 
 works of which the texts have been lost is known 
 only through the references to their titles made by 
 Alexandrian commentators. One of these gram- 
 marians was Zenodotus, the Ephesian, who is 
 credited with having established the first grammar 
 school in Alexandria (about 250 B.C.). Among 
 others whose names have been preserved are Era- 
 tosthenes, Crates, Apollonius, Aristophanes, Aristar- 
 chus, and Zoilus. The term " grammarian " was 
 evidently used to designate philologists and literati, 
 whose work was by no means limited to the explana- 
 tion of words, but corresponded more nearly to that 
 
134 Authors and Their Public 
 
 done by the French cyclopaedists. By this group of 
 scholars was produced what is known as the Alex- 
 andrian Canon, a list of Greek authors whose writ- 
 ings were thought worthy of preservation as classics. 
 This list included, according to Scholl/ five epic 
 poets, five iambic poets, nine lyric poets, fourteen 
 tragic poets, thirteen comic poets, seven poets of the 
 group known as the Pleiades, eight historians, ten 
 orators, and five philosophers, or in all seventy-nine 
 authors, of whom fifty-six were poets. The academic 
 or oiificial character thus given to the authors named 
 in the Canon was of undoubted service to the world's 
 literature in giving the needed incentive for the 
 preservation of their writings through the multiplica- 
 tion of well edited copies. Moore suggests, however, 
 that this service may in some measure have been 
 offset by the injury caused to literature through the 
 comparative neglect into which were sure to fall a 
 vast number of writers who had failed to be honored 
 with the stamp of the Canon, and the consequent 
 loss of their works for posterity." 
 
 Theocritus was a native of Syracuse, and appears 
 to have divided his time between that city and Alex- 
 andria. In like manner Aratus, who belonged in 
 
 ' Hist. Lit. Gr., iii., i86. 
 ' Moore's Lectures, 55. 
 
Alexandria 135 
 
 Macedonia, did his literary work partly under the 
 patronage of King Antigonus, and partly under that 
 of Philadelphus. It appears to have been difficult 
 for Greek authors, in whatever city they belonged, 
 to escape the centripetal influence of the Alexan- 
 drian Academy, and the attractions presented by so 
 powerful a patron of literature as Philadelphus, 
 while it is also probable that the inducements offered 
 by the Alexandrian publishers had some part in 
 making it desirable for authors of note to make fre- 
 quent visits to the city. Mahaffy points out that 
 the literature of Alexandria under the Ptolemies 
 possessed little popular character, and was in the 
 main the work of court writers and of scholastic 
 pedants rather than of authors in sympathetic touch 
 with the people. As one evidence of the accuracy 
 of this description, he mentions the omission of any 
 reference In the writings of contemporary Alexan- 
 drian writers to the great Galatian invasion which in 
 the early part of the third century B.C. desolated a 
 large part of Asia Minor. While speaking appreci- 
 atively of the service rendered to literature by the 
 liberal patronage of Philadelphus, Mahaffy is of 
 opinion that the Museum fellowships came to be 
 utilized (as has been the case in later times with other 
 literary circles supported by royal bounty) by a num- 
 
136 Authors and Their Public 
 
 ber of lazy incompetents. In his trenchant phrase, 
 he refers to these deteriorated fellowships as " liter- 
 ary hencoops filled with overfed and idle savants.'' 
 His description recalls some at least of the features 
 of the literary circle brought together by Frederick 
 the Great, but the Prussian monarch was probably 
 much more of a barbarian, even in his literary meth- 
 ods, than the Ptolemies of Alexandria. 
 
 The most noteworthy literary undertaking ema- 
 nating from Alexandria was the Greek version of 
 the Old Testament, known as the Sepfuagint, which 
 was begun by certain learned Jews (according to 
 tradition seventy Rabbis) about 285 B.C., and was 
 completed in the course of years by various hands. 
 The work of the translators had, of course, no con- 
 nection with Greek literature other than as a recog- 
 nition of the necessity of putting into Greek any 
 writings for which a general distribution was planned. 
 Eckhard says that the first use of the term rpa/xftarsi?, 
 in the sense of copyists, was as applied to these 
 Hebrew scholars who were devoting themselves to 
 the interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures. He 
 adds that, in order to leave them undisturbed in 
 their scholarly undertaking, the king assigned to 
 them a special quarter of the city called Kiriath 
 Sepher, or, in the Septuagint, noXii Tpajxjxaxwv, the 
 
Alexandria 137 
 
 first literary quarter or Grub Street of which history 
 makes mention.' 
 
 Among the grammarians who rendered important 
 service in the editing of the older classics was Calli- 
 machus, whose name also appears in the list of poets. 
 This is the same Callimachus whose report concern- 
 ing the number of the books contained in the library 
 is quoted by Tzetzes. Very few of the other names 
 of the Alexandrian editors have been preserved, 
 their editions having in most cases been modestly 
 sent forth with the names of the authors only. 
 
 The publishers of Alexandria must also have been 
 modest, for not a single firm has sent its name down 
 to posterity. There are many references in later 
 literature to the existence in Alexandria of great 
 book-producing concerns, and, as Birt remarks, an 
 active production of literature must have necessi- 
 tated an effective machinery for the distribution of 
 literature. 
 
 Strabo speaks of the excellent organization of the 
 book scribes of Alexandria, and states that Roman 
 methods of bookmaking were derived from Alex- 
 andria. The fact that for a number of centuries the 
 entire supply of the most important of the materials 
 required was derived from Egypt, gave an enormous 
 ' Geraud, io6. 
 
138 Authors and Their PubHc 
 
 advantage to the development of publishers in 
 Alexandria. Even after the perfection of the meth- 
 ods for the preparation of parchment, papyrus re- 
 tained its place in the preference of writers, Greek 
 and Roman, and until about the fourth century A.D. 
 the use of parchment continued very inconsiderable. 
 But the papyrus was produced only in Egypt. It was 
 therefore a serious blow at the literary undertakings 
 of the kings of Pergamum when Philadelphus, in 
 pursuance of his policy of concentrating in Alex- 
 andria the production of literature, prohibited for 
 some years the export from Egypt of papyrus. 
 It was this embargo that gave a temporary stimulus 
 in Pergamum to the production of dressed skins, and 
 the special interest taken by Pergamum in this in- 
 dustry caused the most carefully finished of the 
 skins (very different in their appearance from the 
 old time Sicpdspai, to bear the name of parchment, 
 pergamentum. With the removal of the embargo, 
 however, the writers in Asia Minor appear in the 
 main to have speedily gone back to the use of the 
 more convenient papyrus ; the production of parch- 
 ment languished, and when in the latter Empire, 
 parchment again came into vogue, as its manufacture 
 could as well be carried on in many other places, 
 it did not remain an important product of Pergamum. 
 
Alexandria 139 
 
 Not only in Pergamum but also in Antioch was 
 the attempt made, through the founding of museums 
 {i. e., libraries with schools attached) to create literary 
 centres, but these efforts met with no considerable 
 or lasting success. Mahaffy points out that these 
 cities were, during the larger portion of their exist- 
 ence as separate capitals, much more frequently 
 engaged in the excitement of campaigns than was 
 the case with Alexandria. The position of the latter, 
 practically secure against invasion and outside of 
 the great struggles and contests which kept Asia 
 Minor in a state of agitation, was peculiarly advan- 
 tageous for the development of literary and scholas- 
 tic interests. 
 
 Attractions were offered to literary men by the 
 Court of Antioch, and Syria became under Greek 
 and Macedonian influence a home of Hellenism, but 
 no important literary undertaking took shape under 
 the Seleucids except the translation by Berosus, the 
 Chaldean High Priest, of certain cuneiform records, 
 a work which was dedicated to Antiochus I.' The 
 only large example in literature of Syrian Greek is 
 presented by the New Testament, as the Septuagint 
 remained the most important record of the Greek 
 of Alexandria." The library gathered at Antioch 
 
 ' Mahaffy, Social Life, 209. ' Mahaffy, 209. 
 
140 Authors and Their PubHc 
 
 appears after the Roman occupation to have been 
 destroyed or dispersed. The larger collection at 
 Pergamum was, according to Plutarch, given by- 
 Antony to Cleopatra, and was absorbed into the 
 Museum of Alexandria. 
 
 It is probable that in Alexandria not only the 
 publishers but also the authors secured returns from 
 the profits of book-production. It is difficult to ex- 
 plain in any other way the gathering of authors in 
 Alexandria from all parts of the Greek world 
 and their frequent references to their business ar- 
 rangements for the production of their books. A 
 definite piece of evidence is also afforded by the 
 statement of Strabo, previously referred to, that the 
 publishing methods of Rome were derived from 
 those existing in Alexandria ; and in Rome, as we 
 shall see in a later chapter, a system of compensa- 
 tion to authors certainly came into practice. It is, 
 however, unfortunately, the case, that no trustworthy 
 data have been found from which can be gathered 
 the details of the business relations of the Alexan- 
 drian authors with their publishers. Birt points out 
 that the government itself went into the publishing 
 business on a considerable scale, and its compe- 
 tition may easily have caused perplexities to the 
 publishers. We have already seen that the Museum 
 
Alexandria 141 
 
 had, under the directions of the King, taken pains 
 to purchase the most authoritative texts known 
 of the classic authors, while in certain cases they 
 secured the entire supplies of the copies known to 
 be in existence. Staffs of copyists were gathered in 
 the IVluseum, and under the editorial supervision of 
 the salaried Fellows, editions in more satisfactory 
 form than had heretofore been known were produced 
 for the public. It is not shown whether these copies 
 were offered for sale directly at the Museum, or 
 whether arrangements were entered into with the 
 leading booksellers for their distribution in Alexan^ 
 dria and throughout the reading world. It is proba- 
 ble, however, that the latter course must have been 
 adopted, for it is not likely that the Museum under- 
 took to establish connections for the sale of its 
 editions in foreign countries, while it is certain that 
 for their university editions a wide and continual 
 sale was secured. 
 
 One of the changes introduced in book-making 
 methods under Philadelphus was the substitution of 
 papyrus rolls of small and convenient size for the 
 enormous scrolls heretofore in use. According to 
 Birt, the average length of these larger rolls had 
 not exceeded five hundred inches, or about forty- 
 one feet, but instances are cited, in the earlier 
 
142 Authors and Their PubHc 
 
 Egyptian literature, of rolls (principally Hieratic) 
 reaching a length of one hundred and fifty feet. In 
 the fifth century there was burned in Byzantium a 
 Homeric roll one hundred and twenty feet in length.' 
 It is possible that the writer of the Apocalypse may 
 have had one of these enormous scrolls in his vision 
 when he beheld the record of the sins of Babylon 
 reaching to the heavens. 
 
 Callimachus, the grammarian, who seemed to have 
 had as much responsibility as any man of his group 
 in shaping the literary work of the Academy of 
 Philadelphus, gave utterance to the dictum, " A big 
 book is a big nuisance," ro jusya /3i/3\iov laov i'Xeysv 
 eivai ro jxEyaXco naKw^ and from his time the cum- 
 bersome scrolls began to disappear, and as well for 
 the new editions of the classics as for the literature 
 of the day, the small rolls came into use. These 
 smaller rolls would contain in poetry from 350 to 
 750 lines each, so that for the Iliad and Odyssey, for 
 instance, thirty-six rolls were required. For works 
 in prose each roll would usually contain from 700 to 
 1500 lines, while specimens have been found with 
 as few as ijo lines. ° Such rolls would comprise 
 from ten to at the most two hundred pages.* 
 
 ' Birt, 439. 2 Birt, 443. 
 
 '^ Athenaus, 72. ■'Birt, 501. 
 
Alexandria 143 
 
 Birt is of opinion that this question of the extent 
 of the sheets available for the writer and the nature 
 of the divisions in the subject suggested by the divi- 
 sion in the material, had a very marked influence 
 upon the style, proportioning, and subdivisions of 
 works of literature. He goes so far as to ascribe to 
 this cause the evolution of epigrammatic literature, 
 vers de soci^t^, and light and superficial court poetry 
 of the Alexandrian school, which formed so sharp a 
 contrast to the massive tragedies of the great poets 
 of Attica. I can but think, however, that Birt has 
 got the causation reversed, as it seems more proba- 
 ble that a certain style of writing should have 
 brought about a change in the method of dividing 
 writing paper than that the paper-makers should 
 have been in a position, simply by changing the 
 form of their rolls, to evolve a new style of litera- 
 ture, or even to play any important part in such 
 evolution. 
 
 This increasing use of small rolls must, of course, 
 be taken into account in calculating the number of 
 works contained in all the post-Alexandrian libraries 
 as well as in the great collection of the Museum of 
 Philadelphus. 
 
 Birt ascribes to the limitation presented by the 
 size of the rolls the division of narratives into 
 
144 Authors and Their Public 
 
 " books," but it is certainly the case that there are 
 examples of such division in the works of writers of 
 a much earlier date, when large rolls were still cus- 
 tomary. Xenophon's Anabasis, for instance, is so 
 divided. The books in this are also peculiar, as 
 before mentioned, in being preceded by summaries 
 of the preceding books. The length of a dramatic 
 poem was naturally determined by the time that 
 could be allotted for the performance. They con- 
 tained from 1800 to 1900 lines, and each drama 
 constituted a "book," although several books might, 
 even under the new fashion of smaller rolls, still be 
 included in one roll. 
 
 As fresh supplies of the classic writings came to 
 be distributed through the civilized world, more par- 
 ticularly, of course, among the Greek cities, the 
 monopoly established by the policy of the Ptolemies 
 for the Alexandrian editions gradually came to an 
 end, and the production of books took a fresh start 
 in other centres. The monopoly of the paper- 
 makers, however, continued, for nowhere but in the 
 valley of the Nile could the papyrus be made to 
 grow, and during the first two or three centuries of 
 the Roman Empire the extent of the book-making 
 markets supplied by the paper industries must have 
 been so enormous that it is difficult to understand 
 
Alexandria 145 
 
 how the growth of the papyrus, in the limited dis- 
 trict suitable for it, could have been sufficient to 
 meet the requirements. To modern Egypt, accord- 
 ing to Wilkinson and other authorities, the plant is 
 unknown, for it has entirely disappeared from its 
 ancient habitat on the banks of the Nile. It would 
 seem, therefore, that, like flax and the cotton plant, 
 it required for its existence certain special conditions 
 which could be insured only through careful cultiva- 
 tion. The words of the Hebrew prophet have thus 
 been realized : " The paper reeds by the brooks, by 
 the mouth of the brooks, . . . shall wither, be 
 driven away, and be no more." ' It is probable that 
 the cultivation was finally brought to a close in the 
 seventh century, when the Saracens took possession 
 of Egypt. 
 
 The importance of Alexandria as one of the chief 
 sources of book-production endured for three cen- 
 turies or more after its conquest by the Romans in 
 the year 30 B.C. As long as the language and litera- 
 ture of the Greeks continued to be the fashion 
 among the cultivated circles in the Roman Em- 
 pire, the supplies of books prepared by the Greek 
 copyists continued to be largely drawn from Alex- 
 andria. By the close of the first century, however, 
 ' Isaiah, xix., 7. 
 
146 Authors and Their Public 
 
 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 ofificial capital of 
 the world, that men of letters now journeyed from 
 all parts of the empire. 
 
 The Alexandrian Academy of letters was suc- 
 ceeded by the Alexandrian school of theology, and 
 to the city of the Ptolemies is probably to be cred- 
 ited the evolution of the odium theologicum, and the 
 beginning of the long series of fierce and bitter the- 
 ological 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 his- 
 tory of the world. The names of Philo, Ammonius, 
 and later of Plotinus, lamblichus, 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 
 
Alexandria 147 
 
 in Alexandria, was largely taught there during the 
 first two centuries A.D., among the earlier teachers 
 being Basilides, Valentinus, Heraclem, and Theod- 
 otus. 
 
 From the various schools of metaphysics and 
 theology was poured out during the first three cen- 
 turies 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, theo- 
 logical, and religious subjects were, in fact, so keenly 
 interested in extending the knowledge of their spe- 
 cial 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 
 
148 
 
 Authors and Their Public 
 
 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 produc- 
 tion 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 
 
 149 
 
150 Authors and Their Public 
 
 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 suffi- 
 ciently accounts for the peculiar shape of these 
 characters, a shape which was imitated by the en- 
 gravers 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. 
 
 An astronomical work discovered by George 
 Smith comprised seventy such tablets, say one hun- 
 dred and forty pages. The first of these begins 
 with the words " When the gods Anu," and this 
 
Book-Terminology in Classic Times 1 5 1 
 
 seems to have been taken as the title of the work, 
 for each successive tablet bears the notice " First 
 (second or third) tablet of ' When the gods Anu.' 
 Further, to guard against all chance of confusion, 
 the last line of our tablet is repeated as the first line 
 of the following one — a fashion which we still see in 
 old books, in which the last word or two at the 
 bottom of a page is repeated at the top of the 
 next. ... If the tablets were to be impressed with 
 figures or hieroglyphics in place of or in addition to 
 the cuneiform characters, engraved cylinders were 
 used of some hard stone, such as jasper, cornelian, 
 or agate. . . . Tablets have also been found (usually 
 in foundation stones) of gold, silver, copper, lead, 
 and tin." ' 
 
 Referring to the care with which each monarch 
 gathered into his palace the chronicles of his reign, 
 building long series of inscribed tablets into the walls 
 and burying others beneath the foundation stones, 
 Menant says : 
 
 " It was not mere whim which impelled the kings of Assyria to 
 build so assiduously. Palaces had in those times a destination which 
 they have no longer in ours. Not only was the palace indeed the 
 dwelling of royalty, but, as the inscriptions indicate, it was also the 
 Book, which each sovereign began at his accession to the throne, and 
 in which he was to record the history of his reign." 
 
 ' Ragozin, Chaldea, II2 et seq. 
 
152 Authors and Their Public 
 
 Painstaking and slow as the method appears to 
 have been in which the Babylonians and Assyrians 
 recorded the earliest known Hterature of the world, 
 in one respect at least they achieved a success greater 
 than that of any of the literature-producing nations 
 who were to follow them. Their books were made 
 to last, and through forty centuries of vicissitudes 
 such as would have crumbled into unrecognizable 
 dust the collections of the Vatican or of the British 
 Museum, the mounds of Mesopotamia have safely 
 protected the libraries of the Chaldean kings, and it 
 is probable that, notwithstanding the completeness 
 of the devastation that overwhelmed the Assyrian 
 lands, a larger proportion of the entire body of 
 Assyrian literature has been preserved for the stu- 
 dents of to-day than of any national literature 
 which came into existence prior to the invention of 
 printing. 
 
 The book of Egyptian literature was nearly always 
 written on papyrus, that is, on the tissue prepared 
 from the stems of the papyrus plant, a species of 
 reed which in ancient times abounded on the banks 
 of the Nile. In the earlier days, there are instances 
 of palm-leaves being used for certain classes of docu- 
 ments. According to Wilkinson, the papyrus plant 
 has now entirely disappeared from Egypt. So im- 
 
Book-Terminology in Classic Times 153 
 
 portant was the role played by papyrus in the 
 history of classic literature that ancient writers 
 speak as if their literature could hardly have existed, 
 or at least could hardly have been preserved, 
 without it. 
 
 Pliny, for instance, writes : Papyri natura dicetur, 
 cum charta usu maxime humanitas vita constet, certe 
 memoria. Birt renders this : It is on literature that 
 all human development depends, and assuredly to 
 literature is due the transmission of history.' Pliny 
 here uses the word charta (i. e., paper made of 
 papyrus) as a general term for literature, and speaks 
 as if papyrus were the only material in use for 
 books. He was writing about the middle of the 
 first century. 
 
 From their own land the Greeks could secure no 
 materials for book-making, and their literature, 
 which was to inspire and to enlighten future genera- 
 tions, could be preserved for these generations only 
 by the use of substances imported from other 
 countries. By far, the most important of their 
 book-making materials was the same papyrus plant 
 which had long been utilized by the Egyptians. To 
 the stem of this plant, from which the book "paper" 
 was prepared (the English term being, of course, 
 1 Birt, 55. 
 
154 Authors and Their Public 
 
 derived from the Egyptian plant), the Greeks gave 
 the name of fivfiXoi or /SifiXoi. These terms, with 
 the diminutives ^vfiXiov, fiifiXiov, and fii^Xidapiov 
 speedily came to stand for the book itself instead 
 of for the book-paper, the " book " comprising a 
 series of prepared papyrus sheets, gummed together 
 into a roll. fiv^Koi usually denoted a single work 
 only, although such work might comprise several 
 volumes or rolls. Suidas, however, whose Lexicon 
 was written about looo A.D., asserts that it was also 
 used for a collection of books. The word /Jti/J/lo? 
 was in like manner used for cordage, i. e., the ropes 
 of ships, for the making of which the papyrus stem 
 was also employed. 
 
 We have named first in order papyrus, as the 
 material most universally used by the Greek writers, 
 and /Sw/SA-o? as the term for book most frequently 
 occurring in Greek literature. 
 
 Centuries, however, before the introduction of the 
 papyrus, or of the dressed skins, other materials 
 were employed for writing, such as thinly rolled 
 sheets of lead, used for public documents, and slips 
 of linen sheets, and wax tablets, used for private 
 records and correspondence. Wax tablets were 
 known to Homer, and twelve hundred years after 
 Homer were still in use among the Romans. The 
 
Book-Terminology in Classic Times 155 
 
 Homeric Greeks also utilized slabs of wood and the 
 bark of trees, another material which remained useful 
 for many generations, and which gave to the Romans 
 the term for book, liber. Another term in which 
 the roll nature of the book is clearly indicated is 
 HvXivSpoS, a cylinder.' This brings us back to one 
 of the Assyrian forms, arrived at, however, in a very 
 different way. 
 
 The papyrus book, whether Egyptian, Greek, or 
 Roman, was gotten up very much like a modern 
 mounted map. A length of the material, written on 
 one side only, was fastened to a wooden roller, 
 around which it was wound. The Egyptian name 
 for such a roll was tamd. Such rolls were often 
 twenty, thirty, or even forty yards long." Herodotus 
 tells us the whole of the Odyssey was written on one 
 such roll. He also refers to an Egyptian priest roll- 
 ing a book about the horns of a sacrificial bull.' As 
 the inconvenience of these long rolls became appar- 
 ent, the practice obtained of breaking up the longer 
 works into sections. Certain suitable sizes became 
 normal, and the conventional length of the roll exer- 
 cised a considerable influence on the length of what 
 
 ' Diog. Laert., x., 26. 
 
 "^ Birt, Das Antike Buchwesen, 439. 
 
 ' Herod., ii., 38. 
 
156 Authors and Their Public 
 
 are still called the " books," i. e., divisions of the 
 classical authors. The Egyptian rolls were kept in 
 jars, holding each from six to twelve.' 
 
 The term a.n\a. was applied to a " book " or writing 
 completed on a single strip of papyrus and compris- 
 ing therefore only one leaf." 
 
 The word rojxoi (from which comes our English 
 tome) occurs only after the Alexandrian era. It 
 means literally a slice or a cutting, and when used 
 with precision stood, as to-day, for a portion or divi- 
 sion of the entire work. A diminutive of this is 
 rojxapiov. 
 
 '0 x<xprr]i indicated originally a papyrus sheet or 
 roll which had not yet been written upon, but came 
 later to be used also for a papyrus manuscript.' 
 
 Tevxoi, which had for its earlier signification tool 
 or implement, was later used for a chest, repository, 
 or book-case, and, after the Alexandrian age, came 
 finally into use as a term for a set or series of 
 (literary) works. 
 
 FpajAjxa, meaning in the first place " that which is 
 graven or written," and then "the letter" or the 
 scripture, is used, although but rarely, for book, 
 
 ' Johnson's Cyclo., 300. 
 
 ' Ritsche, Die Alexandrin.Bibliothek. 
 
 2 Plato, Com., ii., 684. Meineke. 
 
Book-Terminology in Classic Times 157 
 
 occurring more often in the plural rpa).i)xara,^ and 
 still more frequently in the form 2vyypaiAfAata, 
 " words written together." The 2vyypafxj.ta was a 
 collection of manuscript rolls tied together in a 
 bundle or faggot, called by the Liat'ms fasces. 
 
 The famous term Aoyoi, meaning in the first 
 place that which is said, the word, the utterance, 
 and then the story or narrative, came occasionally to 
 be referred to as the book, or in the plural form, 
 Aoyoi, as the books, writings, or works of a particular 
 writer. It was, however, the substance of the writ- 
 ings and not their physical form which was then 
 referred to, and the expression seems to have been 
 applied only to writings in prose. 
 
 The previous terms (with the exception of Aoyoi, 
 which, having to do with the thought of the writer 
 and not with the form of the writing, could stand 
 for any intellectual production) were all employed 
 only for books written on papyrus. A material 
 which preceded the use of papyrus, and which, with 
 improved methods of preparation, long outlasted this, 
 although occupying a far less important place in 
 ancient literature, was obtained from skins or hides. 
 The use of this material for writing was borrowed 
 from the Phoenicians, from whom were also purchased 
 
 ' Plutarch, Ccssar, 60 ; Galen, i. , 79. 
 
158 Authors and Their Public 
 
 the skins themselves. The dressed skins were called 
 diepdipai, and writings upon skins came to be known 
 by the same name. Ctesias speaks of the diq)depai 
 fiaaiKiHai, royal books (or writings or documents) 
 of the Persians, and Herodotus says that such skins 
 were used in the earlier times for book-material not 
 only in Greece, but even in Egypt, the home of the 
 papyrus. In Greece, the papyrus, introduced from 
 Egypt through the Phoenician traders, appears at one 
 time to have almost entirely replaced the dressed 
 skins, while later, owing to the improved methods 
 for the preparation of the skins, these again found 
 favor. It was, however, not until the production of 
 parchment {membrana or per gamend), that the value 
 of skins for literary purposes began to be properly 
 understood, and even parchment made its way but 
 slowly among writers in competition with the long- 
 established papyrus, which it was, however, destined 
 to outlast for many centuries. The name parchment, 
 pergamena, is derived from the city of Pergamum, 
 where, according to the tradition, it was first prepared 
 under the direction of King Eumenes II., about 190 
 B.C. It seems certain, however, that parchment had 
 been produced considerably before this date, but a 
 great impetus was doubtless given at this time to its 
 use, and its manufacture was improved, owing to the 
 
Book-Terminology in Classic Times 159 
 
 embargo placed by Ptolemy Epiphanes on the ex- 
 portation from Egypt of papyrus. Ptolemy was, it 
 appears, jealous of the growing fame of the great 
 library of Pergamum, which was beginning to rival 
 that of Alexandria, and he hoped that by cutting 
 off the supply of book-material from other countries 
 he could compel the scholars of the world to resort 
 to Alexandria. 
 
 Pliny, writing about 250 years later, appears not 
 to have believed that the new parchment could serve 
 as in any way an adequate substitute for the papy- 
 rus. He considered it very fortunate that the Ptole- 
 mies had finally consented to withdraw the interdict 
 on the exportation of papyrus, as otherwise the 
 history of mankind in the past (immortalitas homi- 
 nuni) might have been utterly lost. 
 
 Excepting for the temporary impetus given to the 
 use of the parchment among the writers of Perga- 
 mum during the embargo on the Egyptian papyrus, 
 its introduction among literary circles proceeded 
 but slowly. It came into competition more directly 
 with wax tablets for private notes and memoranda 
 than with papyrus for use in books. 
 
 For correspondence, at least for the longer letters, 
 papyrus seems for some centuries to have been found 
 the most convenient material. The author of the 
 
i6o Authors and Their Public 
 
 Second Epistle of John evidently wrote on papyrus,' 
 and in the long series of letters between Cicero and 
 his several correspondents, all the references are to 
 the same material. 
 
 The Latin terms for book, like those used by the 
 Greeks, indicate the nature of the material used, or 
 the method of its arrangement. The word liber, 
 which occurs perhaps the most frequently in Latin 
 literature, has been already referred to. It means 
 originally bark, and by some antiquarians is sup- 
 posed to give evidence of some prehistoric use by 
 the Italian writers of tablets of wood or bark. It 
 was applied finally to books of all kinds, but when 
 used with precision, it indicated books of papyrus 
 arranged in leaves as opposed to a roll or a series of 
 rolls. The roll, whether composed of papyrus sheets 
 or of parchment, was called volumen. Its use as a 
 general term for a book of any kind appears to date 
 from the time of Cicero. Liber was also used for a 
 division of a literary composition, in the sense in 
 which the term " book " is employed to-day, the en- 
 tire work being called volumen, or opus. The latter 
 term, however, had, like Xoyoi, no reference to the 
 material or form, but only to the literary produc- 
 tion. 
 
 ' 2 John, 12. 
 
Book-Terminology in Classic Times i6i 
 
 The next term in order of importance was codex. 
 The word, which means originally the trunk of a 
 tree, was in the first place used for wooden tablets 
 smeared, for writing purposes, with wax. It was 
 later applied to large documents and manuscripts, 
 whether of papyrus or parchment. A still later 
 meaning was that of a collection or series of writ- 
 ings, in the sense in which we should to-day speak 
 of " a body of literature." A codex rescriptus, or 
 palimpsest, was a parchment on which the original 
 writing had been erased or defaced to make room 
 for a later inscribing. The erasing was sometimes 
 imperfectly done, so that it became possible to de- 
 cipher the text of the original writing through that 
 which had been superimposed. A number of im- 
 portant works of antiquity have in this manner been 
 recovered through the labors of modern scholars, 
 the list including Cicero's De Repiiblica, some of the 
 books of Livy, certain books of Pliny the Younger, 
 and portions of the Septuagint. 
 
 The term libellus, literally a small writing, was 
 used for a memorandum book, a petition, a memo- 
 rial, a summons, a complaint in writing, and finally 
 for a small volume. Birt explains that in the latter 
 sense it always stood for a book of verse, on the 
 ground that, according to the usual arrangement, a 
 
1 62 Authors and Their Public 
 
 volume of verse contained half as much material as 
 one of prose. 
 
 The wooden case containing the papyrus roll was 
 called a capsa, or a scrinium. The latter term was, 
 possibly, more generally applied to a case large 
 enough to hold several rolls. The term umbilicus 
 was applied to a reed or stick fastened to the last 
 leaf or strip of the manuscript, around which it was 
 rolled. 
 
 It is to be borne in mind that as the inspiration 
 for Roman literature came from Athens and Alexan- 
 dria, and the earlier Roman authors were accus- 
 tomed to use Alexandria as a convenient centre for 
 book-production, the Greek terms for books and for 
 things connected with books came into general use 
 with Latin writers, and probably for some time con- 
 tinued to be employed in place of or indifferently 
 with the Latin terms. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 Rome. 
 
 ROMAN literature may be said to date from 
 about 250 B.C., or, to take an event which 
 marked an important era in the life of the Republic, 
 from the close of the first Punic War, 241 B.C. 
 
 With the Romans, literature was not of spon- 
 taneous growth, but was chiefly the result of the in- 
 fluence exerted by the Etruscans, who were their 
 first teachers in everything mental and spiritual. 
 
 The earliest literary efforts of the Greeks, or at 
 least the earliest which are known to us, were, as we 
 have seen, epic poems, setting forth the deeds of the 
 gods, demi-gods, and heroes. The earliest literary 
 productions of the Romans were historical narratives, 
 bald records of events real or imaginary. 
 
 Simcox refers to the curious feature of Latin lit- 
 erature, that " It is in its best days a Roman litera- 
 ture without being the work of Romans." ' The great 
 
 ' Simcox, History Latin Lit., i., 31. 
 J63 
 
164 Authors and Their Public 
 
 writers of Athens were Athenians, but from Ennius 
 to Martial, a succession of writers who were not 
 natives of Rome lived and worked in the metropolis 
 and owed their fame to the Roman public. 
 
 Authors came to Rome from all parts of the civil- 
 ized world, there to make their literary fortunes. 
 They needed, in order to secure a standing in the 
 world of literature, the approval of the critics of the 
 capital, and in the latter period, they required also, 
 for the multiplying and distributing of their books, 
 the service of the Roman publishers. 
 
 Gdraud points out that the Romans came very 
 near to the acquisition of the art of printing. It 
 was the aim of Trajan, in his Asiatic expeditions, to 
 surpass Alexander in the extent of his conquests and 
 journeyings eastward. " If I were but younger ! " 
 murmured Trajan, as he stood on the shores of the 
 mysterious Erythrean Sea (the Indian Ocean). And 
 there was in fact probably little but lack of time to 
 prevent him from passing Alexander's limit of the 
 Ganges, and, marching across the Indian peninsula, 
 from arriving within the borders of the " everlasting 
 empire " of the Chinese. In the time of Trajan, 
 however (100 A.D.), the Chinese had already mastered 
 the art of xylographic printing, or printing from 
 blocks. If, therefore, Trajan had arrived at the im- 
 
Rome 165 
 
 perial power say ten years earlier, literary property 
 might have saved thirteen centuries in securing the 
 most essential condition of substantial existence. 
 
 There are, however, compensations for all losses. 
 If printing had come into Europe in the first century, 
 the world might to-day be buried under the accumu- 
 lated mass of its literature, and my subject, already 
 sufficiently complex, would have assumed unman- 
 ageable proportions. 
 
 With the knowledge of the language and hterature 
 of Greece, which came to the Romans partly through 
 the commerce of the Greek traders of the Mediter- 
 ranean, partly through the Greek colonies in Italy, 
 and partly, probably, through the intercourse 
 brought about by war, a new literary standard was 
 given to Rome. The dry annals of events, and the 
 crude and barely metrical hymns or chants, which 
 had hitherto comprised the entire body of national 
 literature, were now to be brought into contrast with 
 the great productions of the highest development of 
 Greek poetry, drama, and philosophy. As a result 
 the Hterary thought and the literary ideals of Rome 
 were, for a time, centred in Athens. 
 
 It would not be quite correct to say that from the 
 outset Athenian literature served as a model for 
 Roman writers. This was true only at a later stage 
 
1 66 Authors and Their Public 
 
 in the development of literary Rome. The first step 
 was simply the acceptance of the works of Greek 
 writers as constituting for the time being all the 
 higher literature that existed. Greek became and 
 for a number of years remained the literary language 
 of Rome. Such libraries as came into existence were 
 at first made up exclusively, and for centuries to 
 come very largely, of works written in Greek. The 
 instructors, at least of literature, philosophy, and 
 science, taught in Greek and were in large part them- 
 selves Greeks. In fact the Greek language must 
 have occupied in Italy, during the two centuries be- 
 fore Christ, about the place which, centuries later, 
 was held throughout Europe by Latin, as the recog- 
 nized medium for scholarly expression. 
 
 There is, however, this difference to note. The 
 Latin of mediaeval Europe, though the language of 
 scholars, was for all writers an acquired language, 
 and its use for the literature of the middle ages gave 
 to that literature an inevitable formality and artificial- 
 ity of style. The Greek used in early Rome was 
 the natural literary language, because it was the 
 language of all the cultivated literature that was 
 known, and it was learned by the Romans of the 
 educated classes in their earliest years, becoming to 
 them if not a mother tongue, at least a step-mother 
 
Rome 167 
 
 tongue. In the face of this all-powerful competition 
 of the works of some of the greatest writers of an- 
 tiquity, works which were the result of centuries of 
 intellectual cultivation, the literary efforts of the 
 earlier Roman authors seemed crude enough, and 
 the development of a national literature, expressed 
 in the national language, progressed but slowly. 
 
 With the capture of Corinth in 145 B.C., the last 
 fragment of Greek independence came to an end, 
 and the absorption of Greece into the Roman em- 
 pire was completed. But while the arms of Rome 
 had prevailed, the intellect of Greece remained 
 supreme, and, in fact, its range of influence was 
 enormously extended through the very conquests 
 which gave to the Romans the mastery, not only of 
 the little Grecian peninsula, but of the whole civilized 
 world. 
 
 The second stage in the development of Roman 
 literature was the wholesale adaptation by the 
 Roman writers of such Greek originals as served 
 their purpose. It was principally the dramatic 
 authors whose productions were thus utilized, but 
 the appropriations extended to almost every branch 
 of literature. In a few cases the plays and poems 
 were published simply as translations, due credit 
 being given to the original works, but in the larger 
 
1 68 Authors and Their Public 
 
 number of instances in which the adaptation from 
 the Greek into the Latin was made with consider- 
 able freedom and with such modifications as might 
 help to give a local or a popular character to the piece, 
 the Roman playwright would make no reference 
 to the Attic author, but would quietly appropriate 
 for himself the prestige and the profits accruing from 
 his literary ingenuity and industry. It is proper to 
 remember, howfever, that in few cases could living 
 Greek authors have had any cause for complaint. It 
 was the writings of the dead masters, and particu- 
 larly, of course, of those whose work, while distinc- 
 tive and available, was less likely to be familiar to a 
 Roman literary public, which furnished an almost 
 inexhaustible quarry for the rapacity of the plagiarists 
 of the early Republic. 
 
 The bearing of this state of things upon the de- 
 velopment of real Roman literature and upon any 
 possibility of compensation for the writers of such 
 literature, is obvious. Why should a Roman pub- 
 lisher or theatrical manager pay for the right to 
 publish or to perform a drama by a native writer, 
 when he could secure, for the small cost of a trans- 
 lation or adaptation, a more spirited and satisfactory 
 piece of work from the Attic quarry ? 
 
 What encouragement could be given, in the face 
 
Rome 169 
 
 of competition of this kind, to the young Latin 
 poet, striving to secure even a hearing from the 
 public ? The practice of utilizing foreign dramatic 
 material by adapting it for home requirements, has, 
 as we know, been very generally followed in later 
 times, the most noteworthy example being the whole- 
 sale appropriations made by English dramatists from 
 the dramatic literature of France, prior to the estab- 
 lishment between the two countries of international 
 copyright. 
 
 There must also have been a further difficulty on 
 the part of the earlier Roman publishers in the way 
 of finding funds for the encouragement of native 
 talent. Their own work was for many years being 
 carried on at a special disadvantage in connection 
 with the previously referred to competition of Alex- 
 andria. As late as the middle of the first century 
 A.D., a large portion, and probably the larger portion, 
 of the work of the copyists in preparing editions had 
 to be done in Alexandria, as there alone could be 
 found an adequate force of trained and competent 
 scribes, the swiftness and accuracy of whose work 
 could be depended upon. Alexandria was also not 
 simply the chief, but practically the sole market in 
 the world for papyrus. The earlier Roman publisher 
 found it, therefore, usually to his advantage to send to 
 
170 Authors and Their Public 
 
 Alexandria his original text, and to contract with some 
 Alexandrian correspondent, who controlled a book- 
 manufacturing establishment, for the production of 
 the editions required, while to this manufacturing 
 outlay the Roman dealer had further to add the cost 
 of his freight. There is record of certain copying 
 done for Roman orders during the first and second 
 centuries B.C. in Athens, but this seems in the main 
 to have been restricted to commissions from indi- 
 vidual collectors, like Lucullus (B.C. 115-57). The 
 mass of the book-making orders certainly went to 
 Alexandria, which bore a relation to the book-trade 
 of Rome similar in certain respects to that borne to 
 the London publishers in the first half of the present 
 century by the literary circle and by the printers of 
 Edinburgh. The earlier Roman publishers, there- 
 fore, in losing the advantage of the manufacturing 
 of books issued by them, found their margin of 
 possible profit seriously curtailed, and the chances 
 of securing for the authors any remuneration from 
 the sales of their books must for many years have 
 been very slight. It seems, in fact, probable that 
 compensation for Roman authors began only when, 
 through the development of publishing machinery, 
 it became possible for the making of books to be 
 done advantageously in Rome. This period corre- 
 
Rome 171 
 
 sponds also with the time when a real national 
 literature began to shape itself, and when the de- 
 velopment of a popular interest in this literature 
 called for the production of books in the Latin 
 language, which could be prepared by Latin scribes. 
 The two sets of influences, the one mercantile, the 
 other intellectual and patriotic, worked together, 
 and were somewhat intermingled as cause and effect. 
 The peculiar relation borne to the earlier intellec- 
 tual development of Rome by the literature of a 
 foreign people has never been fully paralleled in 
 later history. The use of Greek in Italy as the 
 language of learning and of literature, was, as said, 
 very similar to the general acceptance of Latin by 
 the scholars of mediseval Europe as the only tongue 
 worthy of employment for literary purposes. But I 
 can find no other instance in which the literature of 
 one people ever became so completely and so exclu- 
 sively the authority for and the inspiration of the 
 first literary life of another. During the eighteenth 
 century, North Germany had, under the direction of 
 its Court circles, accepted French as the language of 
 refined society, and German literature was to some 
 extent fashioned after French models ; but important 
 as this influence appeared to be, at the time, say, of 
 Frederick the Great, it does not seem as if it could 
 
172 Authors and Their Public 
 
 have had any large part in shaping the work of the 
 German writers of the following half century. 
 
 The literary life of the American Republic has, 
 of course, during a large portion of its independent 
 existence, as in the old colonial days, drawn its 
 inspiration from the literature of its parent state. 
 Great Britain. There has been, in this instance, as 
 in the relation between Rome and Greece, on the 
 part of the younger community, first, an entire ac- 
 ceptance of and dependence upon the literary pro- 
 ductions of the older state ; later, a very general 
 appropriation and adaptation of such productions; 
 still later (and in "paxt pari passu with such appropri- 
 ation), a large use of the older literature as the 
 model and standard for the literary compositions of 
 the writers of the younger people ; while, finally, 
 there has come in the latter half of the nineteenth 
 century for America, as in the second half of the 
 first century for Rome, the development, in the face 
 of these special difficulties, of a truly national 
 literature. For America, as for Rome, this develop- 
 ment was in certain ways furthered by the knowl- 
 edge and the influence of the great literary works of 
 an older civilization, while for America, as for Rome, 
 the overshadowing literary prestige of these older 
 works, and the commercial difficulties in the way of 
 
Rome 1 73 
 
 securing public attention and a remunerative sale 
 for books by native authors in competition with the 
 easily " appropriated " volumes of older writers of 
 recognized authority, may possibly have fully offset 
 the advantage of the inspiration. 
 
 In certain important respects the comparison fails 
 to hold good. For America the literary connection 
 with and inspiration from Great Britain was in every 
 way a natural one. In changing their skies, the 
 Americans could not change their mother-tongue, 
 and in the literature of England, prior to 1776, they 
 continued to claim full ownership and inheritance. 
 The peculiar condition for Rome was its acceptance, 
 as the foundations of its intellectual life, of the 
 literature of a conquered people, with which people 
 its own kinship was remote, and whose language 
 was entirely distinct. 
 
 The estimate in which the Greeks were held by 
 their conquerors is indicated in the fact that, while 
 the Greeks held all but themselves to be barbarians, 
 by the Romans the term was applied to all but 
 themselves and the Greeks. 
 
 While a repubhcan form of government has not 
 usually been considered as unfavorable for intel- 
 lectual activity, history certainly presents not a few 
 instances in which an absolute monarch has had it 
 
174 Authors and Their Public 
 
 in his power, through the direct use of the public 
 resources, to further the literary production of the 
 State in a way which would hardly have been practi- 
 cable for a republic. It is not to be doubted, for 
 instance, that a ruler in Rome, with the largeness of 
 mind and persistency of will of Ptolemy Philadel- 
 phus, could by some such simple measures as those 
 which proved so effective in Alexandria, have 
 hastened by half a century or more the development 
 of a national literature in Italy. But, until the 
 establishment of the Empire, the rulers of the Re- 
 public had their hands too full with the work of 
 defending the State and of extending its sway, to be 
 able to give thought to, or to find funds for any 
 schemes for, "Museums," Academies, or Libraries, 
 planned to supply instruction for the community, 
 and to secure employment and incomes for literary 
 men, under whose direction Jiterary undertakings 
 could be carried on at the expense of the public 
 treasury. 
 
 No institution of learning received any endowment 
 from the treasury of the Roman Republic, and the 
 scholars who undertook literary work received no 
 aid or encouragement from the government. Under 
 the limitations and conditions controlling the literary 
 life of the time, it is not to be wondered at that the 
 
Rome 175 
 
 many attractions held out by the Ptolemies should 
 have caused Alexandria rather than Rome to be- 
 come the literary centre of the world, a distinction 
 which it seems hardly to have lost until, half a cen- 
 tury after, through the conquest of Egypt by Octa- 
 vius (B.C. 30), it had fallen to the position of a 
 capital of a Roman province. 
 
 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 pre- 
 ferred as a rule to consider his writing as a pastime. 
 Cicero says : Ut si occupati profuimus aliquid civibus 
 nostris, prosimus etiam sipossumus otiosi^ 
 
 Cornelius Nepos, in writing the Hfe 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 im- 
 
 1 Tusc, i., 5. 
 
176 Authors and Their Public 
 
 portance, or might even have impaired the reputa, 
 tion 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, con- 
 cerning 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 abridg- 
 ment of the Odyssey. A volume of this kind, writ- 
 ten 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 secur- 
 ing 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 
 
Rome 177 
 
 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 ver- 
 sions, 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 con- 
 nection has not been traced, were not in great part 
 based upon Greek originals.' 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 produc- 
 tiveness 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 
 
 ' Simcox, 32 et seq. 
 
178 Authors and Their Public 
 
 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." ' 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 environ- 
 ment. 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 under- 
 taking 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 
 
 ' Simcox, 34. 
 
Rome 1 79 
 
 translator was poor, earning a modest livelihood by 
 teaching, could only have been undertaken as a busi- 
 ness 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 refer- 
 ence 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.' 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. Csecilius, who was a late con- 
 temporary 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 apprecia- 
 tion of Greek literature. He translated some ninety 
 plays, chiefly from Menander, but there is nothing 
 to tell us how far his literary undertakings proved 
 ' Simcox, 46. 
 
i8o Authors and Their Public 
 
 commercially successful. A historical work of sub- 
 stantial 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 Annates Maximi of Mucius Scaevola (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 sum- 
 mary 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 concern- 
 ing 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 enter- 
 prises, 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 impHed the existence 
 of a distribution machinery for reaching such public, 
 and that there were, therefore, publishers in Rome 
 
Rome 1 8 1 
 
 who found it to their advantage to pay authors for 
 literary labor many years before the founding of the 
 iirm of that prince of publishers, Atticus, whose 
 business methods are described by Cicero. 
 
 In Rome, as in Athens, the men who first inter- 
 ested 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 de- 
 mand, and further copies could always be supplied 
 as called for, it seems at first thought as if the ex- 
 pense 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.' Calvisius, a rich dilettante, paid as much as 
 10,000 sesterces, $500, for each of his servi literati^ 
 
 ' Epistles, ii., 2, 5. 
 ° Seneca, Epist., 27. 
 
1 82 Authors and Their Public 
 
 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.' 
 
 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 pen- 
 manship. 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 house- 
 hold 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 col- 
 
 ' Cod, Just., vi., 43. 
 
Rome 183 
 
 lated with the original text.' 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 in- 
 cluded readers, copyists, and architects, took upon 
 himself the general supervision of their education, 
 and presided over their classes of instruction." 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 ofificial clerks of public function- 
 aries, scribes. An inscription quoted by Gruter indi- 
 cates 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 anti- 
 quarii. The term notarii was applied to those who 
 wrote at dictation, taking reports of speeches and of 
 public meetings, testimony of witnesses, notes of 
 
 ' Strabo, L. xiii., 419. 
 ^Plutarch, Crassus, 2. 
 
1 84 Authors and Their Public 
 
 judicial proceedings, etc. They were called notarii 
 because they. took notes, often in a kind of short- 
 hand. Such a man was Tiron, 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-manu- 
 facturing establishment in Rome, with connections 
 in Athens and Alexandria. He was himself a thor- 
 ough 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 under- 
 takings. 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. 
 
 The editions issued by Atticus, which came to be 
 known as "Attikians," Afiiniava, secured wide 
 repute for their accuracy, and came to be referred 
 
Rome 185 
 
 to as the authoritative texts. The term "Attikians " 
 appears to have been used as we might to-day, in 
 referring to Teubner's Greek classics, say " the 
 Teubners." Haenny speaks ' of the " Attikians " as 
 welcomed by scholars for their accuracy and com- 
 pleteness. H. Sauppe tells us that the text of the 
 oration of Demosthenes against Androtion is based 
 upon the issue of Atticus." Harpocrates refers to the 
 "Atticus texts" of this oration, and also of .^Eschines.' 
 Galen makes mention of the Atticus edition of Plato's 
 TimcsusJ^ Haenny points out that some question has 
 been raised as to whether the term "Attikiana " always 
 referred to the editions of Titus Pomponius Atticus.' 
 He concludes, with Birt, that this term may, later, 
 having come to stand for accurate texts and care- 
 fully prepared editions, have occasionally been ap- 
 plied to issues of a later period which could prop- 
 erly be so described or as a term of compliment. 
 When, however, it was used in connection with 
 works presumably issued between 65 and 35 B.C., it 
 must be understood as referring to the publications 
 of Titus Pomponius. Fronto always spoke of him 
 
 ' Haenny, pp. 31, 32. 
 
 'Sauppe, Epist. Crit., p. 49. 
 
 ^ Harpocrates, pp. ig, 24, 32, 15. 
 
 ^Daremberg, Commentaire, Paris, 1848, p. la. 
 
 ' Haenny, 33. 
 
1 86 Authors and Their Public 
 
 simply as Atticus, and he is so referred to several 
 times by Plutarch. Hemsterhuis ' quotes a reference 
 by Lucian. "You appear to think," says Lucian to 
 the " book-fools," bibliomaniacs, " that it is essential 
 for scholarship to possess many books. Therein, 
 however, you show your ignorance." 
 
 Atticus brought to Rome skilled librarii from 
 Athens, and gave personal attention to the training 
 of young slaves for his staff of copyists. He seems 
 also to have sent manuscripts for copying to both 
 Athens and Alexandria, probably while he was still 
 completing the organization of his own staff. Such 
 commissions may also have been due to the fact 
 previously referred to, that of many works the well 
 authenticated texts could be found only in those 
 two cities, and after the time of Philadelphus, more 
 particularly in Alexandria. 
 
 Atticus was a large collector of books, and won 
 also some reputation as an author, although his prin- 
 cipal work, a series of chronological tables, belonged 
 perhaps rather to records than to literature proper. 
 Cicero speaks warmly both of the excellent literary 
 judgment and of the warm liberality of his publish- 
 ing friend, and it seems certain that Atticus took an 
 important part in furthering the development of 
 
 ' Anecd,^ i., 24. 
 
Rome 187 
 
 Latin literature, and in organizing the publishing- 
 machinery which was thereafter to make it possible 
 for Latin writers to secure some remuneration for 
 their labors. He seems, in fact, in every way to 
 have been a model publisher, and to have well de- 
 served the honor of being the first of his guild whose 
 name has been preserved in the history of Latin lit- 
 erature. While giving due credit to his wide-minded 
 liberality in his dealings with authors, and to his 
 public-spirited expenditure in behalf of literature, it 
 is in order to bear in mind that with Atticus pub- 
 lishing, while probably carried on with good business 
 methods, was rather a high-minded diversion than a 
 money-making occupation. His chief business was 
 that of banking, in which he became very wealthy. 
 It is not so difficult to be a M^cenas among pub- 
 lishers if one is only a Maecenas to begin with. It is 
 probable from the little that can be learned concern- 
 ing the expenses of book-making and the possibili- 
 ties of book-selling, that the publishing interests 
 of Atticus brought him (as far at least as money is 
 concerned) deficiencies instead of profits, but he 
 doubtless considered that he was, nevertheless, 
 a gainer by literature when he had taken into ac- 
 count at its full value the friendship of Cicero. 
 Among the earlier writings of Cicero certainly pub- 
 
1 88 Authors and Their Public 
 
 lished by Atticus were the Letters, the De Ora- 
 tor e, the Academic Discourses, and the Oration for 
 Ligarius} 
 
 Cicero seems to have been especially well satisfied 
 with the account of sales rendered for this \asX, for 
 he writes : " You have done so well with my Dis- 
 course for Ligarius, that I propose hereafter to place 
 in your hands the sale of all my writings " — Ligari- 
 anam prceclare vendidisti ; posthac, quidquid scripsero, 
 tibi prcBconiuffi defer am^ 
 
 Several pieces of information are given by this 
 letter. It appears that Cicero was in the habit of 
 securing remuneration from the sale of his published 
 works, and that this remuneration was proportioned 
 to the extent of the sales, and must therefore have 
 been in the shape either of a royalty or of a share of 
 the net profits. It is further clear from the emphasis 
 given to his decision that Atticus should publish his 
 future works, that some other publishing arrange- 
 ments were within his reach, and therefore that 
 there were already other publishers whose facilities 
 were worth consideration in comparison with those 
 of Atticus. 
 
 In this same letter Cicero tells his publishers that 
 he has discovered an error in this Ligarian Oration 
 
 ' Ad Atlicum, xii., xv., xvi. 
 ^ Ad A tticum , xiii . 
 
Rome 189 
 
 (he had spoken of a certain Corfidius who had been 
 dead for some years as if he were still living), and 
 that before any more copies were sold, at least three 
 of the librarii must be put to work to make the 
 necessary correction, from which it appears that the 
 " remainder" of the edition comprised a good many 
 copies. 
 
 A passage in another letter shows that the ancient, 
 like the modern, publisher had to keep a record of 
 complimentary copies given away under instructions 
 of the author, so as to avoid the risk of including 
 these among the copies accounted for as sold. " I 
 am obliged to you," writes Cicero, " for sending me 
 the work by Serapion. I have given orders that the 
 price of this should be paid to you at once, so that 
 you should not have it entered on your register of 
 complimentary copies." ' 
 
 While the De Oratore was in course of publication, 
 Cicero discovered that a quotation had been ascribed 
 to Aristophanes which should properly have been 
 credited to Eupolis. Some copies had already been 
 sold, but Cicero begs Atticus to have the correction 
 made in all the copies remaining in the shop, and, as 
 far as possible, to have the buyers looked up so that 
 their copies might also be corrected. 
 
 Simcox says that " Cicero's smaller treatises, the 
 
 • Ad Atticum, ii., 4. 
 
I go Authors and Their Public 
 
 Lcelius and the Cato, were probably, like the De 
 Officiis, based upon Greek works, which he adapted 
 with a well founded confidence that as a great 
 writer he could improve the style, and that a Roman 
 of rank ought to be able to improve the substance." ' 
 The suggestion is interesting as indicating a change 
 in the mental attitude of a Roman writer towards 
 Greek literature. 
 
 Cicero used Atticus not only as a publisher but 
 as a literary counsellor and critic, and evidently 
 placed great confidence in his friend's critical judg- 
 ment. He speaks of waiting in apprehension for 
 the " crayon strokes " (across the papyrus sheet) — 
 Cerulas enim tuas miniatulas illas extimescebam?' 
 Atticus criticises freely, indicates misused words 
 and erroneous historic references, and suggests 
 emendations.' 
 
 It seems evident, from the wording of certain ref- 
 erences, that the copies prepared for sale were usually 
 at least themselves the property of the bibliophile. 
 Cicero speaks of libri teii* and says also, ilia qucs 
 habes de Academicis." On the other hand, the au- 
 
 ' Simcox, i., 174. 
 
 " Ad AH., xvi., II, I. 
 
 ^ Ad Atiicum, xii., 5, 3 ; xiii., 21, 3 ; xvi., 2, 6. 
 
 ^ Ad Atiicum, xii., 6, 3. 
 
 ^ Ad Atiicum, xiii., 13. 
 
Rome 191 
 
 thor and publisher, occasionally, at least, assumed 
 equal shares of the cost of the paper (papyrus). 
 Cicero writes to Atticus, quoniam impensam fecimus 
 in macrocolla, facile patior teneri^ This share 
 taken by the author in the outlay in addition to 
 his investment of literary labor, may very properly 
 have been taken into account in arriving at a di- 
 vision of the profits, but we have no figures to show 
 on what basis such division was made. While the 
 Discourse on Ligarius produced, as we have seen, a 
 profit, the publication of the first series of Academic 
 Discourses {Academica Priord) resulted in loss, and 
 the full amount of this loss appears to have been 
 borne by the publisher. Cicero, referring to the 
 large portion of the edition remaining unsold, writes, 
 tu illam jacturam feres (squo animo quod ilia quce 
 habes de Academicis, frusta descripta sunt ; multa 
 tamen hcec (i. e., academica posteriora, the later or 
 the revised series) eriint splendidiora, breviora, 
 melioraj' " You will bear the loss with equanimity, 
 since the copies that you have left on your hands of 
 the Academic Discourses comprise in fact but a por- 
 tion of the venture. The revised editions of these 
 will be more brilliant, more compact, and in every 
 
 ' Ad Atticum xiii., 25, 3, quoted by Birt, p. 353. 
 '' Ad Atticum, xiii., 13. 
 
192 Authors and Their Public 
 
 way better." Cicero goes on to say that this re- 
 vision should certainly prove popular and salable, 
 and should more than make up the loss incurred on 
 the first edition. 
 
 Birt points out ' the difference in the publishing 
 arrangements entered into by Cicero from those re- 
 ferred to by Martial. Cicero has apparently a direct 
 business interest in the continued sale of his books, 
 an interest, therefore, probably based upon a per- 
 centage. Martial, on the other hand, appears to 
 have accepted from the publishers some round sum, 
 2l prcemium libellorum, for each of his several works, 
 a sum which is evidently too small to make him 
 happy. On this ground he says it is, from a pecu- 
 niary point of view, a matter of indifference to him 
 whether his writings find few readers or many — Quid 
 prodest? nescit sacculus ista mens? Unfortunately 
 no catalogue or even partial list of the publishing 
 ventures of Atticus has been preserved, and the ref- 
 erences in the letters of Cicero are almost the sole 
 source of information in regard to them. Cicero 
 speaks of the treatise of Hirtius Aulus upon Cato as 
 one of the publications of Atticus.' Birt finds record 
 of the issue by him of a series of carefully edited 
 
 ' Birt, 354. " Martial, xi., 3, 6. 
 
 ^ Ad Atiicum, xii., 41 ; i., 45. 
 
Rome 193 
 
 Greek classics (published in the original), for the 
 texts of which the trustworthy manuscripts of the 
 Athenian " calligrapher," or copyist, Kallinos were 
 followed.' Birt is also my authority for the conclu- 
 sion that Atticus did not confine his book business 
 to his publishing house, but that he established retail 
 shops, tabernarii, in different quarters of Rome, and 
 possibly also in one or two of the great provincial 
 capitals." 
 
 While no publisher of the time occupied any such 
 prominent position in the world of letters as Atti- 
 cus, it seems evident from the references made by 
 Roman authors to the arrangements for the sale of 
 their books, that other publishing concerns already 
 existed in Rome, although no other names have 
 been preserved. It is probable that no one of his 
 contemporaries possessed the exceptional advantages 
 afforded by the wealth of Atticus in carrying on lit- 
 erary undertakings of uncertain business value, and 
 it is probable also that the competition of a pub- 
 lisher to whom the financial result of his venture 
 was a matter of small importance, must frequently 
 have been perplexing to the dealers whose capital 
 was limited and whose income was dependent upon 
 their publishing business. In fact, the exceptional 
 
 ' Birt, 284. ^ Birt, 357. 
 
194 Authors and Their Public 
 
 business methods of Atticus may easily for a time 
 have discouraged or rendered difficult the develop- 
 ment on sound business foundations of publishing 
 in Rome. 
 
 Important as the undertakings of Atticus unques- 
 tionably were for the furthering of the production 
 and the distribution of literature, in Rome, we 
 should have known practically nothing concerning 
 his work as a publisher if it were not for the fortu- 
 nate preservation of the series of letters written to 
 him by Cicero. If these letters had been destroyed, 
 the name of Atticus would have come into the his- 
 tory of his time only as that of a rich banker and a 
 public-spirited citizen. The honorable friendship 
 between this old-time publisher and his most im- 
 portant author was of service to literature in more 
 ways than one. Other Roman publishers of greater 
 importance must have taken up the work of Atticus, 
 but no similar series of letters has been preserved to 
 commemorate their virtues and their services. Bois- 
 sier * is of opinion that Tiro acted as publisher for 
 certain of Cicero's writings ; he uses the phrase 
 Tiron et Atticus, les deux Miteurs de Cic^ron. The 
 evidences, however, concerning Tiro's career as a 
 publisher do not appear to be conclusive. Tiro was 
 
 ' Secherches, p. 27. 
 
Rome 1Q5 
 
 a favorite slave of Cicero, a Greek by birth, and evi- 
 dently a man of education. He served as Cicero's 
 secretary, and, as the correspondence shows, was 
 regarded by his master as a valued friend. As sec- 
 retary, he unquestionably had during Cicero's life- 
 time a full share of responsibility in preparing 
 Cicero's writings for publication, and after the death 
 of his master he appears to have acted as a kind of 
 literary executor. 
 
 It is probably to this class of service that Quin- 
 tilian referred when he spoke of him as the compiler 
 and publisher of the writings of Marcus Tullius.' 
 Gellius, in quoting the fifth oration against Verres, 
 speaks of the edition or the " book " as one of ac- 
 cepted authority, prepared under the supervision 
 and personal knowledge of Tiro." 
 
 Haenny is of opinion that Tiro never had any 
 publishing business, but that his services were 
 simply those first of a secretary and later of an 
 editor and literary executor. Seneca is authority 
 for the statement that after the death of Cicero his 
 works and the right to their continued publication 
 were bought from Atticus by the bookseller Dorus ;' 
 see also Birt." This same Dorus was, says Seneca, 
 
 ' Orationes, vi., 3, 3. ° ^. A., i., 7. 1. 
 
 ' Bene/., vii., 6. * Birt, 358, n. 2. 
 
196 Authors and Their Public 
 
 the publisher of the history of Livy : Sic potest T. 
 Livius a Doro accipere aut emere libros suos. 
 
 The writings of Catullus and the famous treatise 
 on the Nature of Things of Lucretius were the most 
 important of the works published between 75 and 
 50 B.C. during the time of Cicero's correspondence 
 with Atticus. Lucretius appears to have had little 
 personal vanity concerning his work, which did not 
 appear until after his death. It is probable, but not 
 certain, that the former was issued by Atticus. 
 
 G6raud says that there were at this time in Rome 
 a large number of public writers, or professional 
 copyists {librarii), who devoted themselves to tran- 
 scribing for sale the older classics, and who also took 
 commissions from authors for the production of 
 small editions of volumes prepared for private cir- 
 culation.' Their work might in fact be compared to 
 that of the typewriters of to-day, whose signs are 
 multiplying in all our large cities. These "writers" 
 were principally Greeks, and it was probably for 
 this cause that their Latin work not infrequently 
 evoked criticism. Cicero, writing to his brother 
 Quintus, concerning some Latin books which Quin- 
 tus had asked him to purchase, says it was difficult 
 to know where to go for these, becau.se most of the 
 
 ' Geraud, 171. 
 
Rome 197 
 
 texts offered for sale were so bad — ita mendose scri- 
 buntur et veneunt^ 
 
 These librarii took upon themselves the work not 
 only of transcribing but of binding and decorating 
 the covers of the books sold by them. The contrast 
 between a scribe of this kind, working at book- 
 making in his stall like a cobbler making shoes, and 
 the great establishment of the banker-publisher At- 
 ticus, must have been marked enough. 
 
 Non modo hoc tibi, salse, sic abibit. 
 Mam, si luxerit, ad librariorum 
 Curram Scrinia Ccesios, Aquinios 
 Suffenum, omnia coUigam venena, 
 Ac te his suppliciis remunerabor ? 
 
 Atticus died, full of years and honors, in the year 
 32 B.C. If he had only had the consideration to 
 leave some memoirs for posterity, we should have 
 much more satisfactory knowledge than is now pos- 
 sible concerning the relations of Roman authors 
 with their publishers and with the public during the 
 first century before Christ. We have not even, 
 however, any of his letters to Cicero, letters which 
 would of course have had a special interest in mak- 
 ing clear the nature of his publishing arrangements 
 with his authors. 
 
 ' Ad Quintum, ill. ' Catullus, ed. Vossius, 38, 
 
198 Authors and Their Public 
 
 In the year 48 B.C. appeared a work whose vitahty 
 has proved exceptional, and which, thanks to the 
 school-boys, is to-day, nineteen hundred years after 
 the death of its author, in continued demand. I refer 
 to Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic Wars. This 
 book could certainly have been made a magnificent 
 "property" for its author, but as he was literally 
 intent upon " wanting the earth," the ownership 
 of one book was hardly worth any special thought. 
 As a fact, we have no details whatever of Caesar's 
 publishing arrangements, although we do know that 
 by means of some distributing machinery copies of 
 the Commentaries speedily reached the farthest 
 (civilized) corners of the Roman dominion. 
 
 Virgil's ^neid was, we are told, given to the 
 world through Varius andTucca, about 21 B.C. The 
 sixth book was read to Augustus and Livia in 22, 
 the year of the death of Marcellus. The publication 
 of the ^neid took place at a time when the machin- 
 ery for the production and distribution of books was 
 beginning to be adequately organized. It seems 
 evident that it was only after the institution of the 
 Empire that the publishers of Rome were in a posi- 
 tion to reach with their editions any wide public 
 outside of Rome and the principal cities of Italy. 
 
 About the year 40 B.C. the poet Horace, then 
 
Rome 1 99 
 
 twenty-five years old, came to Rome with the hope, 
 as he states, of obtaining a living through literature. 
 His estate at Venusia had been confiscated, owing 
 to his having borne arms at PhiHppi on the defeated 
 side, and he was now dependent upon his own 
 exertions." He found at Rome a literary circle of 
 growing importance. It was the beginning of the 
 Augustan age, and literature was the fashion with 
 the court circles of the new Empire, and therefore 
 with the society leaders who took the court fashions 
 for their model. Through the kindness of Virgil, 
 the young poet was introduced to Maecenas, the 
 wealthy statesman whose princely patronage of 
 literature has become proverbial. 
 
 The liberality of Maecenas supplied the immediate 
 needs of the poet, and he appears never to have had 
 an opportunity of finding out whether, apart from 
 the aid of patronage, he could actually have sup- 
 ported himself through the sale of his poems. In 
 fact, a little later, when for a time at least he pos- 
 sesses, through the friendship of Maecenas, an assured 
 income he appears to have taken the position of re- 
 fusing to permit his books to be sold, and of writing 
 only for the perusal of his friends." 
 
 His first expectancy, however, in regard to the 
 
 ' Episi., 2, 2, 49. ' Simcox, i., 287. 
 
200 Authors and Their Public 
 
 possibilities of a literary career, give grounds for the 
 belief that at the time of the beginning of the 
 Empire the publishing machinery of the capital was 
 already adequately organized, and that the writers 
 whom Horace found in Rome, including Virgil, 
 Tibullus, Propertius, Varcus, Valgius, and many 
 others, were securing, apart from the gifts of the 
 emperor or of other patrons of literature, some 
 compensation from the reading public. On this 
 point, however, Horace has himself given other 
 evidence, which, if somewhat unsatisfactory concern- 
 ing the matter of author's compensation, is at least 
 clear as to the existence of machinery for the making 
 and distributing of books, and which also indicates 
 that his resolution not to offer his books for sale had 
 not been adhered to. He refers to the brothers 
 Sosii as his publishers, and complains that while 
 his works brought gold to them, for their author 
 they earned only fame in distant lands and with 
 posterity. 
 
 Hie meret cera liber Sosiis, hie et mare transit, 
 Ei longum nolo seriptori prorogai eevum,^ 
 
 A complaint so worded is of course perfectly com- 
 patible with the existence of a publishing arrange- 
 ment under which Horace was to receive an author's 
 
 ' Art. Poet., 345. 
 
Rome 20I 
 
 share of any profits accruing. Precisely similar com- 
 plaints are frequent enough to-day when all new 
 books are issued under the protection of domestic 
 copyright and under publishing agreements, and 
 while sometimes an indication that the publisher has 
 managed to secure more than his share of the pro- 
 ceeds of literary labor, they are much more frequently 
 simply the expression of the difference between the 
 author's large expectations concerning the public 
 demand for his books and the actual extent of such 
 demand. 
 
 If publishing statistics could be brought into print, 
 they would show numberless instances in which the 
 author's calculations concerning the number of 
 copies of their books which the public "could be 
 depended upon " to call for, or " must certainly have 
 called for," were as much out of the way as have 
 been the estimates of defeated generals as to the 
 numbers of the forces by which they had been over- 
 whelmed. It is certainly to be regretted that the 
 brothers Sosii' have not left us some records from 
 which could be gathered their side of the story of 
 their dealings with the court poet. There are 
 instances in later times of firms which have found 
 the honor of being publishers for a poet-laureate 
 bringing more prestige than profit. 
 
202 Authors and Their Public 
 
 The shop of the Sosii was in the Vicus Tuscus, 
 near the entrance to the temple of Janus. In the 
 first book of Horace's Epistles we find the lines: 
 
 Vertwnnum yanumque^ liber spectare videris^ 
 Scilicet ui prostes Sosiorum pumice mundus} 
 
 Horace finds occasion to inveigh against plagiarists 
 as well as against publishers, and here his indigna- 
 tion is probably better founded. The literature of 
 Rome was, as before pointed out, based on a long 
 series of " appropriations " and adaptations from the 
 Greeks, and the habit, thus early initiated, doubtless 
 became pretty deeply rooted. Virgil complains : 
 
 Hos ego versiculos feci ; tulit alter honores. 
 Sic vos non vobis nidijicatis aves, 
 
 Horace writes : 
 
 O imitatores, servumpecus, at mitra sape, 
 Bilem^ scepe jocum vestri Tnovere tumultus. 
 
 It seems probable that by this stage in the devel- 
 opment of literature, the indignation of an author 
 against plagiarists was not merely on the ground of 
 interference with literary prestige or of the wrong- 
 fulness of a writer's securing honor falsely, but be- 
 cause plagiarism might involve an actual injury to 
 
 ' Epist., i., 20, I. 
 
Rome 203 
 
 literary property. The first application to literary 
 theft of the t^xva. plagium (from which is derived the 
 7 rench. plagiaire and the English " plagiarism "), was 
 made by Martial. In the legal terminology of 
 Rome, plagium was used to designate the crime of 
 man-stealing, and a plagiarus was one who stole 
 from another a slave or a child, or who undertook 
 to buy or to sell into slavery one who was legally 
 free. The use of so strong a term to characterize 
 literary "appropriations" is sufficient evidence of 
 the opinion of Martial that such a proceeding was a 
 crime. Martial's word has been adopted, but later 
 generations of writers do not appear to have fully 
 accepted his views of the criminal nature of the 
 practice. 
 
 Simcox is of opinion ' that the poets of the Au- 
 gustan age certainly expected to make a certain 
 profit by the sale of their books. They also had 
 expectations of profiting by the gifts of the emperor 
 or of other rich patrons of literature, but there must 
 have been not a few writers who were not fortunate 
 enough to secure the favor either of the court or of 
 the grandees who followed the fashion of the court, 
 and to whom the receipts from the booksellers would 
 have been a matter of no little importance and 
 
 ' Lai. Lit., i., 349. 
 
204 Authors and Their Public 
 
 might frequently have provided only the means for 
 continued sojourn in the capital. It could only have 
 been the receipts from sales that Horace had in 
 mind when he wrote that mediocrity in poets is in- 
 tolerable, not only to gods and men, but to book- 
 sellers, as if to the poets the approval of the book- 
 sellers was of more importance than that of either 
 the gods or their fellow-men.' It would seem as if 
 either the gods or the publishers must have been too 
 lenient during the past eighteen centuries in their 
 treatment of the poets, for the amount of mediocre 
 verse turned out from year to year is certainly no 
 smaller, considered in proportion to the entire mass 
 of poetry, than it was in the days of Horace. 
 
 The scanty references which can be traced in 
 Latin literature of the first century to the relations 
 of authors with the book-trade appear, as might be 
 expected, almost exclusively in the writings of the 
 society poets. In such chronicles as those of Sallust 
 and Livy, narratives written for other purposes than 
 for literary prestige or for bookselling profits, and 
 which had perhaps almost as much to do with the 
 politics of the day (" present history ") as with the 
 history of the State (" past poHtics "), there was natu- 
 rally no place for such an insignificant detail as the 
 
 ' Simcox, i., 249. 
 
Rome 205 
 
 arrangements of the authors for placing their books 
 upon the market. References to booksellers would 
 have been equally out of place in such a national 
 epic as the ^neid or a great didactic poem like the 
 Georgics. 
 
 What little is known, therefore, concerning the 
 bookselling methods of the time must be gathered 
 from the casual allusions found in the verses of 
 such writers as Horace, Ovid, Juvenal, and Martial, 
 and particularly of the last-named. 
 
 When (about 7 A.D.) Ovid was banished by the 
 aged Augustus to Tomi, a dreary frontier town 
 somewhere near the mouth of the Danube, he com- 
 plains that he finds there no libraries, no booksellers. 
 He is surrounded by the din of weapons and the 
 tedious talk of soldiers. He has no single associate 
 who is interested in literature, or whose taste or 
 judgment he could call upon for literary counsel. 
 
 Non hie libroruin, per quos inviter alarqtte 
 Copia ; pro libris areus el arma sonant, 
 Nullus in hac terra, recitem si carmina eujus, 
 Intelkcturis auribus utar, adest. 
 
 From expressions like these, one can gather an im- 
 pression of the circles the gay society poet had left 
 behind him in his mourned-for Rome— the libraries 
 and book-shops, where he could always find literary 
 
2o6 Authors and Their Public 
 
 friends to whose appreciative criticism he could sub- 
 mit his latest lines. The picture recalls the literary 
 resorts of London in the time of Wycherley and 
 Congreve. 
 
 Ovid sends one of his productions to a friend in 
 Rome, whom he requests to supervise its publica- 
 tion. He writes : 
 
 " O thou who art an instructor and a priest among 
 the learned ! I commend to your care this my off- 
 spring. Bereft of its parent (an exile), it must place 
 its dependence upon you its guardian. Three of my 
 (literary) progeny have preceded this. See that my 
 future productions are given to the world through 
 yourself." ' 
 
 Martial presents himself to the public with a 
 cordial appreciation of his own merits : 
 
 Hie is quern legis ille, quern requiris, 
 Toto noius in orbe Martialis 
 Argulis epigrammaton libellis.'' 
 
 " This is he whom you read and whom you seek — 
 Martial, famous throughout the world for his bril- 
 liant volumes of epigrams." He goes on to say : 
 
 Ne tamen ignores uhi sim venalis et erres 
 Urbe vagus iota, me duce certus eris,^ 
 
 Tnsi., iv., I, 3. 2 Efi., i., i. ' Ep., i., 2. 
 
Rome 207 
 
 "Lest, however, you should perchance not know 
 where I am for sale, and should go astray and 
 wander over the whole city, you shall be made sure 
 of your way by my directions." He then adds the 
 direction : 
 
 Libertum docti Lttcensis qu<zre Secundum 
 Liminapost Pans Palladiumque forum. 
 
 " Look for Secundus, the freedman of the learned 
 citizen Lucensis, (you will find him) behind the 
 threshold of Pax and the forum of Pallas." 
 
 Secundus appears to have been the Tauchnitz of 
 his day, and to have prepared editions in compact 
 form for travellers : 
 
 Qui tecutn cupis esse meos ubicunque libellos 
 
 Et comites longcB quarts habere via;, 
 
 Hos erne quos artat brevibus membrana tabellis. 
 
 "You who desire to have my books with you 
 wherever you are, and to make them the com- 
 panions of your long journeys, buy those which 
 have been put up in compact form " (literally, " which 
 the parchment compresses into small pages "). 
 
 Martial was apparently a chronic grumbler, and 
 the record of his various complaints about his pub- 
 lishers and his public has been of not a little service 
 in throwing light upon certain details of the publish- 
 
2o8 Authors and Their Public 
 
 ing methods of his time. He was evidently one of 
 the writers who kept a close watch on the receipts 
 from the sales of his books. He maintained that a 
 poet was perfectly justified in refusing to give pres- 
 entation copies, because these interfered with the 
 receipts from his booksellers. 
 
 He writes, for instance, to his friend Lupercus : 
 
 Occuris quoties, Luperce nobis ; 
 Vis mittam pueruni, subinde diets, 
 Cui tradam epigrammaton libellum 
 Lectum quern tibi protinus remittam ? 
 Non est quod puerum, Luperce, vexes ; 
 Longum est, si velit ad Pyrum venire, 
 JEt scalis habito tribus, sed altis. 
 Quod quteris proprius petas licebit ; 
 Argi nempe soles subiri letum. 
 Contra Ccesaris est forum tabema 
 Scriptis posiibus hinc et inde totis 
 Omnes ut cito perlegas poetas. — 
 Illuc me pete ; ne roges Atrectum, 
 Hoc nomen dominus gerit taberna ; 
 De primo dabit, alterovi nido 
 Raswn pumice, putpuraque cultum, 
 Denariis tibi quinque Martialein. 
 Tanti non es ais ! Sapis Luperce.^ 
 
 " Every time you meet me, Lupercus, you say something about 
 sending a slave to my house to borrow a volume of my Epigrams. 
 Do not give your slave the trouble. It is a long distance to my part 
 of the city, and my rooms are high up on the third story. You can 
 get what you want close to your abode. You often visit the quarter 
 of the Argiletum. You will find there, near the Square of Cassar, a 
 
 ' L. i., ep. Ii8. 
 
Rome 209 
 
 shop the doors of which are covered on both sides with the names of 
 poets, so arranged that you can at a glance run over the list. Enter 
 there and mention my name. Without waiting to be asked twice, 
 Atrectus, the master of the shop, will take from his first or second 
 shelf a copy of Martial, well finished, and beautifully bound with a 
 purple cover, and this he will give you in exchange for five deniers. 
 What ! Do you say it is not worth the price ? O wise Lupercus ! " 
 
 Martial takes occasion to recommend to another 
 acquaintance (but on an entirely different ground) 
 the propriety of purchasing rather than appropriating 
 his productions. 
 
 He writes to a certain Fidentinus : 
 
 Fama refert nostras te, Fidentine ; 
 Noil aliter populo quam recitare tuos libellos 
 Si mea vis dici^ gratis tibi carmina mittam^ 
 Si did tua vis, hace erne, ne mea sini. ' 
 
 " It is said, Fidentinus, that in reciting ray verses you always speak 
 of them as your own. If you are willing to credit them to me, I will 
 send them to you gratis. If, however, you wish to have them called 
 your verses, you had better buy them, when they will no longer be- 
 long to me." 
 
 It is possible that Martial intends by this to sug- 
 gest to Fidentinus the purchase of the author's 
 " rights " in these verses, " ' rights,' which he was 
 willing to sell for a price." It is more probable, 
 however, that he wanted to shame the plagiarist at 
 least into the buying of some copies. 
 
 ' L. i., ep. 30. 
 
2IO Authors and Their Public 
 
 Martial writes in a similar strain to Quintus : 
 
 Exigis ut donem nostras tibi, Quinte, libellos. 
 Non habeo ; sed habet bibliopola Tryphon. 
 ^s dabo pro ungis ? et emam tua carmina sanus ? 
 Non, inquis, faciam tuam fatue. Nee ego. ' 
 
 " You ask, Quintus, that I shall make you a present of my poems. 
 I, myself, have no copies, but the bookseller Tryphon has some. You 
 may say to yourself, ' Shall I give money for such trifles ? ' ' Shall I, 
 being of sound mind, buy your verses ? ' ' No, indeed,' you conclude, 
 ' I will commit no such folly.' Neither, then, will I." 
 
 It was Martial's idea that the proper use of pres- 
 entation copies was not for needy friends but for 
 influential patrons, from whom substantial acknowl- 
 edgments could be looked for in the shape of hono- 
 raria. He begs the court chamberlain, Parthenius, 
 to bring his modest little book {^timida brevisque 
 chartd) to the attention of the Emperor." He asks 
 Faustinus to give a copy to Marcellinus,' and begs 
 Rufus to present two copies to Venulejus.* 
 
 The hopes of the author in connection with these 
 presentation copies are indicated by such lines as the 
 following : 
 
 Editur en sextus sine te mihi Rufe Camoni, 
 Nee te lectorem sperat, amice liber.'' 
 
 ' L. iv., ep. 72. ' xii., i. " vii., 80. 
 
 "iv., 82. =■ vi., 85. 
 
Rome 211 
 
 Or by these : 
 
 O quantum mihi nominis paratur 
 O quce gloria ! quam frequens amator ! 
 Te convivia, te forum sonabit, 
 jEdes, compita, porticus, taberna, 
 Uni mitteris, omnibus legeris. 
 
 It is evident that a book frequently secured 
 through such personal distribution on the part of 
 the author a certain circulation and publication be- 
 fore copies were placed upon the bookstands, or 
 before it was given into the hands of any bookseller 
 acting as its publisher. Haenny is of opinion that 
 the anxiety of authors like Martial to come into 
 relations with patrons and to secure from them 
 honoraria may be taken as indicating that they could 
 depend upon no receipts from the booksellers. It 
 seems to me that another interpretation is equally 
 plausible. We find an author like Martial needy, 
 eager for money, taking pains to cultivate the favor 
 of the wealthy and the influential in the hopes of 
 securing benefits at their hands. We find him also 
 doing all in his power to push the sale of his books 
 through the booksellers, telling the public where to 
 go and how much they will have to pay, himself 
 writing the publishing announcements of his new 
 books, and in every way evincing the keenest in- 
 terest in the sales secured for them. It seems 
 
212 Authors and Their Public 
 
 natural enough to conclude that he derived a direct 
 business advantage from these sales, and such a con- 
 clusion is in accord with what we know of the 
 character of the man, and is borne out by various 
 references in his writings. 
 
 In one epigram ' Martial laments that no one of 
 his readers has felt moved, in return for the gratifica- 
 tion secured from his writings, to make him a present 
 such as Virgil received from Maecenas : tantum gratis 
 pagina nostra placet, an expression which has been 
 interpreted as indicating that this author received no 
 return either direct or indirect from those buying 
 his books. In another utterance, however, he mourns 
 his loss of receipts when for a long time he has pub- 
 lished no new thing, but even then he considers 
 that the loss to the public has been much more 
 serious.'' 
 
 In thus speaking of his indifference to the number 
 of his readers, he appears to have either forgotten, 
 or as a matter of affectation to have ignored, the fact 
 that while a large sale for a particular book already 
 paid for by the publisher, could not increase the 
 author's gains for that particular work, it would 
 certainly put him in a position to secure a higher 
 price from the publisher for his next similar work. 
 ' v., i6, lo. 'xi., 25. 
 
Rome 213 
 
 In this way the author would have a very direct 
 pecuniary interest in securing the largest possible 
 number of readers even for books which had been 
 purchased outright by the publisher. 
 
 A. Schmidt is one of the students of the subject 
 who believes there is evidence to show that, accord- 
 ing to the usual practice, the author received com- 
 pensation from the publisher not in the form of a 
 royalty, but as an advance payment on the delivery 
 of the manuscript or on the publication of the book.' 
 
 Among other quotations he cites the following : 
 
 Quamvis tain longo possis satur esse libello. 
 Lector, adhuc a me dislicha fauca petis, 
 Sed Lupus usuram puerique diaria poscunt, 
 Lector, solve, Taces, dissimulasque ! Vale. 
 
 The reader, however much pleased with the poem 
 given, is supposed to be expecting a few additional 
 verses; but the usurer Lupus is calling upon the 
 poet for his money, and the poet's children are cry- 
 ing for bread. (Therefore) O reader, make payment 
 (to me, in need, from whom you have received bene- 
 fit). (What !) You make no response. You pretend 
 (not to understand). Farewell ! — (" I have no use for 
 you," would be the modern slang.) 
 
 ' Gesch. der Denk- und Glaubensfreiheitiin ersten Jahrhundert der 
 Kaiserherrschaft, p. 138. 
 
214 Authors and Their Public 
 
 The passage presents difficulties, and has been 
 variously interpreted. Schmidt reads for " solve " 
 "salve." I base my reading on the text given by 
 Haenny. 
 
 In another epigram he notes that the edition of 
 his Xenii could be bought from his publisher, Try- 
 phon, for four sesterces (the equivalent of about 
 twelve and a half cents). 
 
 He grumbles at the price as being too high, con- 
 tending that Tryphon could have secured a fair 
 profit from half the amount. He adds : " These 
 verses, O reader, you will, however, find convenient 
 for presents for your friends, at least if your purse 
 is as scantily furnished as is my own." 
 
 Omnis in hoc gracii xeniorum turba libello 
 Constabit nummis qualuor emfta iibi, 
 Quatuor est nimium, poterit constare duobus 
 Kt faciei lucrum bibliopola Tryphon, 
 Ecec Heel hospitibus pro munera distieha miitas. 
 Si iibi iam rams quam mihi nummus erii} 
 Nulla remisisti par'jo pro munere dona 
 
 Decipies alios verbis vuliuque benigno. 
 Mam mihi jam noius dissimutaior eris.^ 
 
 Here we have a reproach (which may also serve as 
 a suggestion) to the reader. " You have sent me no 
 
 ' £/., xiii., 3. 2 ;y_^ gg^ j_ 
 
Rome 215 
 
 gift [or honorarium] as an acknowledgment [of the 
 pleasure given to you]. Others may be deceived by 
 your words and your smiling countenance [into be- 
 lieving you to be a fair-minded man who would 
 recognize his obligations]. To me it is evident you 
 are a dissembler." (The term is apparently used 
 here to describe one shirking an obligation.) 
 
 Martial is quite clear in his mind that no one who 
 has read his productions and has not felt an in- 
 debtedness to their author, and who has not taken 
 measures to discharge the same, can be an honorable 
 man. 
 
 Ei tantum gratis pagina nostra placet.'^ 
 
 " My book gives so much pleasure at no cost " (to 
 the receiver). 
 
 Dicitur et nostras cantare Britannia versus. 
 Quid prodesi ! nescit sacculus ista meus.^ 
 
 " It is said that (even in distant) Britain my verses 
 are sung. What advantage is that ? [to me]. My 
 purse knows nothing of it." 
 
 Such a complaint may be interpreted in one of 
 several ways. The author may have had payment 
 for his Italian editions, but have been unable to ex- 
 ercise control over unauthorized issues of his books 
 
 ' v., 16, 10. * xi., 3. 
 
2i6 Authors and Their Public 
 
 in distant parts of the empire ; or he may have sold 
 to his distributing publisher, Tryphon, all rights in 
 the verses, in which case the direct advantage of 
 extended sales would accrue only to the publisher ; 
 or there may have been no actual sales in Britain, 
 but single copies carried by officers or travellers may 
 have found their way there, and their presence, re- 
 ferred to in correspondence or by returning travellers, 
 have given to the author the impression that a large 
 reading public in the far north was appreciating his 
 poetry. A very slight reference would serve to 
 excite the imagination of so self-confident an author 
 as Martial. 
 
 Martial seems to have been in the habit, not un- 
 known to modern writers, and particularly to English 
 writers, of pitting one publisher against another, in 
 order to secure the largest bid for a new work. At 
 one time he had no less than four publishers in 
 charge of the sale of his works, Tryphon, Atrectus, 
 Polius, and Secundus. 
 
 The last named issued a special pocket edition of 
 the Epigrams. 
 
 Atrectus, Secundus, and Tryphon have already 
 been referred to. To the fourth, Quintus Valerianus 
 Polius, had it seems been given over the earlier pro- 
 ductions of the poet, which he terms his juvenilia. 
 
Rome 
 
 217 
 
 He commends Polius to the reading public in the 
 following lines : 
 
 Quacunque lusijuvenis et puer quondam 
 
 Apinasque nostras, quas nee ipse jam novi 
 
 Male collocare si bonas voles horas 
 
 Et invidebis otio tuo lector, 
 
 A Valeriano Polio petes Quinto, 
 
 Per quern perire non licet meis nugis.^ 
 
 " The trifles that I scribbled in the callow days of 
 my youth, productions which I myself hardly re- 
 member, these you may secure (if you have a grudge 
 against your leisure and are willing to waste a few 
 hours) from Polius, through whose care my trifles 
 are preserved from oblivion." 
 
 It seems probable that Atrectus gave special at- 
 tention to the more elaborate and artistic editions, 
 such as are to-day rather clumsily described as 
 editions de luxe. It is in his shop that the volumes 
 are to be found with the ornate purple covers. As 
 far as can be judged from the references, Atrectus, 
 Polius, and Secundus had simply a local trade. 
 Tryphon, on the other hand, we know to have pos- 
 sessed a publishing and distributing machinery. As 
 Haenny remarks, it was no small matter to provide 
 with Martial's writings not only Rome, but Italy, 
 the provinces, and the outlying corners of the 
 
2i8 Authors and Their Public 
 
 empire. While he was still a beginner in literature, 
 Martial had to be satisfied with the services of Polius, 
 who continued later to keep in sale the juvenilia. 
 It was only after the poet had become known in the 
 fashionable literary world that he was able to secure 
 the co-operation of a leading publisher like Tryphon. 
 
 If we were to-day referring to such a publishing 
 relation, we should speak of securing the imprint of 
 the publisher. As has been explained, however, the 
 practice of associating with a work the name of its 
 publisher began with printed books. The Roman 
 publisher sent out his manuscript copies with no in- 
 dication of the address of the shop in which they 
 had been prepared. 
 
 The poet tells us that he prepared the advertise- 
 ments for the booksellers, putting these in the form 
 of epigrams, but not neglecting to specify the form 
 and price of each book as well as the place where it 
 was offered for sale. 
 
 Qui tecum cupis esse meos ubicunque libellos, 
 Et comiies longa qucsris habere via. 
 Has erne quos arcet brevibus membrana tabellis ; 
 Scrinia da magnis, tne manus una capit, 
 
 Libertum docti Lucensis qucere Secundum 
 Limina post Pacis, Palladiumque forum. ' 
 
 ' Ep., i., 3. 
 
Rome 219 
 
 The idea of an epigrammatic advertisement recalls 
 the announcement (identical with the rhyming title- 
 page) of the first edition of Lowell's Fable for Critics. 
 
 " Reader ! Walk up at ouce (it will soon be too late) and buy at a 
 perfectly ruinous rate, 
 A Fable For Critics, or better 
 
 (I like, as a thing that the reader's first fancy may strike, an old- 
 fashioned title-page, such as presents 
 
 a tabular view of the volume's contents), 
 
 A glance at a few of our Literary progenies 
 (Mrs. Malaprop's word) 
 
 From the tub of Diogenes, 
 
 A vocal and musical melody, that is 
 
 A series of Jokes by a Wonderful Quiz, 
 
 Who accompanies himself with a rub-a-dub-dub, 
 
 Full of spirit and grace, on the top of the tub. 
 
 Set forth in October, the zist day. 
 
 In the year '48, G. P. Putnam, Broadway.'' 
 
 It is a pity that one of Martial's advertisements 
 could not have been preserved to compare with the 
 above, which strikes one as quite Martialesque in its 
 general style. 
 
 According to Schmidt," Martial's activities in con- 
 nection with the sale of his books did not end even 
 with the preparation of the advertisements. In cer- 
 tain cases he was himself engaged in finding buyers 
 for copies. It is probable that such author's copies 
 formed part of the compensation paid by the pub- 
 ' Schmidt, p. 143 ; Martial, vii., 17. 
 
220 Authors and Their Public 
 
 Usher for the manuscript, and while by the weahhier 
 authors these would be bestowed " with compli- 
 ments " upon their friends, the needy writers like 
 Martial would be compelled to turn them into cash. 
 In the eighteenth century in London we find a simi- 
 lar condition of things in the accounts of what was 
 then called publishing " by subscription," when the 
 needy author would, with his hat in one hand and 
 his subscription list in the other, wait upon his 
 " gracious patron " in expectation of an order for so 
 many copies of his new volume at a guinea or more 
 each. 
 
 In spite of the careful training given to their 
 copyists by a few high-class publishers like Atticus, 
 the complaints of inaccurate and slovenly texts, 
 lihri mendosi, were frequent. In order to be really 
 trustworthy, each individual copy of the edition 
 ought, of course, to have been carefully collated 
 with and read verbatim by the original, but for an 
 edition of any size, prepared as rapidly as we are 
 told some of them were, such thorough verification 
 was of course impracticable. Martial states ' that a 
 poem of his (we infer that he means an edition of 
 the poem), comprising 540 lines, had been produced 
 in one hour, hcsc una peragit hora nee tantum. nugis 
 
Rome 221 
 
 serviet ille meis. Such work would of course have 
 been done by employing one or more readers to dic- 
 tate to a number of copyists. The number of copies 
 in the edition is not stated. It could only have been 
 on rare occasions that the author himself would un- 
 dertake to correct the copies. Martial speaks of 
 doing such correcting work in an exceptional case.' 
 
 Cicero was evidently exacting concerning the ac- 
 curacy of his copies. He tells Atticus that by no 
 means must any copies of the treatise De Officiis be 
 allowed to go out until they had been carefully 
 corrected. 
 
 We find an occasional reference to a " press-cor- 
 rector " known to Atticus and Cicero by his Greek 
 name Aiopdoarrfp. As the author, except in rare 
 cases, did not get his manuscript again into his hands 
 after this had gone to his publisher, and saw his 
 work again only when the edition was completed and 
 about to be distributed, he was saved from the temp- 
 tation to make " betterments " by omissions or 
 additions. All such revision he had attended to 
 with due care before handing over his manuscript as 
 " ready for publication," and authors and publishers 
 of classic times were thus saved the vexation of 
 " extra corrections," which so frequently forms a 
 
 ' vii., II and 17. 
 
2 22 Authors and Their Public 
 
 serious addition to the expense account and to the 
 annoyance account of modern book-making. 
 
 The risks of errors in the transcription must cer- 
 tainly have been materially increased if in the larger 
 publishing establishments the practice was followed 
 of writing from dictation, one " reader " supplying 
 simultaneous " copy " to a number of scribes. It 
 seems probable that in no other way would it have 
 been practicable to produce with sufficient speed and 
 economy the editions required, and I find myself in 
 accord with Birt in the conclusion that dictating was 
 the method generally followed, at least in the more 
 important establishments and for the larger editions. 
 The scribes must of necessity have had a scholarly 
 training, and ought also to have possessed some 
 familiarity with the texts to which they were listen- 
 ing ; while with the most skilful and scholarly 
 scribes a careful revision of their copies would have 
 been essential. 
 
 Haenny is of opinion that dictation was rarely if 
 ever employed. He lays stress on the fact that 
 the term employed by Cicero in referring to the 
 multiplication of copies was describere, and he con- 
 tends that this stands simply for copying and 
 cannot be translated as writing from dictation.' 
 ' Haenny, p. 39. 
 
Rome 223 
 
 One indication of the size of the editions prepared 
 of new books is given in the many references to the 
 various uses found for the " remainders " or unsold 
 copies. The most frequent fate of unsuccessful 
 poetry was for the wrapping of fish and groceries, 
 while large supplies of surplus stock found their 
 way from the booksellers to the fires of the public 
 baths.' Cooks also were large buyers of remainders 
 of editions. An author who was voluminous and 
 who had not been able to secure a publisher, might 
 even, as the wags suggested, find it convenient to 
 be burned upon a pile of his own manuscripts. It 
 is evident that in these earlier days of publishing it 
 was no easier than at present for authors or publish- 
 ers to calculate with accuracy the extent of the 
 public interest in their productions, while it is also 
 probable that then as now an author would rather 
 pay for the making of an abundant supply than incur 
 the dreadful risk of not having enough copies to 
 meet the immediate demand. 
 
 While the Augustan age witnessed a decided de- 
 velopment in the literary interests of the Roman 
 community, and while the organization of such 
 bookselling establishments as those of Atticus, 
 Tryphon, and the Sosii gave to authors the needed 
 ' Simeox, p. 249. 
 
224 Authors and Their Public 
 
 machinery for bringing their writings before the 
 pubHc, it is probable that for the larger number of 
 the writers of the time the receipts from the books 
 were very inconsiderable. 
 
 As before pointed out, question has in fact been 
 raised by more than one student of the subject as to 
 whether the Roman authors secured from the sales 
 of their books any money return at all. Of the 
 writers who find no satisfactory evidence for such 
 returns, Haenny is by far the most important. I 
 am myself, however, inclined to accept the conclu- 
 sions of Birt, Schmitz, Gdraud, and others to the 
 effect that Roman authors, from the time of Caesar 
 down, were able to secure from the publishers 
 or booksellers through whom their books were sold 
 some portion of the proceeds of such sales. The 
 absence of any protection under the law for either 
 author or publisher, the competition of unauthorized 
 editions, the competition (of a different kind) of 
 books published solely for the amusement or the 
 literary satisfaction of their wealthy or fashionable 
 authors, and written without any desire for money 
 return, and the lack of adequate publishing and dis- 
 tributing machinery, unquestionably all operated to 
 make the compensation of such Roman authors as, 
 like Martial, needed the money, fragmentary, un- 
 
Rome 225 
 
 certain, and at best but inconsiderable. The weight 
 of the evidence, however, seems to me certainly to 
 favor the conclusion that compensation there was, 
 and that it served as one of the inducements for 
 authorship as a career (or as a partial occupation), 
 and served also to attract to the capital (where 
 alone publishing facilities could be secured) literary 
 aspirants from the rest of Italy and from the 
 provinces. Schmitz gives his views as follows ' : 
 
 Mihi quoque persuasum est, plurimos auctores Ro- 
 manes glorice tantum ac honoris causa scripta sua 
 bibliopolis divulganda tradidisse, quod tamen non im- 
 pedit, quominus illi interdum pretimn a bibliopolis 
 acceperint. Ef vere acceperint. 
 
 In Rome, as centuries before in Greece, the com- 
 pensation for stage-rights and the rewards for 
 playwrights were much more assured and more 
 satisfactory than any that could be secured by 
 writers of books. Comedy writers like Plautus and 
 Terence were able to sell their plays to the ^diles. 
 Haenny contends that the payments made by the 
 .^diles ought not strictly to be described as given 
 for the purchase of the plays, but as a recognition 
 on the part of the community, made through its 
 oiilicial representatives, of a service rendered — a 
 
 ' De Bibliopolis Romanoruin, 10-12. 
 
2 26 Authors and Their Public 
 
 recognition that took the shape of an honorarium. 
 I imagine the playwrights cared very little what the 
 arrangement was called as long as they got the 
 money. As a fact, however, it was the business of 
 the ^diles to provide plays for the public theatres, 
 and I do not see why the arrangements made by 
 them with Plautus and Terence did not constitute 
 as definite an acknowledgment on the part of the 
 State of the rights of dramatic authors as was the 
 case with similar arrangements made fifteen hundred 
 years later with Molifere or Beaumarchais by the 
 State manager of the Theatre Fran5ais. 
 
 Schmitz goes on to say : 
 
 Sin autem scripta ab auctoribus cuiusvis generis 
 vendebantur, non video cur non bibliopolce quoque huic 
 illive auctore pro scriptis certain mercedein solverint. 
 
 Is it likely, he contends, that Plautus and 
 Terence, having been paid for their stage-rights 
 (which they practically transferred or sold to the 
 State), would have been satisfied to hand over to the 
 pubhshers, without compensation, the book-rights of 
 these same plays, the popularity of which had already 
 been tested? 
 
 It seems to me possible, however, that in this con- 
 tention Schmitz proves too much. The publisher 
 might take the ground that a play which had been 
 
Rome 227 
 
 paid for by the ^diles for the public welfare had 
 become public property and belonged to the com- 
 mon domain, and that the author had surrendered 
 or assigned to the State such rights in it as he had 
 possessed. Such a theory would have given to the 
 publisher a fair pretext for declining to pay com- 
 pensation or honorarium for any play that had 
 already been paid for by the .(Ediles. 
 
 A similar suggestion was made as late as 1892 in 
 the case of the ofificial poems written by Tennyson 
 as poet-laureate. It was contended that the nation 
 paid to the laureate an annual stipend as a specific 
 consideration for the production of poems on certain 
 ofificial occasions, and that the poems thus paid for 
 were the property of the nation. This theory did 
 not prevent the laureate from securing, first from the 
 publication in a monthly, and later from a reissue 
 (with other pieces) in book-form, a large compensa- 
 tion for his royal birthday odes and jubilee hymns. 
 I am inclined to think, however, that if the question 
 had been put to the test, the courts would have 
 decided that the copyright of these productions had 
 become vested in the nation, and that the poems 
 belonged to the public domain. 
 
 In calling attention to the frequently quoted 
 eleventh epigram of Martial, Schmidt says: 
 
228 Authors and Their Public 
 
 Quantulumcunque fuit, merebatur noster libellis suis et quum 
 dona ab amicis non acciperet, mereri tantum potuit a bibliopolis, qui 
 carmina sua vendebant. . . . Qua sententia probatur alio loco 
 Martialis, quo damnum se accepisse queritur^ quum carmina non 
 scripserit, doletque props jam triginta diebus vix unam paginam 
 peractam esse. 
 
 The epigram in question reads as follows : 
 
 Dum te prosequor et domum redu^o, 
 Aurem. dum tibi prasto garrienti, 
 Et quidquid loqueris facisque laudo, 
 Quot versus poterant^ Labulle nasci? 
 Hoc damnum tibi non videtur esse. 
 Si quod Roma legit, requirit kospes, 
 Non deridet eques, tenet senator, 
 Laudat causidicus, poeta carpit. 
 Propter te peril? Hoc Labulle verum est? 
 Hoc quisquam ferat, ut tibi tuorum 
 Sit major numerus togatulorum, 
 Librorum mihi sit minor meorum ? 
 Triginta prope jam diebus una est 
 Nobis pagina vix peracta, sic fit. 
 Cum cenare domi poeta non vult. 
 
 In translating, I attempt only to present the general 
 purport. 
 
 ' ' During the time in which I am in your company, LabuUus, and 
 while escorting you homeward I am listening to your chattering, and 
 am expected to give attention and praise to whatever you may be say- 
 ing or doing, how many verses do you think could I have produced ? 
 Do you not realize how grievous a loss it is [to both author and public] 
 that what Rome reads, what the stranger asks for, what the knight 
 does not scorn, what the Senator cherishes as a possession, what the 
 lawyer praises, what the poet eagerly seizes, that all this should perish 
 \i. e., fail to come into existence], O LabuUus, through your fault? 
 Yet is not this the case ? Is it a thing to be approved that simply to 
 
Rome 229 
 
 swell the number of your followers, my literary productions should be 
 diminished ? During a whole month I have hardly been able to com- 
 plete a page. This is the inevitable result when the poet is tempted 
 to dine away from home." 
 
 The interpretation placed by Schmidt on these 
 and similar verses, that the damnum stood for a 
 pecuniary loss to the author, and that productions 
 which secured for themselves popular favor brought, 
 therefore, to their authors pecuniary gain, is upheld 
 by Becker. He maintains that authors were evi- 
 dently attracted to Rome by the prospects of such 
 receipts, and that, to a considerable extent at least, 
 they depended upon the same for their support. 
 " It is not easy to believe," Becker continues, " that 
 a needy author like Martial, always in want of money, 
 would have been willing to permit Tryphon, Secun- 
 dus, and Polius to make profits out of his produc- 
 tions without arranging to secure any portion of 
 these profits for himself." ' Birt, who, as we have 
 before seen, is a firm believer in the conclusion that 
 Roman writers secured compensation for their work, 
 is of opinion that this compensation must usually 
 have taken the shape of a prcemium, as Martial puts 
 it, a round payment or honorarium,, made probably 
 on the delivery of the manuscript, rather than that 
 of a royalty." 
 
 ' Gallus (Deutsche Ausgabe), ii., 450- ' P- 354- 
 
230 Authors and Their Public 
 
 One of Martial's references to the customary 
 prcemium occurs in the tenth satire. The poet has 
 been protesting against the weary and unprofitable 
 role of a client or follower. He asks that Rome 
 may spare him from any such thankless and trivial 
 tasks as those which come upon the weary " con- 
 gratulator," who, for his dreary service, earns through 
 the day at best but a hundred miserable pennies 
 {plumbeos), while Scorpus (the gladiator) carries off 
 in an hour, as victor, fifteen sacks of gleaming gold. 
 Then follow the lines : 
 
 Non ego meorum pmmium libellorum, 
 
 (Quid enim merentur ?J Appulos velim campos, 
 
 Non Hybla, non me specifer capit Nilus, 
 
 Nee qucB paludes delicta Pomptinas 
 
 Ex arce clivi spectat non Setini, 
 
 Quid concupiscam quceris ergo ? — dormire, 
 
 " As a reward (jircemium) for my books (for what 
 indeed, are they worth ?) I ask not for the Appulian 
 fields ; neither Hybla nor the fruitful Nile attracts 
 me, nor the luscious grapes which from the Setian 
 hillside hang over the Pontine marshes. You ask 
 what do I then desire ; I reply — to sleep." 
 
 These lines should, of course, be interpreted in 
 connection with the poet's other utterances, which, 
 as we have seen, are not marked by any lack of 
 
Rome 231 
 
 appreciation of the importance of his literary pro- 
 ductions. It seems probable that the query, " what, 
 indeed, are they worth?" is meant as a mere f agon 
 de parler, and is intended to be answered with a full 
 appreciation of the inestimable value of his poems 
 to the reader and to the community. I judge further 
 that the poet in naming the attractive things of this 
 world which he would not demand as his reward, 
 while, of course, speaking with a certain hyperbole 
 of phrase, is at the same time making a kind of 
 undercurrent of suggestion that fruitful hillsides, or 
 even great provinces, would not, in fact, be a dis- 
 proportioned reward for talents and services like his. 
 The lines remind one of what Dickens (in his sketch 
 of the election of a beadle) describes as the " great 
 negative style " of oratory. " I will not speak of 
 his valiant services in the militia, I will not refer to 
 his charming wife and nine children, two at the 
 breast," etc. The important detail in the lines, 
 however, for our present purpose is the reference 
 to a prcemium or compensation of some kind or 
 amount as naturally to be looked for and to be 
 depended upon for successful literary production. 
 Taking this reference in connection with others of 
 similar purport, it is, I think, safe to conclude that, 
 notwithstanding the lack of protection of the law. 
 
232 Authors and Their Public 
 
 Martial and other writers of his time who were not 
 too rich to require such earnings or too proud to 
 demand them, earned money with their pens, or 
 rather with their styli. 
 
 I add references to a few other instances of pay- 
 ments or returns to authors. 
 
 One of the earliest is mentioned by Suetonius.' 
 Pompilius Andronicus, the grammarian, sold his 
 treatise for 1600 sesterces. This sale must have 
 comprised the original manuscript, together with 
 such author's and publishing " rights " as existed. 
 The younger Pliny is quoted by Birt "^ — as saying 
 that Pliny the elder had, while in Spain, declined an 
 offer from a certain Lucinus of 40,000 sesterces 
 (about $1800.00) for his commentaries. Lucinus 
 was not a publisher, but apparently some enthusiastic 
 admirer of the author. 
 
 In his twelfth satire ' Martial makes a curious slap 
 at two contemporary poets : 
 
 Vendunt carmina Gallus et Lupercus 
 Sanos Classice, nunc nega poetas. 
 
 " Gallus and Lupercus sell their poetry. Now deny, 
 O Classicus ! that they are real poets (or poets in 
 their right minds, or poets of common sense )." 
 ^ De Gramm,, Reiff., p. io5, 12. 'P. 355. " xii., 46. 
 
Rome 233 
 
 As Haenny suggests (citing Schrevel), no one 
 dares to deny the sanity of a poet who can get 
 money for his productions, but one might question 
 the sanity of the publisher who pays the money. 
 
 Haenny thinks that Martial is sneering at the 
 practice (unworthy of poets) of writing for gain. 
 Such a position seems to me entirely inconsistent 
 with Martial's other expressions. It seems to me 
 much more likely that Martial is sneering at the idea 
 that these particular writers have produced any 
 poems that are worth money. Lupercus is probably 
 the same person whom Martial rebuked for trying 
 to secure his, Martial's, poems without paying for 
 them. 
 
 In one epigram ' Martial advises a friend, who 
 comes to him for counsel concerning a profession 
 for his son, by no means to permit him to become 
 a poet. If the boy has money-making desires, let 
 him learn to play on the cithara or the flute. If he 
 seems to have real capacity, he might become a 
 herald or an architect. 
 
 In another" he points out that no money can be 
 
 obtained from Phcebus or from Thessalian songs. 
 
 It is Minerva who has wealth — she alone lends 
 
 money to the other gods. In a third ' he complains 
 
 ■v., 56. M., 76. *v., 16. 
 
234 Authors and Their Public 
 
 that in writing poetry he may give pleasure to his 
 readers, but he does so at a serious sacrifice to him- 
 self, for if he chose, in place of giving his time to 
 verses, to serve as an advocate, to sell his influence 
 to anxious defendants, his clients " would become 
 his purse." As it is, however, he must console him- 
 self with the thought that his readers are bene- 
 fited although the poet works practically without 
 recompense. 
 
 Later, the poet likens his literary work to a die 
 or a cast from a dice-box, the result of the labor 
 being at best an uncertainty.' 
 
 It was through patronage that literature became 
 remunerative, and fortunately for the authors the 
 patronage of literature became, under Octavius, fash- 
 ionable. I have already referred to the familiar 
 name of Maecenas, whose influence in interesting his 
 fellow-patricians and the young Emperor in the liter- 
 ary productions of the capital was most important. 
 The fashion of patronage thus initiated continued 
 to a greater or less extent until the days of Hadrian. 
 As Simcox expresses it, the poets got into the habit 
 of expecting to be treated "as semi-sacred pen- 
 sioners, as they have been at the courts of the 
 princes of the heroic age of Greece and Scandi- 
 
Rome 
 
 235 
 
 navia— as they are still at the courts of certain 
 princes in India who trace their descent up to 
 the heroic age.'" In the age of Anne, English 
 poets passed through a somewhat similar experience, 
 and during the reigns of the first two Georges, 
 they were not infrequently haunted by the same 
 expectations. The bitter line, as paraphrased by 
 Johnson, after his experience with Lord Chesterfield, 
 commemorating the evil of the poet's lot, has be- 
 come proverbial 
 
 " Age, envy, want, the patron and the jail." 
 
 In Rome when, in the decline of the literary in- 
 terests of the Court, the hopes of patronage were 
 finally abandoned, the profession of poetry seems 
 for a time to have been practically given up. 
 
 Juvenal takes as the subject of his seventh satire 
 the poverty of men of letters. He complains that 
 the Emperor is their sole stay, and that authors can 
 make no money and have as a dependence only the 
 unprofitable patronage of the great. The poets 
 who recite their verses, the historians, the lawyers, 
 the rhetoricians who act as instructors for the young, 
 are made to pass in turn before him, and of each the 
 condition arouses the compassion of his irritable 
 
 ' Simcox, p. 250. 
 
236 Authors and Their Public 
 
 muse. In this satire we find references to the 
 practice among poets of giving public readings of 
 their productions. " Macalonus will lend you his 
 palace and will provide some freedmen and some 
 obliging friends to applaud. But among all these, 
 you will find no one who will furnish you with 
 means to pay either for seats in the parquet or 
 orchestra, or even for places in the gallery." ' 
 
 Or again, it is Statius who gives a reading of his 
 Thebaid. 
 
 ' ' All the city comes to hear the reading. The audience is enthu- 
 siastic and applauds vociferously. But Statius would have died of 
 hunger if he had not been able to sell to the actor Paris his tragedy 
 of Agave. Paris distributes military honors and puts on the fingers 
 of poets the ring of knighthood. What the nobles do not give, an 
 actor may bestow." ^ 
 
 The author of the dialogue on the decadence of 
 oratory (attributed to Tacitus) makes mention also 
 of these public lectures or readings, and of what 
 they cost to a certain Bassus, for hiring a hall, for 
 programmes, and for outlays in getting an audience 
 together. 
 
 Rogare ultra et ambire cogitur ut sint qui dignentur 
 audire ; et id ne quidem gratis. Nam ct domum 
 mutantur, et auditorium exstruit, et subsellia conducit, 
 et libellos dispergit.' 
 
 'Juvenal, Sat., vii., 39-47. 'Juvenal, v., 82-94. ''Cap. ix. 
 
Rome 237 
 
 Apart from the use of authorship as a profession, 
 it was of course pursued by many as an agreeable 
 means of beguihng leisure, the results being harm- 
 less for posterity if not entirely so for the neighbors 
 of the writer. In this respect, Rome, in the third 
 century, was not very different from London or New 
 York in the nineteenth. The dilettante tragedian 
 frequently restricted his literary ambition to securing 
 a hearing for his productions before an audience, 
 whether public or private, and did not venture to 
 plan for his works any wider publication. 
 
 There are not a few references to banquets at 
 which the guests paid for their dinners by listening, 
 with due appreciation, to the latest tragedy of their 
 host. 
 
 In some instances at least the guests must have 
 found occasion really to value their literary as well 
 as their gastronomic entertainment, as not a few 
 works which had been left by their authors uncopied 
 and uncared for, have been preserved for posterity 
 only through the care of admiring friends. 
 
 Donatus says that Virgil had planned before his 
 
 death to burn his ^neid, unwiUing that it should 
 
 be published without further revision, and that the 
 
 work was only saved by the commands of Augustus," 
 
 ' Birt, 347. 
 
238 Authors and Their Public 
 
 Other writers, either by reason of dread of critical 
 opinion or from an extreme standard of thorough- 
 ness, kept their manuscripts in their desks for a 
 number of years after completing them. As Catul- 
 lus says, after publication there can be no thought 
 of further emendation. He speaks of one of his 
 volumes as given to the world after the ninth winter 
 {edita nonam post hiemeni)^ 
 
 This term of nine years happens to coincide with 
 the advice of Horace, that a literary work should be 
 held back for nine years — nonum prematur in annum, 
 — for the word once published can never be recalled." 
 
 Pliny permitted his friend Saturninus to help him 
 with the revision of his Schedulce, but is not even 
 then assured that he will be satisfied to permit them 
 to come before the public : Erit enim et post emenda- 
 tionem liberum nobis vel publicare vel continere — " and 
 after the revision of the books it still rested with us 
 to decide whether to publish them or to hold them 
 back." =■ 
 
 Fronto, who was tutor to Marcus Aurelius, had 
 written a pamphlet against a certain Asclepiodotus, 
 and had arranged with a publisher for the issue of 
 an edition. Hearing later that Verus (the adopted 
 
 ' Catullus, 95, quoted by Birt, 345. 
 ° Birt, 345. 3 Efist., i., 8, 3. 
 
Rome 239 
 
 son of Antoninus Pius) was friendly to Asclepio- 
 dotus, he hastened to the publisher's ofifice to cancel 
 the publication, but finds, to his regret, that he is 
 too late, a number of copies having already gone out 
 to the public, curavi quidem abolere orationem, sedjam 
 pervaserat in manus plurimum quam ut aboleri posset^ 
 
 According to Birt," the oldest book-shop — that is, 
 retail book-shop — known to have existed in Rome 
 was that in which Clodius hid himself (58 A.D.). 
 Later, we find the stalls of the bibliopoles placed in 
 the most frequented quarters of the city, by the Janus 
 Gate of the Forum, by the Temple of Peace, on the 
 Argiletum, in the Vicus Sandalarius, and on the 
 Sigillaria. Martial speaks in fact of the street 
 Argiletum as being chiefly occupied by booksellers, 
 with whom, curiously enough, he tells us, were asso- 
 ciated the fashionable tailors.' It would be pleasing 
 to think that there was ever a time or a city in which 
 the buying of books was as much of a fashionable 
 diversion as the buying of clothes. 
 
 Both Horace and Martial speak of the book-shops 
 as having become places of resort where the more 
 active-minded citizens got into the habit of meeting 
 
 ' Fronto, Epist. ad Verum, ii., 9. 
 
 "^ Birt, 357 ; see also Cicero, Philipp., ii., 4. 
 
 °" Ep., i., 4, 118. 
 
240 Authors and Their Public 
 
 to look over the literary novelties and to discuss the 
 latest gossip, literary or social. On the door-posts 
 or on columns near the entrance were placed the 
 advertisements of recent publications and the an- 
 nouncements of works in preparation. Martial gives 
 us the description as follows : 
 
 Contra Ccesaris est forum, tabema 
 Scriptis postibus hinc et inde talis, 
 Omnes ut cito perlegas poetas. 
 
 De prima dabit alter ove nido 
 Rasuni pumice purptiraque culium 
 Denariis tibi quinque Martialem. ' 
 
 Birt finds evidences that before the close of the 
 first century, the book trade in Rome and through 
 many portions of the Empire had developed into 
 large proportions. Each week the packets from 
 Alexandria brought into Rome great cargoes of 
 papyrus from the paper-makers of Alexandria. 
 These papyrus rolls, first stored in the warehouses, 
 speedily find their way to the workrooms of the 
 publishers, where hundreds of skilled slaves follow 
 with swift pens the rapid dictation of the readers, 
 who relieve each other from time to time. Others 
 occupy themselves with the work of comparison and 
 revision, while a third group, the glutinatores, cover 
 ' Martial, Ep., i., 117. 
 
Rome 241 
 
 the completed manuscripts with appropriate bind- 
 ings. In the book-shop, taberna, are attractively 
 presented for the attention of the scholars, the dil- 
 ettanti, the real collectors, and their fashionable 
 imitators, the collections of the accepted classics 
 and of the latest literary novelties. Here a cheap 
 edition of the u^neid is sold for school use for a few 
 pennies ; there great sums are expended for a verita- 
 ble " original " text of some work by Demosthenes, 
 Thucydides, Cato, or Lucilius ' ; while a third buyer 
 is placing a wholesale order for a " proper assort- 
 ment " of literature to serve as an adornment for a 
 new villa. 
 
 From the Roman bibliopoles large shipments of 
 books are also regularly made to other cities, such 
 as Brundisium, fasces librorum venalium expositos 
 vidimus in Brundisium^ or Lugdunum " (Lyons), 
 or Vienna (in Gaul). " 
 
 It seems also to have been the practice (which 
 has not been abandoned in modern times) to ship 
 off to the provinces the over supplies or "remain- 
 ders " of editions of books which had in the capital 
 gone out of fashion. Aut fugies Uticam aut vinc- 
 tus mitt er is Her dam.'' 
 
 ' Lucian, 58, 4. ^ Gell., 9, 4, i- ^ Pli"-. -^Z- 9. "• 
 
 * Martial, 7, 88. ' Horace, Ep., 20, 13. 
 
242 Authors and Their Public 
 
 Notwithstanding this extreme activity of the busi- 
 ness of making and selling books, Birt is inclined to 
 conclude that the lot of the poor student must have 
 been a difficult one. 
 
 Such libraries as existed in Rome and Italy had 
 not been instituted with reference to the work of 
 students, as had been done with the collections in 
 Alexandria, and the Roman State appears in fact to 
 have given very little attention to the requirements 
 of higher education. 
 
 An author, named Diogenian, writing in the time 
 of Hadrian, undertook to supply the needs of the 
 impecunious student of philology, the itkvrji nsnai- 
 SevfiEvoi of Lucian, with his book entitled nepiepyo- 
 TTEVTjre?, which was so comprehensive in its informa- 
 tion as to enable its fortunate owner to " do without 
 any other work on its subject."' 
 
 Birt concludes from certain references that the 
 leading publishers in Rome had during the beginning 
 of the second century organized themselves into an 
 association for the better protection of their interests 
 in literary property, and that each member of such 
 association bound himself not to interfere with the 
 undertakings of his fellow-members. As Roman 
 literature increased in commercial importance, some 
 
 ' Birt, 363. 
 
Rome 243 
 
 such arrangement or undertaking was, of course, in- 
 dispensable, as in connection with the cheapening 
 rates for the labor of slave copyists, indiscriminate 
 competition could only have resulted in anarchy in 
 the book-world, and have retarded indefinitely the 
 development of literature as a profession. Birt evi- 
 dently had in mind the existence of some such Pub- 
 lishers' Commission as was instituted by the book- 
 trade of Leipsic in the 17th century, but it is not 
 likely that the Roman association succeeded in 
 securing any such definite and effective organization. 
 
 It is on record, however, that the publisher Try- 
 phon claimed to possess a legal control over the 
 writings of Quintilian, while there is, unfortunately, 
 nothing to show by what means he was enabled to 
 retain such control." Tryphon took credit to him- 
 self for having persuaded the reluctant Quintilian to 
 permit the publication of certain works which would 
 otherwise have been lost to posterity." Quintilian 
 refers to Tryphon as a trusted friend, on whose 
 judgment he relied.' Tryphon was also one of the 
 numerous publishers of Martial." 
 
 The name of the librarius Dorus, mentioned by 
 Seneca as a contemporary of his own, is worthy of 
 
 ' Birt, 359. ^ Quint., Epist. ad Tryphon. 
 
 ' Birt, 348. •* Mart., xiii., 3. 
 
244 Authors and Their Public 
 
 note because he was one of the earliest buyers of 
 publishing rights or copyrights. Seneca understands, 
 namely, that Dorus had purchased from the heirs of 
 Atticus and from those of Cicero the publishing 
 rights and the " remainders " of the editions of 
 Cicero's works.' 
 
 An ownership was claimed by the State in the 
 Sibylline books, but this was of course never exer- 
 cised in the form of a publishing right. It is related, 
 however, that the duumvir Attilius suffered the pun- 
 ishment of death, adjudged to a parricide, because, 
 being charged with the custody of the Sibylline 
 books, he suffered Petronius Sabinus to copy some 
 portions of the same. This might be called an in- 
 fringement of a copyright vested in the State, but in 
 the regard of the Roman law the deed was evidently 
 considered simply as a sacrilege." 
 
 Suetonius relates, in his Life of Domitian, an in- 
 stance in which the Emperor administered, on the 
 ground of certain objectionable passages in a work 
 of history, a penalty so severe that it is difficult to 
 accept the report as accurate. He says : Hermogenem 
 Tarsensem occidit propter quasdam. in historia figuras ; 
 librariis etiam qui cum descripserant crucifixis. " He 
 
 ' Seneca, De Beneficiis, vii. , 6, i. Quoted by Birt, p. 358. 
 ' Renouard, i., 15. 
 
Rome 245 
 
 killed Hermogenes of Tarsus on account of certain 
 expressions in his history ; even the booksellers who 
 had circulated the work were crucified." ' 
 
 If the account is correct, we have in this instance 
 a very early application of the present usage in re- 
 gard to the circulation of so-called "libellous" 
 matter. The bookseller of to-day no longer dreads 
 capital punishment at the hands of an irate monarch, 
 but it is perfectly possible for him to be forced into 
 bankruptcy through the penalties collected on ac- 
 count of the circulation (however unwittingly) of 
 volumes containing statements called by the law 
 "libellous." 
 
 The principal customers of the booksellers were 
 the schoolmasters and the so-called " grammarians." 
 To these should be added, from the beginning of the 
 first century, an increasing number of libraries. The 
 first public library in Rome is said to have been 
 founded as early as 167 B.C., but it was not until the 
 reign of Augustus that the Roman libraries became 
 important and that in the other cities also libraries 
 were instituted. 
 
 There was a library attached to the temple of 
 Apollo on the Palatine hill in Rome, which Simcox 
 refers to as an humble imitation of the Museum of 
 
 ' Sueton., Domiiian, c. 10. 
 
246 Authors and Their Public 
 
 Alexandria, but I do not know the date of its found- 
 ing. It is noted of Tibullus, who was usually indif- 
 ferent to fame, that he consented to send to this 
 library a copy of his collected writings, and there 
 are other references from which it appeared that, 
 either from public spirit or from a desire for pub- 
 lic appreciation, authors made a practice of present- 
 ing copies of their books to this Palatine library, 
 and that in this way a considerable collection was 
 brought together, of which the public had the 
 benefit ; but it is certain that there was no mu- 
 nicipal or imperial enactment prescribing such pres- 
 entation copies, and it does not appear that any of 
 the emperors took any such active interest in fur- 
 thering the development of literature and of the 
 literary education of the public as had been shown 
 by the Ptolemies of Alexandria. 
 
 In Rome there were, according to Birt, twenty- 
 nine public libraries founded between the reign of 
 Augustus and that of Hadrian, while there are 
 various references to the public libraries of the 
 smaller cities. Aulus Gellius ' speaks of the library 
 in Tibur (the modern Tivoli) in Herculis Templo 
 satis coininode instructa libris. Comum (the modern 
 Como) possessed a library given to it by Pliny." The 
 
 ' .Villus Gellius, ig, 5, 4, g ; 14, 3. ' Epist., i., 8, 2. 
 
Rome 247 
 
 Roman Athens had a public library connected with 
 the College of the Ptolemies, and the Emperor 
 Hadrian founded a second.' Strabo speaks with ap- 
 preciation of the library of Smyrna." 
 
 It appears probable that, at least for the first 
 three or four centuries after Christ, the larger pro- 
 portion of the books contained in the public Hbraries 
 (as in the private collections) were in Greek. Cicero 
 speaks more than once of the fact that the Greek 
 books were comparatively plenty, while those in 
 Latin were scarce.' Juvenal's character, the impe- 
 cunious Cordus, " possessed but few books, and 
 those in Greek.* Suetonius, in speaking of the 
 restoration by Domitian of the public libraries 
 which had been burned by Nero, states that the 
 Emperor collected from all sources trustworthy texts 
 and forwarded them to Alexandria for use in the 
 production of the many copies required.^ It is evi- 
 dent, in the first place, that at this time (about 90 A.D.) 
 the supply of skilled copyists in Rome was still in- 
 adequate for any such extended undertakings, and 
 secondly, that there was question merely of works 
 in Greek, for Latin texts would hardly have been 
 sent to Alexandria. 
 
 ' Bursian, Geog. Griechenlands , p. 290. '^ Strabo, p. 646. 
 
 3 Ad Quintum, iii., 4. '' Juvenal, iii., 206. * Sueton., Domitian, 20. 
 
248 Authors and Their Public 
 
 Even without the aid of scholarly government 
 supervision and of liberal government appropriations, 
 the public libraries of Rome and of the leading 
 cities of the provinces must have been of no little 
 importance in furthering the literary interests of the 
 time, while they rendered to posterity the important 
 service of preserving not a few works which would 
 otherwise apparently have perished entirely. For 
 this latter service we are indebted, however, not 
 only to the libraries but to the vanity of the authors, 
 who for the most part took pains to place in one or 
 more of the public libraries copies of their writings 
 as soon as published. Of certain works of which 
 the originals have disappeared, such knowledge as 
 we have comes to us only in the fragments given in 
 the school readers, which for each generation of 
 young students were made up of extracts from the 
 books of the previous generation of writers. 
 
 Some of these " classical " readers of the period 
 of the early Empire were copied for use in the 
 monastic schools of some centuries later, but these 
 were in large part speedily superseded by the collec- 
 tions of legends and breviaries which came to be 
 accepted as the proper literature for the monastery 
 and the convent. 
 
 In addition to the " grammarians " buying books 
 
Rome 249 
 
 for their professional needs, and the city libraries 
 purchasing for the public welfare, there were, during 
 the first two centuries, an increasing number of pri- 
 vate collectors, not a few of whom, however, bought 
 books, not from any scholarly interest, but simply 
 because it became the fashion to do so. Seneca 
 speaks of great collections of books in the hands of 
 men who had never so much as read their titles.' 
 Such purchases must nevertheless have been import- 
 ant for the encouragement of literary work in Rome. 
 Many of the public baths were furnished with 
 libraries ' ; a country house could not be complete 
 without a library, says Cicero " ; each one of the 
 villas of Italicus, according to Pliny, had its library ' ; 
 Trimalchio, says Petronius,* possessed no less 
 than three. A statue of Hermes, found in Rome, 
 bears an epigram which speaks of ^v^Xoi in the 
 grove of the Muses, and which undoubtedly had 
 been intended to be placed in the library of some 
 country villa." 
 
 Among some of the larger private collections re- 
 ferred to are those of the grammarian Epaphroditus, 
 who possessed 30,000 volumes," and of Serenus Sam- 
 moaicus, who is credited with over 6000 volumes.' 
 
 " Birt, p. 361. "• Epist, iii., 7. =Birt, 361. 
 
 ^ De Fin., ii., 7. '' 48, 4. " Suidas, Lexicon. 
 
 ' Capitolinus, Gordianus, 18, 2. 
 
250 Authors and Their Public 
 
 The impecunious Martial, on' the other hand, tells 
 us that his own collection comprised less than 120 
 rolls. ■ 
 
 We have already referred to the practical interest 
 taken by Martial in the details of bookselling. We 
 find him quoting the authority of the booksellers 
 against certain critics, who were not willing to rank 
 Lucian as a poet of repute, and showing that after 
 thirty years or more there was still a steady demand 
 for Lucian's poetical works. 
 
 Martial takes the ground that continued popular 
 appreciation is sufficient evidence of literary repute, 
 whatever the critics may say to the contrary.^ 
 
 The same satirist refers more than once to many 
 amiable and deserving authors, who, despite their 
 talents, succeeded in reaching no public at all other 
 than the unhappy guests who learned from experi- 
 ence to dread the admirable dinners which had to be 
 paid for by listening to literary productions. The 
 practice of recitations on the part of the host must 
 have been quite general, if when no such perform- 
 ance was intended it was considered desirable to 
 mention the fact in the invitations. Martial quotes 
 himself as promising to Stella in inviting him to 
 dinner, that under no provocation will he be tempted 
 
 ' Martial, 14, 190. ' Simcox, ii., 49, 
 
Rome 
 
 251 
 
 to recite anything, not even though Stella should 
 recite his own poem on the " Wars of the Giants." ' 
 
 Martial explains the inferiority of the literary pro- 
 duction of the reign of Domitian by the fact that 
 there was no Maecenas to give encouragement to 
 authors. All the great poets of the Augustan age had, 
 as he recalls, been placed in easy circumstances (as far 
 as they were not so already) either through the direct 
 bounty of Maecenas or as a result of his influence 
 over the Court. According to the view of Martial, 
 literature possessing any lasting value is impossible 
 without the leisure and freedom from care which 
 comes from an assured income. Maecenas, and the 
 fashion of subsidizing literature initiated by him, 
 appear in a crude way, in presenting encouragement 
 for literary work, to have supplied the place of a 
 copyright law. 
 
 There may, of course, often have been question as 
 to what constituted a " proper compensation " for a 
 poetical effort. Tacitus speaks of a certain Roman 
 knight, C. Lutorius Priscus, who had won some 
 repute from a poem on the death of Germanicus. 
 He thereupon composed another poem on the death 
 of Drusus (son of Tiberius), who was at the time 
 seriously ill, but who was perverse enough to recover. 
 ' Simcox, ii., p. 77. 
 
252 Authors and Their Public 
 
 Priscus had, however, already read his poem aloud, 
 after which he was promptly put to death under a 
 vote of the Senate, whether on account of the bad- 
 ness of the poem, or because he had prophesied the 
 death of the Prince, Tacitus does not state.' 
 
 Juvenal joins with Martial in characterizing the 
 writing of poetry as an unsatisfactory profession, 
 and hints more strongly than Martial that the pro- 
 fession was spoiled by amateurs. He suggests as a 
 further ground for the absence of first-rate poetiy, 
 that all the subjects had been exhausted, meaning, 
 of course, all the mythological subjects. He arrives 
 at the conclusion that poetry and literature in general 
 are dying, and considers this is not to be wondered 
 at, since even if a man of letters makes a sacrifice 
 which ought not to be required of him, and turns 
 schoolmaster, he will be grossly underpaid, and often 
 not able to recover the beggarly pittance which will 
 be due him.'' 
 
 This inadequacy of the legitimate returns for 
 literary work was doubtless considered by Martial 
 as a sufficient justification for utilizing his unques- 
 tioned literary cleverness in ways not always legiti- 
 mate, for, as has been pointed out by Cruttwell, 
 Simcox, and others, not a few of the epigrams look 
 
 ' Tac, Ann., iii., 49. ' Simcox, ii., p. 77. 
 
Rome 253 
 
 like demands for blackmail. " Somebody " — the 
 poet declines to know who the somebody is — " has 
 given offence " ; if the poet should discuss who, 
 so much the worse for somebody. He is full of 
 veiled personalities of the most damaging kind. He 
 deprecates guessing at the persons indicated, but 
 they must have recognized themselves, and have 
 seen the need of propitiating a poet who was at 
 once politic and vindictive. He insists repeatedly 
 upon his successful avoidance of all personal attacks, 
 while he had been lavish of personal compliments. 
 He tells us himself that these were not given gratis, 
 and when somebody whom he has praised ignores 
 the obligation he receives, the fact is published as 
 a general warning. We cannot doubt that when 
 Martial wrote that " there were no baths in the world 
 like the baths of Etruscus," and that " whoever missed 
 bathing in them would die without bathing," he ex- 
 pected to be paid in some form or other for the val- 
 uable advertisement he was giving to Etruscus.' In 
 like manner, when he answers numerous requests for 
 a copy of his poems with a reference to his book- 
 seller, adding a jocose assurance that the poems are 
 not really worth the money, it is fair to assume that 
 the bookseller had paid something for the manu- 
 ' Martial, vi., 46. 
 
254 Authors and Their Public 
 
 script or that the author had some continued interest 
 in the sales.' 
 
 In being obliged by the narrowness of his means 
 to watch thus closely the sales of his booksellers, 
 and in believing himself compelled to pick up sesterces 
 by writing complimentary epigrams or threatening 
 abusive ones, Martial may well have envied the 
 assured position of his contemporary Quintilian, 
 who received from the imperial treasury as a rhetor- 
 ician a salary, which, with his other emoluments, 
 gave him an income of 100,000 sesterces (about 
 $4000). Quintilian appears to have been the first 
 rhetorician to whom an imperial salary was given. 
 
 It is evident that at this time the art of the 
 rhetorician or reciter was still one of importance. 
 The great books of the Claudian period were evi- 
 dently written to be recited or to please a taste 
 formed by the habit of recitation.'' After the reign 
 of Claudius the noteworthy works, with the excep- 
 tion perhaps of the Thebaid of Statins, were cer- 
 tainly written to be read. How many readers they 
 found is a more difficult thing to determine. There 
 was certainly, on the part of some writers at least, 
 no lack of persistency. Labeo, the jurist (who died 
 13 A.D,), is credited, for instance (or should we say 
 
 'Martial, iv., 72. Simcox, p. 107. * Simcox, ii., p. 142. 
 
Rome 255 
 
 debited ?), with the production of no less than four 
 hundred works/ 
 
 The average editions of works addressed to the 
 general public are estimated by Birt to have com- 
 prised not less than five hundred copies, and in 
 many cases a thousand copies." Pliny, writing about 
 60 A.D., makes reference to a volume by M. Aquilus 
 Regulus (a memoir of his deceased son), of which 
 the author caused to be made one thousand copies 
 for distribution throughout Italy and the provinces. 
 Pliny thinks it rather absurd that for a volume like 
 this, of limited and purely personal interest, the 
 piety and the vanity of the author should have 
 caused an edition to be prepared larger than that 
 usually issued of readable works.' Birt is of opinion 
 that there is suiificient evidence in the references of 
 Horace, Propertius, Ovid, Martial, and others, to 
 show the existence of a well organized system for 
 the distribution and sale of books, not only in Italy, 
 but throughout the distant provinces of Gaul, 
 Britain, Germany, and Scythia. Such a distribution, 
 even if restricted to the larger cities, would have 
 been impracticable with editions of much less than 
 one thousand copies." In support of this view 
 
 ' Simcox, ii., p. 236. ^ Pliny, Efisi., iv., 7. 
 
 5 Birt. " Birt, 352. 
 
256 Authors and Their Public 
 
 regarding a widespread distribution of books, Birt 
 quotes a passage from Pliny concerning the service 
 to literature rendered by Varro. 
 
 ' ' Varro was unwilling that the fame of great men should perish, 
 or that the lapse of years should cause the memory of their deeds to 
 be lost. He took pains, therefore, in the almost countless volumes 
 of his writings, to preserve for posterity biographical sketches of 
 more than seven hundred men who had won renown. Such a device 
 might well have aroused the envy of the Gods, for these portraitures 
 were not only thus ensured a permanent existence, but they were 
 distributed to the farthest comers of the earth, so that the names of 
 these heroes of the past would, like those of the Gods themselves, be 
 known in all lands." ■ 
 
 Varro, who was a contemporary of Cicero, appears 
 to have interested himself not only in biography, 
 but in almost every department of research. He is 
 credited with forty-one books on antiquities, sev- 
 enty-six books of edifying dialogues, fifteen books 
 of parallel lives of illustrious Greeks and Romans, 
 twenty-five books on the Latin language, nine books 
 on the "seven liberal arts," fifteen books on civil 
 law, thirty political memoirs, twenty-two books of 
 speeches, one hundred and fifty satires, and a num- 
 ber of minor works." Such industry and versatility 
 have few parallels in the history of literature, al- 
 though it is to be borne in mind that the author 
 was favored with length of days, and was able to be 
 
 ' Pliny, XXXV., n (trans, from Birt's version). - Simcox, i., p. 206. 
 
Rome 257 
 
 active in literary work as late as his eighty-second 
 year. It is evident, however, that there must have 
 been some measure of appreciation on the part of 
 the public and the publisher to have encouraged 
 him to such long-continued production. 
 
 Possibly the earliest instance of any practical 
 interest taken by the imperial government in further- 
 ing the distribution of literature for the higher 
 education of the public, is presented by an edict of 
 the Emperor Tacitus (275 A.D.), ordering that every 
 public library throughout the Empire should possess 
 not less than ten sets of the writings of his ancestor, 
 Tacitus, the historian. His reign of two hundred 
 days was, however, too brief to enable him to ensure 
 the execution of his decree. It seems probable that 
 if the aged Emperor (he was in his seventy-fifth 
 year when he came to the throne) had been able to 
 carry out his plan, posterity would not have had 
 occasion to mourn the disappearance of so large a 
 portion of the writings of the great historian. 
 
 Tacitus, the historian, was born about 60 A.D., in 
 a small town of Umbria. His father was of eques- 
 trian rank and a man of importance, and it is inter- 
 esting to note that the son, instead of being sent to 
 Athens for his education, as was so frequently done 
 with well born youths of the preceding generation. 
 
258 Authors and Their Public 
 
 received his university training at Massilia (the 
 modern Marseilles), which by the close of the first 
 century had become an important centre of literature 
 and education. The supremacy of Athens in in- 
 fluencing the higher education of Italy had come to 
 a close, and the centre of intellectual life was moving 
 westward. Tacitus was evidently a man of no little 
 versatility of power. Before achieving lasting fame 
 through his histories and essays, he had won distinc- 
 tion as a lawyer and as an orator, and had served 
 with dignity and success as praetor and consul. He 
 is spoken of as a graceful poet, and was believed also 
 to have been the author of a clever volume of 
 Facetice. 
 
 His History was published some time during the 
 reign of Trajan, in some thirty books, of which less 
 than five have been preserved. His second histori- 
 cal work was published a few years later, in sixteen 
 books, under the title of Annals, and of this about 
 nine books have been preserved. The frequent 
 references to these two works and to the well known 
 essay on the Germans, in the writings of the con- 
 temporaries and successors of Tacitus, show how 
 important a position they occupied in the literature 
 of the Empire, and show also that copies of them 
 were distributed widely throughout the known 
 
Rome 259 
 
 world. We have unfortunately no details whatever 
 concerning the method of their publication, and no 
 references to the publishers to whose charge they 
 were confided. 
 
 If Tacitus had only, like Martial, been an im- 
 pecunious writer, we should probably have found in 
 his correspondence with his friend Pliny, or in other 
 of his writings, some mention of his publishing 
 arrangements and of the receipts secured through 
 the sale of his works. It is evident, however, that 
 his official emoluments were sufficient to free him 
 froni any necessity of making close calculations con- 
 cerning earnings by his pen, and it is even possible 
 that he permitted the fortunate publishers, whoever 
 they were to reserve to themselves the profits, 
 which ought to have been considerable, arising from 
 the sales of these important and popular works. 
 
 Notwithstanding the gradual decline of Athens 
 towards the close of the second century as a centre 
 of higher education, Greek continued to be through- 
 out the Empire the language not only for many 
 philosophical and scholarly undertakings, but for not 
 a few works planned for popular reading. I men- 
 tioned that Massilia (Marseilles) had been selected 
 as the place where the young Tacitus could secure 
 to best advantage a refined education, but Massilia, 
 
26o Authors and Their PubHc 
 
 although a thousand miles from Greece, was a Greek 
 city. It is probably not too much to say that 
 throughout the Roman world, wherever a town came 
 into distinction in any way as a place of intellectual 
 activity and of literary life, it would be found to 
 have possessed a large Greek element. The Greek 
 brains must have served as yeast for the intellectual 
 substance of the Roman world. 
 
 Suetonius.writing, about 1 50 A.D., his work Ludicra, 
 comprising treatises on the sports and public games 
 of the Greeks and Romans, gave the work to the 
 public in both Greek and Latin. The Meditations 
 of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, written about 170 
 were issued only in Greek. Simcox says : 
 
 "From the reign of Hadrian onwards until the translation of the 
 Empire to the East, the intellectual needs of the capital, such as they 
 were, were supplied by the eastern half of the Empire ; all the upper 
 classes learned Greek in the nursery, and it was the language of 
 fashionable conversation ... all people who professed to be 
 serious entertained a Greek philosopher. Their only reason for 
 keeping up Latin literature at all was that the cleverest people who 
 had received a literary education wished to be poets or historians or 
 orators, an ambition which was sustained by the competitions endowed 
 by Domitian and by the professorships which were founded by his 
 predecessors and successors.'' 
 
 I have already referred to the influence of the 
 French language in Germany during the first half of 
 the eighteenth century as presenting a somewhat sim- 
 
Rome 261 
 
 ilar case ; but the influence upon German thought 
 and German literature of the French language and 
 literature, rendered fashionable under the Court 
 of Frederick the Great, was of course slight and 
 superficial as compared with the part played in the 
 Roman world by the language and the thought 
 of the Greeks. 
 
 Towards the end of the second century Carthage 
 became of literary as well as commercial importance. 
 Latin was the language of administration, and the 
 literary culture of Carthage took upon itself, there- 
 fore, a Latin rather than a Greek form.' Among 
 the authors who gave form, each in his own very 
 distinctive manner, to the literary school of Car- 
 thage were Fronto and Apuleius, and a generation 
 later the Father of the African Church, the theo- 
 logian Tertullian. 
 
 Fronto's books appear to have been made in Car- 
 thage, but were certainly on sale with Roman deal- 
 ers, and the same was doubtless the case with the 
 witty and popular Fables and Metamorphoses of 
 Apuleius, but the evidence in regard to a pubhsh- 
 ing trade in Carthage is purely inferential. Aulus 
 Gellius, writing about 170, speaks of picking up in a 
 second-hand book-shop in Brundisium a volume 
 ' Simcox, ii., 243. 
 
262 Authors and Their Public 
 
 from which he quotes a pretty story. The incident 
 was probably imaginary, for, as Simcox points out, 
 the story was taken from the elder Pliny ; but the 
 reference shows that the business of the bookseller 
 was, at the date specified, already sufficiently sys- 
 tematized to support, even in the smaller towns, 
 second-hand book dealers. 
 
 It was evident that by the close of the first 
 century the machinery for the making and the dis- 
 tribution of books was sufficiently well organized to 
 secure for authors the opportunity of a world-wide 
 influence. It seems probable, however, that the works 
 which at this date obtained for themselves the widest 
 circulation and influence were not those of living 
 writers, but were still the classics which Greece had 
 originated, but which were so largely given to the 
 world through Rome. 
 
 In the fourth century a certain Firmicus Maternus 
 published an astrological work entitled Mathesis. 
 The work was dedicated to the proconsul Mavertius 
 Lollianus, who had suggested its preparation, and 
 to him also the author appears to have assigned the 
 control of the publication, with the curious instruc- 
 tion that the two final books (out of the eight of 
 which the work was composed) must by no means 
 be permitted to come into the hands of the general 
 
Rome 263 
 
 public {vulgum profamtm), but that the reading of 
 these should be restricted to those who had led holy 
 and priestly lives. ' 
 
 Birt, who is my authority for the incident, does not 
 make clear what means were available for the pro- 
 consul by which to enforce this special and difficult 
 discrimination among readers. Birt cites the case, 
 however, as an evidence of the control that could be 
 exercised, and that from time to time was exercised, 
 by the government over the circulation of literature. 
 It is certain, he says, that even the very considerable 
 increase in the facilities for the reproduction of 
 books did not prevent the authorities from under- 
 taking to stop the sale of, and to confiscate, works 
 which, for one reason or another, might work detri- 
 ment to the State, or which conflicted with the per- 
 sonal interest of the ruler. The earliest example on 
 record of a confiscation dates back to the time when 
 the Athenian Republic was at its height. In the 
 year 41 1 B.C., as mentioned in the chapter on Greece, 
 the writings of the philosopher Protagoras were 
 burned on the Agora, while the philosopher himself 
 was held to trial for heresy.'' 
 
 The emperors of Rome possessed, of course, a 
 much more unquestioned authority and a more 
 ' Birt, 367. ' Diog. Laert., ix., 52. 
 
264 Authors and Their Public 
 
 effective machineiy for the suppression of doctrines 
 and for the confiscation of books than belonged to 
 the shifting authorities of Athens, and there are 
 examples of a number of imperial decrees for literary- 
 confiscation, some of which were based on the real 
 or apparent interests of the State, while not a few 
 can be credited to personal motives. 
 
 The first instance of the kind was the order of 
 Augustus for the burning of 2000 copies of certain 
 pseudo-Sibylline books. Those charged with the 
 task were directed not only to take all the stock 
 that could be found in the book-shops, but to make 
 thorough search also for all copies existing in private 
 collections.' Caligula attempted a more difficult 
 task, when, according to Suetonius, he undertook to 
 suppress the writings of Homer — cogitavit de Homeri 
 carminibus abolendis^ He also gave orders, says 
 the historian, which were fortunately only partly 
 carried out, to have destroyed all the writings and 
 all the busts of Virgil and of Livy contained in the 
 libraries. Tiberius ordered that the writings of a 
 certain historian of the time of Augustus should be 
 abolished, abolita scripta, by which we may properly 
 understand simply that the copies were to be taken 
 out of all public libraries.' 
 
 ' Sueton., Octavius, 31. ' Sueton., Caligula, 34. 
 
 ^ Sueton., Tiberius, 61. 
 
Rome 265 
 
 The rigorous measures adopted by Domitian to 
 discourage the sale of the history of Hermogenes of 
 Tarsus, by crucifying the publisher and all the book- 
 sellers who had copies in stock, have already been 
 referred to.' This history was found objection to on 
 the score of certain designs contained in it, propter 
 quasdam figuras. Two other works which failed to 
 secure the approval of this Emperor were the Lauda- 
 tions by Junius Rusticus and Herennius Senecio of 
 Paetus Thrasca and Helvidius Priscus. The two 
 books, that is, all the copies of them that could be 
 secured, were burned in the Forum after having 
 been solemnly condemned under a senatus consultum. 
 Senecio was nevertheless able to preserve his own 
 copy.' 
 
 Not a few of the edicts of confiscation were, how- 
 ever, evidently carried out by a house to house 
 visitation, extending at least to all domiciles known 
 to contain collections of books. Diocletian caused 
 to be collected and destroyed all the ancient manu- 
 scripts in Egypt, " which had to do with the chemis- 
 try of quicksilver and gold," nept xfJl^^ioip ocpyvpov 
 nai xpvooi), i. e., with the subject of alchemy.' The 
 teachers in Africa of the doctrines of the Mani- 
 
 ' Sueton., Domitian, 10. 
 
 '' Tacitus, Agric, 2. Plin., Ep., vii., ig. 
 
 "Burckhardt, Constant.,-^. 151. 
 
266 Authors and Their Public 
 
 chaeans were also ordered to burn their books. The 
 edict of Diocletian, issued 303 A.D., directing the 
 persecution of the Christians, also provided for the 
 destruction of the Christian Scriptures. According 
 to Burckhardt, many Christians canae forward with 
 the acknowledgment that they possessed copies of the 
 Scriptures, and, refusing to deliver the same, suffered 
 the martyrdom for which they sought.' 
 
 Constantine permitted Arius to live unmolested, 
 but his writings were, whenever found, committed 
 to the flames, and any one conceaHng copies was 
 liable to death. In 448, the Emperor Theodosius 
 issued an edict for the destruction of all works the 
 influence of which was opposed to the Christian 
 faith, an instruction which, if it had been faithfully 
 executed, would have annihilated a large portion of 
 the world's literature. Among other writers the loss 
 of whose works, excepting only a few fragments, was 
 probably due to the edict, was Porphyry of Tyre, who 
 died about 300 A.D., and who was the ablest of the 
 later scholarly opponents of the Christian doctrines. 
 
 St. Jerome relates that a certain Pammachius at- 
 tempted to recall and to cancel almost immediately 
 after publication the edition of Jerome's controver- 
 sial letters against the monk Jovinian, but that his 
 ' Burckhardt, 341. 
 
Rome 267 
 
 efforts were unsuccessful, for copies of the book had 
 already been distributed in every province. 
 
 The legislation of imperial Rome, which, as we 
 have seen, made no specific provision for the protec- 
 tion of the rights of authors, also omitted to institute 
 any measures for the public supervision of books. It 
 was under the general provisions of the criminal law 
 that the publication of writings on certain special 
 subjects was prevented or was punished, and that 
 the authors, publishers, and sometimes even the 
 possessors of the works regarded as injurious to 
 individuals or as likely to cause detriment to the 
 State, became subject to penalties the severity of 
 which varied with the times.' Several of the 
 imperial edicts characterized libellous publications as 
 acts of lese-majestS or treason.' 
 
 It would not be in order to bring to a close this 
 sketch of the history of literary property under the 
 rule of the Romans, without reference to the contri- 
 bution made by Roman jurists to the analysis of its 
 origin and nature, although such contribution was 
 but slight. The theories and conclusions of these 
 jurists are of interest not on the ground of their 
 having had any effect on the status of literary pro- 
 
 ' Codex, ix., 36, " DeFamoris Libellis." 
 ^ Renouard, 17. 
 
268 Authors and Their Public 
 
 duction throughout the Empire, but on account of 
 the far-reaching influence of Roman jurisprudence 
 upon the conceptions and the legislation of the me- 
 diaeval and of the modern world. 
 
 As Klostermann points out, the Roman jurists in- 
 terested themselves in the subject of property in an 
 intellectual or immaterial creation rather as a matter 
 of theoretical speculation than as one calling for 
 legislation ; and, as we have already seen, there is no 
 record of any such legislation, imperial or munici- 
 pal, having been instituted during the existence of 
 the Roman State. Some of the earlier discussions 
 as to the nature of property in formulated ideas ap- 
 pear to have turned upon the question as to whether 
 such property should take precedence over that in 
 the material which happened to be made use of for 
 the expression of the ideas. 
 
 The disciples of Proculus (a lawyer living at about 
 50 A.D.) maintained that the occupation of alien 
 material, so as to make of it a new thing, gave a 
 property right to him who had reworked or reshaped 
 it ; while the school of Sabinus (who was himself a 
 contemporary of Proculus) insisted that the owner- 
 ship of the material must carry with it the title to 
 whatever was produced upon the material. Jus- 
 tinian, or rather, I understand, Tribonianus, writing 
 in the name of the Emperor (about 520 A.D), took a 
 
Rome 269 
 
 middle ground, following the opinion of Gaius. 
 Tribonianus concluded, namely, that the decision 
 must be influenced by the possibility of restoring 
 the material to its original form, and more particu- 
 larly by the question as to whether the material or 
 that which had been produced upon it were the 
 more essential. The original opinion of Gaius ap- 
 pears to have had reference to the ownership of a 
 certain table upon which a picture had been painted, 
 and the decision was in favor of the artist. This 
 decision (dating from about 160 A.D.) contains an 
 unmistakable recognition of immaterial property, 
 not, to be sure, in the sense of a right to exclusive 
 reproduction, but in the particular application, that, 
 while material property depends upon the substance, 
 immaterial property, that is to say property in the 
 presentation of ideas, depends upon the form.' 
 
 The opinion, as given in the Institutes of Justinian, 
 is as follows : 
 
 Si quis in aliena tabula pinxerit, quidam putant 
 tabulam pictures cedere, aliis videtur picturam, qualis- 
 cunque sit tabulcB cedere ; sed nobis videtur melius esse, 
 tabulam pictures cedere. Ridiculam est enim picturam 
 apellis vel Parrhasii in accessionem vilissimm tabula 
 cedere^ 
 
 ' Klostermann, p. 37. 
 ''Just., 34. 
 
270 Authors and Their Public 
 
 It is certainly curious that a question of this kind, 
 first presented for consideration in the middle of the 
 first century, should have been still under discussion 
 nearly five centuries later. 
 
 An application of this same principle is presented 
 in legal usage to-day, under which authors and artists 
 are empowered to take possession of reproductions 
 of their works even against innocent third parties or 
 against the owners of the material on which such 
 reproductions have been made. 
 
 The fact that papyrus rather than parchment was 
 the material adopted by authors during the fruitful 
 period of Latin literature, had of course an impor- 
 tant bearing in the continued existence of their 
 works, for papyrus was an extremely perishable sub- 
 stance. Damp, worms, moths, mice, were all deadly 
 enemies of papyrus rolls, but even if, through per- 
 sistent watchfulness, these were guarded against, the 
 mere handling of the rolls, even by the most careful 
 readers, brought them rapidly to destruction. We 
 find, therefore, that a constant renewal of the rolls 
 was required in all public libraries, just as to-day our 
 librarians find it necessary to replace their supply of 
 copies of books of popular authors which have be- 
 come worn out by handling. The ancient librarian 
 had, however, a more arduous and a more expensive 
 
Rome 271 
 
 task with his renewals. A reference of Pliny gives 
 us an impression of the average age that could be 
 looked for for a papyrus book. 
 
 " Ita fiunt longinqua monimenta ; Tiberi Gaique 
 
 Gracchorummanus apud Pomponium Secundum vatem, 
 
 civemque clarissimum vidi annos fere post ducentos ; 
 
 jam vero Ciceronis ac divi Augusti Vergilique scepe 
 
 numero videmus." ' 
 
 We understand, therefore, that (with certain pre- 
 cautions) a book could last for one hundred years, 
 but that a volume two centuries old was for Pliny 
 something so exceptional as to be almost incredible. 
 
 The papyrus rolls were of course exposed to the 
 most serious friction at the opening portions which 
 were in immediate contact with one of the rollers 
 where two rollers were employed, and which in any 
 case were exposed to the most frequent handling. 
 As a consequence, it was the initial page of books 
 which first came to destruction, and of not a few 
 works which were otherwise in readable condition 
 these initial pages were lacking. A quotation from 
 Eusebius, cited by Birt, shows that it was even a 
 matter of surprise when a copy of the works of such 
 a writer as Clement was found complete, with title 
 and preface.' 
 
 ' Plinius, xiii., 83. 'Euseb., Hist. Eccles., vi., 13. 
 
272 Authors and Their Public 
 
 In many of the libraries, it was also not uncommon 
 to find that the different rolls of a particular work 
 had been wrongly numbered in one of the transcrib- 
 ings, and had consequently been mixed up as to 
 their arrangement. It was not infrequent even to 
 find the rolls of the works of different authors 
 jumbled together, in such a manner that no little 
 scholarly skill was requisite for their proper under- 
 standing and correct rearrangement.' 
 
 The papyrus manuscripts from the Athenian, 
 Alexandrian, and Roman workshops, as far as they 
 have escaped destruction through imperial edicts, 
 civil wars, and invasions, were permitted to fall into 
 decay, and were not replaced. By the close of the 
 fourth century, the great collections of papyrus rolls, 
 in which were contained the classics of Greek and 
 Roman literature, had practically disappeared. For 
 later book-making, parchment replaced papyrus, a 
 change which, if it had occurred two centuries, or 
 even one century earlier, would, in spite of edicts of 
 destruction, have preserved for future generations 
 not a few of the lost " classics." A small proportion 
 of the Greek and Roman writings, in copies dating 
 from the later literary period, had been placed on 
 parchment, and some few of these have been handed 
 ' Birt, 375. 
 
Rome 273 
 
 down to us through the intervention of Christian 
 monks, who had taken possession of the parchment 
 for church documents or codices, but who in their 
 own inscribing had not destroyed, or had only par- 
 tially destroyed, the original writing. I have al- 
 ready made reference to this practice of making one 
 piece of parchment do a double service, and to the 
 name oi palimpsest, by which such a doubly inscribed 
 parchment was known. 
 
 In the early part of the fourth century several 
 factors came into operation which checked the de- 
 velopment and finally undermined the existence of 
 the publishing and bookselling trade of Rome. First 
 among these factors I should name the growing 
 power and influence of the Christian Church. 
 
 In the centuries which elapsed between the down- 
 fall of the Roman Empire and the invention of print- 
 ing, the centres of intellectual activities and of 
 scholarly interests were undoubtedly the churches 
 and the monasteries, and it is probable that if it had 
 not been for the educational work done by the 
 priests and monks, and for the interest taken by 
 them (however inadequately and ignorantly) in the 
 literature of the past, the fragments of this literature 
 which have been preserved for to-day would have 
 been much less considerable and more fragmentary 
 
2 74 Authors and Their Public 
 
 than they are. As I understand the history, the lit- 
 erary interests of the world owe very much to the 
 fostering care given to them by the Church, or by 
 certain portions of the Church, during the troublous 
 centuries of the early Middle Ages. During these 
 centuries the Church not only supplied a standard 
 of morality, but kept in existence whatever intel- 
 lectual life there was. 
 
 At the time, however, when the Christian Church 
 was rapidly extending its influence throughout the 
 Roman Empire, and during the century after it had 
 succeeded in winning over to the faith the emperors 
 themselves, and had become the oiificial Church of 
 the Empire, the evidence goes to show that its in- 
 fluence was decidedly detrimental to the literary 
 productiveness of the age and also inimical to the 
 preservation of the literary masterpieces of previous 
 ages. 
 
 As the range of membership of the Church in- 
 creased, so that it came to include a larger propor- 
 tion of men of cultivation and scholarship, there 
 came into existence a considerable body of theo- 
 logical and controversial writings, the production of 
 which has gone on steadily increasing until very 
 recent times. But the reading of the works of 
 "pagan" writers was discouraged, and the manu- 
 
Rome 275 
 
 scripts themselves were first neglected,- and later 
 suffered to fall into decay. Such writing as was 
 done by the Christian scribes was in the main limited 
 to the transcribing of the books then accepted as 
 scriptures and to the copying of prayers and hymns. 
 The mental activities of both writers and readers 
 were turned in other directions. Scholars gave 
 their scholarship and trained copyists their clerical 
 skill to the service of the Church. It was not merely 
 that the Church took possession for its own work of 
 so large a proportion of the best minds of the time. 
 It directly discouraged then, as it did for many cen- 
 turies thereafter, the study of any literature other 
 than ecclesiastical. The writers of Greece and Rome 
 were, for Christian believers, if not heretical, at 
 least frivolous and time-wasting. Life was short 
 and Christian duties left no free hours for Homer or 
 Virgil, Plato or Epictetus. By the time of the 
 accession of Constantine (306 A.D.) the book-shops 
 on the Argiletum had lessened in number and in im- 
 portance, the connections of the Roman publishers 
 with the great towns of the provinces were for the 
 most part broken off, and, most important of the 
 signs of the times, there are no new books and no 
 writers at work. Literary productiveness has for the 
 time ceased. 
 
276 Authors and Their Public 
 
 The second cause which contributed to the 
 destruction of the book-trade of Rome was the 
 decision of Constantine to remove the capital of the 
 Empire to Byzantium. The transfer was completed 
 in the year 328, and for a number of years after that 
 date there was no imperial Court in Rome. The 
 " world of fashion " had migrated to the Bosphorus, 
 and with the Court officials, the judges, the advo- 
 cates, and the military leaders, had gone a large 
 proportion of the active-minded men of the old 
 capital, the men of intellectual interests. There 
 remained the Bishop of Rome (soon to become 
 Primate of the Latin Church) and his increasing 
 staff of ecclesiastics, but to them, as pointed out, 
 the literature of the classical period was either a 
 matter of indifference or an abomination. The 
 direction of the education of the young Romans 
 must soon have come into the hands of the priests, 
 and this would have increased their power to crush 
 out the interest in, and the remembrance of, the 
 literary productions of paganism. 
 
 A third factor which hastened the decline of 
 Latin literature and the extinction of the book-trade 
 of Rome, was the revival of the use of Greek, which, 
 after the establishment of the capital at Constan- 
 tinople, speedily became the official language of the 
 
Rome 277 
 
 Empire and the speech of the Court and of polite 
 society generally. 
 
 I do not forget that there shortly came into exist- 
 ence an Empire of the West, under which Rome 
 resumed (although with sadly reduced splendor) 
 its position as an imperial capital. But the western 
 emperors appear on the whole to have been a feeble 
 lot, and they certainly did not succeed in gathering 
 about them any number of men of " light and learn- 
 ing," nor is there evidence of any substantial revival 
 of the social or intellectual activities of Rome. The 
 times continued troublous. The State had to iight 
 almost continuously for its existence, and the fight- 
 ing was not infrequently near at home, the city itself 
 being from time to time menaced. The "peace of 
 the Empire " existed no longer. It was not a time 
 for the development of literature, and literature, 
 excepting a small body of doctrinal and contro- 
 versial publications of the Church, practically disap- 
 peared. 
 
 After the expansion, in 379, of the prerogatives 
 of the Roman See, the literary activities of the 
 ecclesiastics increased, but it does not appear that 
 any bookselling machinery was required or employed 
 for the sale or distribution of the works of devotion, 
 of doctrine, or of controversy. This distribution 
 
278 Authors and Their Public 
 
 was doubtless managed directly by the priests them- 
 selves. The capture of Rome by the Goths under 
 Alaric, in 410, brought destruction upon the accumu- 
 lated wealth and trade of the city, but it is not 
 probable that the tradespeople whose shops were 
 despoiled included any considerable number of book- 
 sellers, as, according to my understanding, the trade 
 in books had in great part disappeared some years 
 before. The Goths doubtless had, however, not a 
 little to do with the destruction of as many of the 
 classic manuscripts as still existed in the public 
 libraries or in private collections. It is certain that 
 they would have had no appreciation for and no use 
 for any manuscripts that fell into their hands. The 
 more recent and still inconsiderable collections of 
 Church manuscripts shared, of course, in the general 
 destruction, but these (apart from a few relics) could 
 easily be replaced. 
 
 The Goths disappeared like the rolling back of a 
 flood after its work of devastation has been com- 
 pleted ; and the insignificant series of Emperors of 
 the West resumed their sway over the ruins of the 
 imperial city. 
 
 The city was restored to a semblance of its old 
 self ; but we find no further traces of the produc- 
 tion or of the sale of books. It is probable that 
 
Rome 
 
 279 
 
 when, in 476, Odoacer, chief of the Herulians, gave 
 the final blow to the Empire of the West, and took 
 possession of its capital, he found there, outside of 
 the few treatises and books of worship of the Church, 
 practically nothing in the shape of literature. 
 
 The rule of the Herulian was short ; in less than 
 twenty years he was overthrown by the Goth, and 
 Theodoric came into possession of Rome and under- 
 took the task of organizing a kingdom out of the 
 much harried territory of Italy. 
 
 In the later portion of his reign, after the city had 
 been favored with a few years of peace and of free- 
 dom from the dread of invasion, there was some 
 revival of intellectual and literary interests. Cassio- 
 dorus, praetor, prefect, quaestor, and later "master 
 of the offices," won fame as court orator and official 
 letter-writer. He wrote a Gothic history in twelve 
 books (which has disappeared), and a collection of 
 letters and state-papers entitled Varies, also in twelve 
 books. Of greater permanent importance was the 
 work of the philosopher Boethius. Hodgkin says 
 of him : 
 
 " Boethius was the skilful mechanic who constructed the water- 
 clock and sun-dial for the King o£ the Burgundians ... a man of 
 great and varied accomplishments — philosopher, theologian, musician, 
 and mathematician. He had translated thirty books of Aristotle into 
 Latin for the benefit of his countrymen ; his treatise on music was 
 
28o Authors and Their Public 
 
 for many centuries the authoritative exposition of the science of 
 harmony." ' 
 
 His greatest work was The Consolation of Philos- 
 ophy, which was composed while the philosopher 
 was in prison awaiting sentence of death. This was 
 rendered into English by King Alfred and by Geof- 
 frey Chaucer; translations were made into every 
 European tongue, and copies were to be found in 
 every mediaeval convent library. The Consolation is 
 written partly in prose and partly in verse. Hodgkin 
 is of opinion that its writer was at the time a 
 Christian. 
 
 The production of this work is the only literary 
 event which marks the rule of Rome by the Goths, 
 and in fact, unless we include the " master of the 
 offices," Cassiodorus, with his court orations and 
 courtly letters, there appeared during the time no 
 other writer of whose work record has remained. We 
 can infer that some means existed in connection 
 either with the Court or with the convents for the 
 production of copies of the Consolation and of the 
 translation of Aristotle. The latter work, having 
 been prepared, as its translator says, " for the benefit 
 of his countrymen," was evidently planned for some 
 general circulation. 
 
 ' Tkeodoric the Goth, pp. 263-276. 
 
Rome 281 
 
 As there is no evidence of the existence at the 
 time of any bookselling machinery, it is probable 
 that for the multiplication and distribution of his 
 volumes, Boethius depended upon the scribes of the 
 Church and upon the connections with each other 
 of the convents throughout Europe. It is undoubt- 
 edly through the libraries of the convents (the only 
 places in Europe which were to any extent protected 
 against ravages of war) that the Consolation was 
 preserved. 
 
 After the death of Theodoric, Italy became the 
 camping ground and the fighting place for successive 
 hordes of Lombards, Saracens, and Franks. Social 
 organization must have almost disappeared. Of 
 scholarly or literary production there is again for 
 some centuries hardly a trace. Inter arma silent 
 styli. What intellectual. life, outside of the monas- 
 teries, was still active in Europe must be looked for 
 at the Court of the Greek Emperors of Constantinople. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 Constantinople. 
 
 WHEN Constantine, in the year 328, removed 
 to Byzantium the capital of the Empire, 
 he doubtless took with him from Rome, or was fol- 
 lowed 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 Grsecia, and 
 from other parts of the Empire, foreseeing the prob- 
 able 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 estab- 
 lishment of Constantinople, literary production ap- 
 pears to have been slight and unimportant. There 
 is some evidence of collections being made of copies 
 of the great classics, collections which later, un- 
 fortunately, in large part perished at the hands first 
 of Crusaders and afterwards of Turks, and it is 
 
 282 
 
Constantinople 283 
 
 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 bookselHng 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 book- 
 selling machinery to bring her writings to the atten- 
 tion 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 emanat- 
 ing from so high an authority. 
 
 After this literary outburst from the Court, there 
 is a long period during which there is no record of 
 
284 Authors and Their Public 
 
 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 prepara- 
 tion, 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 pre- 
 served 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 
 
Constantinople 285 
 
 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 Constanti- 
 nople 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 pro- 
 ductive 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 
 
286 Authors and Their Public 
 
 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 parch- 
 ment 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 Porphy- 
 rogenitus 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.' 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 
 Stobseus, one series entitled An Anthology of Ex- 
 tracts, Sentences, and Precepts, one grouped together 
 under the name of Physical, Dialectic, and Moral 
 ' Oman, The Byzantine Empire, p. 280. 
 
Constantinople 287 
 
 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 Stobaeus), passages from many of the 
 ancient comic writers. The exact date of the life or 
 of the work of Stobaeus is not known. Photius says 
 that his commonplace books were prepared as an 
 educational guide for his son Septimius. 
 
 By the ninth century there are indications of the 
 existence of a literary class, and there is evidence of 
 the work of a few first-class writers such as the 
 patriarch Photius, 857-69, whose library catalogue 
 is the envy of modern scholars.' This catalogue, 
 composed while its author was an exile in Bagdad, 
 comprises a review or analysis of the works of two 
 hundred and eight writers. Gibbon points out, in 
 connection with this catalogue of Photius, that the 
 students and writers of that period enjoyed the use 
 of many works of Greek literature which have since 
 perished in whole or in part. He cites, among other 
 authors, Theopompus, Menander, Alcseus, Hyperides, 
 and Sappho. 
 
 In 867, under the direction of Basil II., were 
 written the Basilics, or code of laws. The Emperor 
 
 ' Gibbon's Rome, Am. ed., v., 525. 
 
Authors and Their Public 
 
 himself was the author of a comprehensive history 
 of Greece and Rome, of which but fragments have 
 been preserved. 
 
 Early in the tenth century, the exact date is un- 
 certain, Suidas compiled his famous lexicon. Ac- 
 cording to Gibbon, Suidas was also the author of 
 some fifty plays, some of which were based upon 
 Aristophanes. In the latter part of the eleventh 
 century Eudocia (wife of Romanus and the second 
 literary empress of the name), having been im- 
 prisoned in a convent by her son, wrote, while in 
 confinement, a treatise on the genealogies of the 
 gods and heroes. 
 
 During the first years of the twelfth century Anna 
 Comnena, daughter of Alexius Comnenus I., wrote, 
 in fifteen books, under the title of Alexias, a life of 
 her father. Gibbon speaks of the style of the history 
 as being turgid and inflated, but says that it contains 
 some interesting accounts of the first Crusaders. 
 
 In the twelfth century, a name of distinction is 
 that of Eustathius I., Archbishop of Thessalonica, 
 who published, about 1 1 50, commentaries on Homer 
 and on Dionysius the Geographer. Gibbon says 
 that in the former he refers to no less than four 
 hundred authors. At about the same time appeared 
 the Chiliads of Tsetzes. 
 
Constantinople 289 
 
 Oman is of opinion that the most interesting de- 
 velopment of Byzantine literature were the Epics or 
 Romances of Chivalry, written at the close of the 
 tenth and the beginning of the eleventh centuries. 
 He names as one of the best representatives of these 
 romances, the epic of Diogenes Akritas, a mighty 
 hunter, a slayer of dragons, and a persistent and 
 successful lover. 
 
 I have referred to the work of but a few of the 
 more representative of the Byzantine writers. It 
 would be foreign to the purposes of this sketch to 
 undertake to present any comprehensive bibliog- 
 raphy of Byzantine literature, even if I had available 
 the material for such a bibliography. Of many of 
 the authors whose names have been preserved, very 
 little except their names is known, while of the entire 
 literature of the Byzantine period it may, I judge, 
 fairly be said that it possesses but slight interest or 
 value for later generations. The fact that literary 
 undertakings of importance at the time and of 
 interest for the readers of the day continued from 
 generation to generation to be presented to the 
 public, undertakings which in not a few cases must 
 have involved the labor of many years, gives us the 
 right to conclude that some means or machinery 
 must have existed for reaching this public. As far, 
 
290 Authors and Their Public 
 
 however, as my present information goes, there are 
 absolutely no data concerning the existence in Con- 
 stantinople of any publishing or bookselling trade, 
 and we have no means of knowing by what means 
 the books of Byzantium were manifolded and dis- 
 tributed. 
 
 It is to be noted that a very large number of the 
 writers named belonged to the Court, or held high 
 ofificial station. The fact that so many books were 
 the work of the emperors themselves and of the 
 members of the imperial families, is exceptional both 
 in the history of literature and in the history of 
 royalty. It is probable that for the transcribing of 
 these books and for the books of officials generally, 
 the services of official scribes were utilized. Authors 
 outside of official circles may have gone to the con- 
 vent, or may also have employed private scribes. It 
 is fair to assume, notwithstanding the absence of 
 any specific mention of such establishments, that 
 some organization of scribes, or of work-rooms for 
 the manifolding of books, existed in the city. 
 
 In closing this chapter, I venture to recall to my 
 readers the well-known summary by Gibbon of the 
 literature of the Byzantine Empire. 
 
 " The Empire of the Caesars undoubtedly checked the activity and 
 the progress of the human mind. Its magnitude might indeed allow 
 
Constantinople 291 
 
 some scope for domestic competition ; but when it was gradually 
 reduced, at first to the East, and at last to Greece and Constantinople, 
 the Byzantine subjects were degraded to an abject and languid temper, 
 the natural effect of their solitary and insulated state. Alone in the 
 universe, the self-satisfied pride of the Greeks was not disturbed by 
 the comparison of foreign merit. . . . Their prose is soaring to the 
 vicious affectation of poetry ; their poetry is sinking below the flat- 
 ness and insipidity of prose. The tragic, epic, and lyric muses were 
 silent and inglorious. The bards of Constantinople seldom rose 
 above a riddle or an epigram, a panegyric or a tale. They forgot 
 even the rules of prosody, and with the melody of Homer still ringing 
 in their ears, they confound all measures of feet and syllables in the 
 impotent strains which have received the name of ' political ' or city 
 verses. " 
 
 The change first comes when there is a break in 
 the insulation. Gibbon continues : " The nations of 
 Europe and Asia were mingled by the expeditions 
 to the Holy Land, and it is under the Comnenian 
 dynasty that a faint emulation of knowledge and 
 of mihtary virtue was rekindled in the Byzantine 
 Empire." 
 
 The opinion of Lecky is still more emphatic. He 
 says : " The universal verdict of history is that the 
 Byzantine State constituted the most base and des- 
 picable form that civilization ever assumed, and 
 there has been no other enduring civilization so 
 absolutely destitute of all the forms of true great- 
 ness, none to which the epithet mean may so em- 
 phatically be applied." ' Is it surprising that in a 
 
 ^ Hist. Europ. Morals, Amer. ed., p. 13. 
 
292 Authors and Their Public 
 
 State thus demoralized there is no record of the 
 existence of a publisher ? 
 
 It is only proper to add that the historian Oman, 
 a much sounder authority on the subject than Mr. 
 Lecky, and writing with information before him that 
 was not available for Gibbon, contends that the talk 
 about the exceptional demoralization of the Byzan- 
 tines is largely rubbish, and points out that if the 
 State were really as corrupt as it is painted by Gibbon 
 and by Lecky, it would have fallen to pieces of its 
 own rottenness within two or three generations, in- 
 stead of enduring as the bulwark of Europe for over 
 a thousand years. 
 
 The fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the intro- 
 duction into Europe of the Turks, was unquestion- 
 ably a great injury to Europe and to civilization, and 
 the destruction of the collections of manuscripts ex- 
 isting in the capital itself and in monasteries and 
 libraries in other cities of the Empire, was an irre- 
 parable loss for literature. For the educational 
 interests and the literary development of Europe 
 there were, however, considerations to offset this 
 serious disaster. Great as was the destruction of 
 manuscripts, a number were preserved by individual 
 scholars and in the hidden recesses of certain con- 
 vents and monasteries. Many of these were at once 
 
Constantinople 293 
 
 taken to Italy, Germany, and France by the scholars 
 flying from the barbarous conquerors of their land, 
 and the works were thus brought to the knowledge 
 and made available for the use of European students. 
 Other manuscripts were secured from their hiding- 
 places years after the capture of the city, by Greek 
 scholars sent back for the purpose on behalf of the 
 publishers of Italy and France, or of the universities 
 of Bologna, Padua, and Paris, while some few valu- 
 able parchments were hidden so safely that they 
 have been forgotten for centuries and are only to- 
 day being brought to light from the vaults and 
 attics of old monasteries, so as again to be included 
 in literature accessible for the world. 
 
 In addition to the service done to the literary de. 
 velopment of Europe by the distribution westward 
 of the texts of the almost forgotten classics of the 
 great Greek writers, there was the further important 
 gain for the scholarship of the continent in securing, 
 for university chairs, for tutorial positions, and for 
 editorial work, the services of hundreds of Greek 
 scholars whose homes had been destroyed, or who 
 were unwilling to live under the rule of the hated 
 Turk. Men of the highest rank in scholarly accom- 
 plishments and possessing a thorough knowledge of 
 the literature of their race, either on the ground of 
 
294 Authors and Their Public 
 
 impecuniosity or in some instances apparently from 
 an unselfish devotion to the cause of scholarship, 
 found their way to chairs in Bologna, Padua, Paris, 
 Oxford, and other educational centres, and to the 
 Court circles of the more intellectual of the princes 
 and nobles of Italy, and spread in hundreds of 
 channels a knowledge of the Greek language and an 
 enthusiasm for the Greek literature. Mohammed 
 II., the conqueror of Constantinople, had therefore 
 played a part by no means unimportant in further- 
 ing one phase at least of the Renaissance of the 
 intellectual life of Europe. 
 
 It was fortunate for the continued vitality and 
 progress of the movement that the Greek literature 
 thus reintroduced into Europe found already per- 
 fected the new art of printing, by means of which 
 the manuscripts that the refugees from the Bos- 
 phorus had brought with them could be made gen- 
 erally available for students. It was fortunate also 
 that, within a few years after the teaching of Greek 
 had been entered upon in the principal educational 
 centres, public-spirited and scholarly publishers were 
 found prepared to take upon themselves the very 
 serious business risk involved in the casting of Greek 
 fonts of type and in the printing of editions of the 
 Greek texts. 
 
Constantinople 295 
 
 The first and most important of these publishers, 
 the man who, on the ground of high ideals and of 
 great things accompHshed, is properly to be honored 
 as facile princeps in the long list of the great pub- 
 lishers of Europe, was Aldus Manutius of Venice, a 
 worthy successor to Atticus, the friend of Cicero, 
 who, 1550 years earlier, had done his part in intro- 
 ducing to Italy and to the Roman world the classics 
 of Greece. 
 
 It is in Venice, with the record of the service ren- 
 dered by Aldus and his successors in connection with 
 the second introduction into Italy and the world be- 
 yond Italy of the treasures of Greek literature ; in 
 Bologna and Paris, with some account of the con- 
 nection of the great universities with the earlier 
 publishing undertakings of Europe ; and in Mayence, 
 Frankfort, and Nuremberg, with the story of Gu- 
 tenberg and his printing-press, that the history of 
 the relations of authors with their public must be 
 continued. 
 
 It is my hope to be able in a later volume to trace 
 the development of property in literature from the 
 time of the invention of printing down to the pres- 
 ent day. It was, of course, only after the general 
 application of printing to the production of books 
 that authors were placed in a position to enforce any 
 
296 Authors and Their Public 
 
 property control over their productions, while for a 
 long period this control was conceded for but brief 
 terms and was restricted to but limited territories. 
 More than four centuries of further development in 
 national morality have been required before the civi- 
 lization of the world has brought itself to the recog- 
 nition of the rights of literary producers according 
 to the standard of to-day, a standard which is ex- 
 pressed by the term International Copyright. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abernethy, Dr., the case of, 78 
 
 Abicht, cited, 86 
 
 Abu Simbel, temple of, 58 
 
 Acoka, the edicts of, 44 
 
 Agade, discoveries in, 8 
 
 Aldus Manutius, of Venice, rein- 
 troduces Greek literature into 
 Europe, 295 
 
 Alexander, correspondence of, with 
 Aristotle, 81 ; recites Euripides, 
 100 ; buys books in Athens, in 
 
 Alexandria, as a book-mart, 116 ; 
 literary activity of, under the 
 Ptolemies, 127 ; concentration of 
 existing Greek manuscripts in, 
 131 ; the writers of, 132 ; ad- 
 vantageous position of, 139 ; 
 publishing methods of, 140 
 
 Alexandrian Canon, the, 134 
 
 Alexandrian Museum and Library, 
 organization of, 128 ; wholesale 
 purchases for, 131 ; publishing 
 undertakings of, 141 
 
 Alexandrian School, literature of 
 the, 129 
 
 Alexandrian school of theology, 
 
 writers of the, 146 
 Alexis, writer of comedies, 96 
 Alphabet, invention of, in China, 
 
 23 
 American literature, relations of, 
 
 with Great Britain, 172 
 Anaxagoras, charged with heresies, 
 
 97 ; quoted by Socrates, 98 
 Andronicus of Rhodes, 117 
 Andronicus of Tarentum, the first 
 
 Latin playwright, 176 
 Antigonus Gonatas sends scribes 
 
 to Zeno, 113 
 Antioch, as a literary centre, 139 ; 
 
 the library of, dispersed, 140 
 Antipater, the Histories of, 180 
 Antiphanes of Rhodes, 103 
 Antiqimrii, definition of, 183 
 Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius, the 
 
 Meditations of, 260 
 Apellikon, a collector of books, 
 
 117 
 Appollonius, work of, on conic 
 
 sections, 132 
 Apuleius, the writings of, 261 
 Arabian Nights, the, 49 
 
 297 
 
298 
 
 Index 
 
 Aratus, the astronomer, 132 
 
 Archilochus, 59 
 
 Aretades, the sophist, 6g 
 
 Argiletum, the street the book- 
 sellers' quarter, 239 
 
 Aristomenes, The Deceivers of, 103 
 
 Aristophanes, charged with pla- 
 giarism, 71 ; The Frogs of, 71, 
 
 94 
 
 Aristophanes, the grammarian, 74 
 
 Aristotle, criticised by Cephisodo- 
 rus, 80 ; writings of, 80-82 ; re- 
 lations with Alexander, 81 ; the 
 library of, bequeathed to Neleus, 
 buried by heirs of Neleus, sold 
 to Apellikon, taken to Rome by 
 Sylla, usedby Tyrannion, 90, 117 
 
 Artemon, a grammarian, g6 
 
 Assyrian literature, preservation of, 
 152 
 
 Athanasius, 146 
 
 Athenaeus, on libraries and book- 
 collectors, 8g ; cited, 8g, gs, 96, 
 100, 142 
 
 Athens, the public library of, taken 
 to Persia by Xerxes, restored by 
 Seleucus, 89 ; the book-shops of, 
 114 
 
 Attali, the rivalry of, with the 
 Ptolemies in collecting manu- 
 scripts, 116 
 
 Atticus, sojourn of, in Athens, 117 ; 
 brings manuscripts to Rome, 
 118 ; organizes a publishing 
 establishment, 184 ; issues Greek 
 classics, 184 ; relations with 
 Cicero, 186, 190 
 
 " Attikians," term given to editions 
 issued by Atticus, 184 
 
 Attilius, put to death for permitting 
 the Sibylline books to be copied, 
 244 
 
 Augustan Age, Writers of the, 202, 
 204 
 
 Augustus orders the pseudo-Sibyl- 
 line books to be burned, 264 
 
 B 
 
 Bark of trees used for writing by 
 the Homeric Greeks, 155 
 
 Barthelemi, his Travels of Ana- 
 charsis cited, 76 
 
 Basil II., directs the writing of the 
 Basilics, 287 ; writes histories of 
 Rome and Greece, 288 
 
 Berosus, translations by, 139 
 
 Birt, cited. 89, 104, 110, 130, 141, 
 142, 153, 155, 249, 256, 263 
 
 Boeckh, cited, 92, 97 
 
 Boethius, described by Hodgkin, 
 280 ; writings of, 280 
 
 Bologna, influence of the University 
 of, in publishing undertakings, 
 295 
 
 Book collecting fashionable in 
 Rome after the first century, 125 
 
 Bookmaking terms in Rome bor- 
 rowed from Alexandria, 162 
 
 Book of Odes, the (in China), 23 
 
 Book of the Dead, the, 12-14 
 
 Books, in Alexandria, divisions of, 
 143 ; ancient, materials used for, 
 149 ; distribution and sale of, 
 
Index 
 
 299 
 
 throughout the Empire, 255 ; 
 when considered injurious pro- 
 ceeded against under the crimi- 
 nal law, 267 ; average duration 
 of the copies, 271 
 
 Booksellers, crucified by Domitian, 
 244 ; in Rome, principal cus- 
 tomers of, 245 
 
 Bookselling in Athens, the business 
 of, 102 ; referred to in the com- 
 edies, 102 
 
 Book-shops in Rome, decrease of, 
 after Constantine, 275 
 
 Book terminology, 149 
 
 Book-trade of Rome influenced by 
 the removal of the capital, 276 
 
 Boustrophedon , the, 57 
 
 Brahmanic priests, the writings of 
 the, 45 
 
 Breulier, A., on literary property 
 in Greece, cited, 55, go 
 
 Bruns, cited, 83 
 
 Buchsenschutz, cited, 97 
 
 Buddha, or Gautama, the work of, 
 
 45 
 Burckhardt, cited, 265, z66 
 Bursian, cited, 247 
 Byzantine Court, literary interests 
 
 of, 283 ; writers attached to the, 
 
 290 
 Byzantine literature, characteristics 
 
 of, 289 ; described by Gibbon, 
 
 290 
 Byzantine State, characterized by 
 
 Lecky, 291 ; character of, ana- 
 lyzed by Oman, 292 
 Byzantium, the scribes of, 290 
 
 Csecilius, comedies of, 179 
 Caligula, undertakes to suppress 
 
 the writings of Homer, 264 ; 
 
 orders taken from the libraries 
 
 the busts and the writings of 
 
 Virgil and Livy, 264 
 Callimachus, poet and editor, de- 
 scribes the Alexandrian Library, 
 
 130, 137 
 Calvisius, pays high prices for 
 
 scribes, 181 
 Carthage, the literary school of, 261 
 Cassiodorus, writings of, 279 
 Cato, the Origines of, iBo 
 Caunus, inhabitants of, admirers of 
 
 Euripides, 99 
 Cecrops, the Milesian, edits poems 
 
 of Hesiod, 66 
 Censorship of books under the 
 
 Emperors, 264 
 Cephisodorus, cited, 80 
 Cephisophon, slave of Euripides, 
 
 91 
 
 Chabas, discoverer of the Prisse 
 
 papyrus, 15 
 Chaldea, early literature of, 5-9 ; 
 
 authors of, 8 
 Chaldean "books," methods of 
 
 preparing, 150 
 Chares, slave of Lycon, 115 
 Cheops, or Khufa, 12 
 China, beginnings of literature in, 
 
 22 ; first use of written characters 
 
 in, 23 ; first printing in, 29 
 Chinese authors, rewards of, 37 
 
300 
 
 Index 
 
 Chinese classics, the early, 30 
 
 Chinese literature, the golden age 
 of, 36 
 
 Chinese writing materials, 28 
 
 Church of Rome, influence of, on 
 literary production and on the 
 preservation of books, 274 
 
 Cicero, to Atticus concerning De 
 Finibus, 79 ; reference of, to 
 Hermodorus, 79 ; birth of, 180 ; 
 relations with Atticus, 186-190 ; 
 right to publish the works of, 
 purchased by Dorus, 244 ; Ad 
 Quinium cited, 247 ; DeFinibus 
 cited, 249 
 
 Clearchus, library of, 91 
 
 Clement, Paul, on literary property 
 in Greece, cited, 54, 62, 77, go ; 
 on plagiarism in Greece, 77 
 
 Codex ArgenUus, 284 
 
 Codex Parisinus of Demosthenes, 
 authority for, 124 
 
 College, the Royal, of Constanti- 
 nople, 286 
 
 Comedy, derivation of the term, 
 
 65 
 
 Comnena, Anna, writes the Alexias, 
 288 
 
 Comum, the library of, 246 
 
 Confucius, 24, 25, 27 
 
 Constantine orders the writings of 
 Arius to be burned, 266 ; 
 
 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the 
 writings of, 286 
 
 Constantinople, established as the 
 capital of the Empire, 282 ; lit- 
 erary production in, 282 ; the 
 
 Royal College of, 286 ; the fall 
 of, 292 ; destruction of manu- 
 scripts in, 292 
 
 Cordus, the impecunious, 247 
 
 Corea, early printing in, 29 
 
 Corinth, capture of, 116 
 
 Crassus, Marcus, educates slaves as 
 copyists, 183 
 
 Cratinus, The Mechanics of, ib3 
 
 Cruttwell, cited, 252 
 
 Ctesias, cited, 158 
 
 Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, 146 
 
 D 
 
 Demetrius, the Cynic, 100 
 Demetrius Phalerius, reference of, 
 to the Alexandrian Library, 130 
 Democritus, on the Science of Na- 
 ture, 83 
 Demosthenes, 69, 109 
 Developments, the Book of, 24 
 Dieulafoy, work of, in Chaldea, 7 
 Diocletian, orders the destruction 
 of works on alchemy, 265 ; orders 
 the books of the Manichaeans to 
 be burned, 265 ; orders the 
 Scriptures of the Christians to 
 be destroyed, 266 
 Diogenes Akritas, 289 
 Diogenes Laertius, cited, 88, 112- 
 
 115, 119, 155, 263 
 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II2 
 Difhtherai (dressed skins), use of, 
 
 138 
 Domitian, restores libraries burned 
 by Nero, 247 ; orders books from 
 Alexandria, 247 
 
Index 
 
 301 
 
 Dorus purchases the " remainders'" 
 
 of the editions of Cicero, 244 
 Drumann, cited, 118 
 
 Eusebius, on the duration of books, 
 
 271 
 Eustathius I., writings of, 288 
 
 Eckhard on the term "gramma- 
 rians," 136 
 
 Editions of Roman publications, 
 255 
 
 Edwards, Amelia B., version of 
 the Tale of Two Brothers, 20 
 
 Egypt, early literature of, 10-20 
 
 Egyptian Mdrchen, 21 
 
 English dramatists, relations of, 
 with French literature, 171 
 
 Ennius, the ' ' father of Latin 
 literature," his Sicilian cookery- 
 book, 178 
 
 Epaphroditus, the library of, 249 
 
 Ephesus, curious books burned in, 
 118 
 
 Etruscans, the inscriptions of, 57 
 
 Euclid, 132 
 
 Eudocia, the Empress, writings of, 
 283 
 
 Eudocia, wife of Romanus, writes 
 treatise on the genealogies of the 
 gods, 288 
 
 Eumenes II., furthers the produc- 
 tion of parchment, 158 
 
 Euphorion, plagiarism of, 76 
 
 Eupolis, refers to booksellers, 104 
 
 Euripides, library of, 91 ; popu- 
 larity of the songs of, gg ; 
 recitations from, by Alexander, 
 100 ; the Bacchantes of, loi 
 
 Fei-ke-7nono-gatari, the (Annals), 
 
 42 
 Flood, the, Chaldean account of, 9 
 Folk-songs of India, 45 
 Freeman, on Athenian audiences, 
 
 86 
 French, the literary language of 
 
 the eighteenth century, 171 
 Fronto, the writings of, 261 
 Fu-hi, the Emperor, 22 
 
 Gains on immaterial property, 269 
 Galen, cited, 124, 157 
 Gdihas, the hymns of Persia, 47 
 Gautama, or Buddha, the work of, 
 
 45 
 Gellius, Aulus, cited, 81, 89, 246 
 Geraud, on the influence of the 
 priestly caste on literature, 56 ; 
 on the journey of Trajan, 164 
 Gibbon, on the Royal College of 
 Constantinople, 285 ; on the li- 
 brary of Photius, 287 ; on the 
 histories of Anna Comnena, 288 
 Gnosticism in Alexandria, 147 
 Golden Meadows, the, of El 
 
 Mesondee, 49 
 Gospels, the Gothic version of, 284 
 " Grammarians," the, of the Alex- 
 andrian Academy, 133 
 
302 
 
 Index 
 
 " Grammarians " as buyers of 
 books, 248 
 
 Greece, the early literature of, 53 ; 
 introduction of the alphabet into, 
 56 ; reading and writing in early, 
 61 
 
 Greek books, costliness of, 93 
 
 Greek classics, distribution of, 
 throughout the Empire, 262 
 
 Greek manuscripts, careless copy- 
 ing of, referred to by Strabo, 120 
 
 Greek language and literature, 
 the knowledge of, throughout 
 Europe furthered by the fall of 
 Constantinople, 294 
 
 Greek, the literary language of 
 early Rome, 116, 166 ; the lan- 
 guage of higher education in 
 later Rome, 259 
 
 Greek written characters, first ex- 
 ample of, 58 
 
 Greeks, the trained memories of, 
 106, 107, 108 
 
 Gutenberg and his printing-press, 
 295 
 
 H 
 
 Hammer, von, cited, 49 
 Harpalus, friend of Alexander, 
 
 in; purchases books in Athens, 
 
 III 
 Hebrew literature, the golden age 
 
 of, 50, 52 
 Hebrews, early literature of, 49 
 Heeren, editor of the works of 
 
 Stobseus, 287 
 
 Hercules, prefers cookery to poetry, 
 
 96 
 Hermann, cited, 98 
 Hermes Trismegistus, 11 
 Hermetic books of Egypt, 11 
 Hermodoros sells reports of Plato's 
 
 lectures, 78 
 Hermogenes of Tarsus killed by 
 
 Domitian, 245 
 Herodotus, the Histories of, 84-86 ; 
 
 in Thurium, 85 ; cited, 155 
 Hesiod, poems of, 66 ; his Works 
 
 and Days, 66 
 Hezar Afsaneh, the (the thousand 
 
 fanciful stories) 49 
 Hezekiah, the age of, 50 
 Hoang-ti, the Emperor, invents 
 
 decimal system, etc., 23 
 Hodgkin, T., his Theodoric the 
 
 Goth cited, 281 
 Homeric poems, collected under 
 
 Pisistratus, 66 
 Hommel, Fritz, work of, in Chal- 
 
 dea, 7 
 Horace, on the cost of learned 
 
 slaves, 181 ; on plagiarists, 202 
 Hostius, the Histories of, 180 
 Hwang-ti, the Emperor, issues an 
 
 index expurgatorius, 33 ; orders 
 
 destruction of classic literature, 
 
 34 
 
 I 
 
 Iliad, miniature copy of the, de- 
 scribed by Pliny, 118 
 India, earliest literature of, 44 
 
Indej 
 
 303 
 
 Indian monasteries, manuscripts 
 in the, 46 
 
 Indian writers, compensation of, 
 46 
 
 Indian writing materials, 46 
 
 Iran and Turan, 48 
 
 Isaiah, cited, 145 
 
 Isocrates, price paid him for dis- 
 courses, 77 ; cited, 88 ; his letters 
 to Philip, log ; the Parathenai- 
 cus of, no 
 
 Italicus, the libraries of, 249 
 
 Izanaghi and Izanami, creators of 
 the Japanese world, 40 
 
 J 
 Japan, early literature of ; early 
 
 writing materials, 39, 40 
 Japan, the theatre of, 42 
 Japanese authors, the rewards of, 
 
 43 
 Jerome, controversial letters of, 267 
 Jevons, Hist. Greek Lit. cited, 58- 
 
 63 
 Jewish law, the, against false 
 
 words, 52 
 Johnson's Universal Cyclopedia, 
 
 cited, 156 
 Josephus, reference of, to the 
 
 Alexandrian Library, 130 
 Judsea, early literature of, 49 
 Jurists of Rome on immaterial 
 
 property, 267 
 Justinian, opinion in the Institutes 
 
 of, on immaterial property, 269 
 Juvenal, cited, 247 ; on the poet's 
 
 profession, 252 
 
 K 
 
 Kallinus, the scribe, 115 
 
 Karpeles on early Egyptian litera- 
 ture, 12-16 ; on literature in 
 China, 23 
 
 Khufa or Cheops, 12 
 
 Kingsley's Hypatia, 1 46 
 
 Kiriath Sepher, or the Quarter of 
 the Grammarians, 136 
 
 Klostermann, on Roman jurispru- 
 dence, 268 
 
 Kong-Hi, the Emperor, interested 
 in printing, 29 
 
 Krates, the Cynic, 114 
 
 Labeo, the jurist, writings of, 255 
 
 Lamothe, cited, 75 
 
 Latin, the literary language of 
 mediaeval Europe, 171 
 
 Latin language, discontinuance of, 
 in the Greek Empire, 285 
 
 Latin literature affected by the 
 removal of the capital to Byzan- 
 tium, 276 
 
 Layard, Sir Henry, discoveries in 
 Chaldea, 5 ; cited, 149 
 
 Lead, sheets of, used for public 
 documents, 154 
 
 Legge, on early Chinese literature, 
 23 
 
 Leo the Isaurian, 285 
 
 Leo the Wise, writings of, 286 
 
 Libellous publications, punish- 
 ments for the circulation of, 245 ; 
 when held to be treasonable, 267 
 
304 
 
 Index 
 
 Libraries, in Rome, 245 ; in the 
 public baths and in country 
 houses, 249 ; renewals of books 
 in, 270 
 
 Library, of the Temple of Apollo, 
 245 ; of the College in Athens, 
 247 
 
 Li-ki, the, or Book of Conducl, 32 
 
 Linen sheets, use of, for private 
 records, 154 
 
 Linus, instructor of Hercules, g6 
 
 " Literary Emperors," the, of 
 Constantinople, 286 
 
 Literature, the beginnings of, i 
 
 Livy, Histories of, published by 
 Dorus, 196 
 
 Lollianus, Mavertius, 262 
 
 Lucian, cited, 84, 100 ; criticises 
 the bad work done by the Athen- 
 ian publishers, 123 ; works of, 
 in demand thirty years after the 
 author's death, 250 
 
 Lucretius, on The Nature of 
 Things^ 196 
 
 Lucullus brings to Rome books 
 from Athens, u6 
 
 Liln-yU, the, or Conversations, 32 
 
 Lycon, Peripatetic philosopher, 115 
 
 Lycophon, 132 
 
 M 
 
 Ma, Egyptian goddess of truth, 1 1 
 Macedonia, book collectors in, 96 
 Maecenas, his influence on literary 
 
 production, 251 
 Mahaffy, on use of memory in 
 
 Greece, 63 ; on the writings of 
 
 Hesiod, 66 ; on Athenian audi- 
 ences, 85 ; analyzes the character 
 of Alexandrian literature, 135 ; 
 describes the Alexandrian Uni- 
 versity, 129 
 
 Manuscripts, destruction of, in 
 Constantinople, 292 ; taken by 
 Greek scholars to Italy and 
 Germany, 293 
 
 Man-yo-sin, the (collection of bal- 
 lads), 41 
 
 Marcellinus, cited, 87 
 
 Martial, the library of, 250 ; on 
 plagiarism, 204 ; on the compen- 
 sation of authors, 233, 252 ; on 
 presentation copies 208, 209, 210 ; 
 on the prices of his books, 214 ; 
 his four publishers, 216 ; as an 
 advertiser and as a blackmailer, 
 206, 253 
 
 Massilia, as a centre of higher 
 education, 259 
 
 Maternus, Firmicus, the Mathesis 
 of, 262 
 
 Meineke, cited, 103, 104, 156 
 
 Melanippides, the poetry of, 105 
 
 Menant, cited, 151 
 
 Mencius, the work of, 28 
 
 Mengtsze, the, 32 
 
 Metamorphoses, the Book of the, 24 
 
 Mnaseas, father of Zeno, 11 1 
 
 Moore's Lectures, cited, 134 
 
 Milller, on Aristophanes, cited, 94, 
 95 
 
 N 
 
 Nepos, Cornelius, his Life of 
 Atticus, 175 
 
Index 
 
 305 
 
 Niceratus, 106 
 
 Nichomachus, the arithmetician, 
 
 132 
 Nicocles pays Isocrates for dis- 
 courses, 77 
 Nicophon refers to booksellers, 103 
 Nineveh, royal library of, 5 
 Notarii, definition of, 183 
 Nil Kiai, the, or Female Precepts, 
 
 35 
 
 O 
 
 Oman, C. W. C, on Byzantine 
 literary history, 285 ; the By- 
 zantine Empire, 286 
 
 Origen refers to the ' ' swift 
 writers of Alexandria,'' 125 
 
 Palimpsest, or codex rescriptus, 161 
 Pammachius attempts to suppress 
 
 letters of St. Jerome, 266 
 Pan Chao, a female historian, 35 
 Papyrus, cost of, in Greece, 94 ; 
 
 monopoly of, in Alexandria, 138 ; 
 
 disappearance of, in Egypt, 144 ; 
 
 used for cordage, 154 ; destruc- 
 
 tibility of, 270 
 Papyrus rolls, size of, 141 
 Parchment, invention of, 137 
 Paris, influence of the University 
 
 of, in publishing undertakings, 
 
 zgs 
 
 Paul orders books burned in 
 
 Ephesus, 118 
 Penta-on, the poem of, 17 
 Pergamenium, derivation of term, 
 
 138 
 
 Pergamum, as a literary centre, 
 138 ; the royal library of, pre- 
 sented by Antony to Cleopatra, 
 89 ; the library of, transferred to 
 Alexandria, 140 
 
 Pericles reduces price of seats in 
 theatre, 76 
 
 Persia, earliest literature of, 47 
 
 Persian priests, 48 ; poets, 48 ; 
 minstrels, 48 ; story-tellers, 48 ; 
 reciters, 49 ; writing materials, 
 
 49 
 
 Peters, Jno. P., work of, in Chal- 
 dea, 7 ; on the age of Hezekiah, 
 50, 51 
 
 Petronius, cited, 249 
 
 Phaedon of Elis, 105 
 
 Philoxenus of Cythera, 105 
 
 Photius, cited, 91 ; the library cata- 
 logue of, 287 
 
 Pi-Shing invents printing from 
 movable type, 29 
 
 Pisistratus, tyrant of Athens, 65 ; 
 bequeaths his books to Athens, 
 89 
 
 Piso, the annals of, 180 
 
 Plagiarism, in Greece, 73 j in 
 Alexandria, 74 ; in Rome, 204 
 
 Plato, influence of, on the literary 
 life of Athens, 77 ; lectures of, 
 78 ; the Timcsus of, 72, 124 ; 
 reference of, to the book-trade 
 of Athens, 97 ; writer of com- 
 edies, 103 
 
 Plautus, earns money by his com- 
 edies, 179 ; loses money as a 
 miller, 179 
 
3o6 
 
 Index 
 
 Pliny, gives a library to Comum, 
 246 ; on the service to literature 
 rendered by Varro, 256 ; on the 
 importance of papyrus, 259 ; on 
 the duration of books, 271 ; let- 
 ters of, cited, 153, 249, 255, 265 
 
 Plutarch, the plagiarism of, 73 ; 
 cited, 84, 89, no. III, 116, 157 
 
 Porphyry of Tyre, writings of, 
 266 
 
 Priests of Egypt, connection with 
 the Book of the Dead, 14 
 
 Printing, invention of, in China, 
 29 
 
 Priscus, poems of, on Germanicus 
 and on Drusus, 251 ; put to 
 death by the Senate, 252 
 
 Prisse papyrus, the, 15 
 
 Procopius, writings of, 285 
 
 Proculus on immaterial property, 
 268 
 
 Prodicus, a poem of, 96 
 
 Pronapis initiates writing from 
 left to right, 57 
 ' Protagoras, receives pay for in- 
 struction, 84; writings of, burned 
 as heretical, 119 
 
 Psammaticus, king, 58 
 
 Ptah-Hotep, 'Cor Precepts oi, 14, 15 
 
 Ptolemies, rivalry of, with the 
 Attali in collecting books, 116 
 
 Ptolemy Soter founds the Alexan- 
 drian Museum, 128 
 
 Ptolemy Philadelphus, develops the 
 Alexandrian Museum into an 
 Academy and University, 128 ; 
 prohibits export of papyrus, 138 
 
 Publishers of Greece do not asso- 
 ciate their names with the works 
 issued by them, 121 
 
 Quintilian, salary of, as state rhe- 
 torician, 254 
 
 R 
 
 Ragozin, Story of Ckaldea, 10, 151 
 
 Rameses II., Reign of, 17, 18 
 
 Rangabe, cited, 94 
 
 Rawlinson, George, summary of 
 Egyptian literature, 18, 19 
 
 Rawnsley, H. D., Notes for the 
 Nile, 15 ; metrical versions of 
 Egyptian hymns, 17 
 
 Reciting in Greece of literary pro- 
 ductions, 64 
 
 Regulus, M. Aquilus, writes the 
 memoir of his son, 255 
 
 Renouard, on Jewish plagiarism, 
 52 ; cited, 244, 267 
 
 Rhapsodists, the, of Greece, 64 
 
 Rhodes, a centre of book produc- 
 tion, 116 
 
 Ritsche, cited, 156 
 
 Ritter, cited, 117 
 
 Rolls, of papyrus, size of, 141 
 
 Roman authors, as " appropria- 
 tors," 166 ; their difficulties in 
 securing a public, 168 
 
 Roman jurists on immaterial prop- 
 erty, 267 
 
 Roman literature, beginnings of, 
 163 
 
Index 
 
 307 
 
 Roman publishers, business con- 
 nection of, with Alexandria, 170 
 
 Roman Republic gives no aid to 
 literary undertakings, 174 
 
 Romances of chivalry in Byzan- 
 tium, 289 
 
 Rome, becomes a literary centre, 
 146 ; capture of, by Alaric, 278; 
 capture of, by Odoacer, 279 ; 
 capture of, by Theodoric, 279 ; 
 influence of Greece upon the 
 early literature of, 165 
 
 Rozoir's Dictionnaire, cited, 69 
 
 Rustem, the legend of, 48 
 
 Rusticus, Junius, Laudation by, 265 
 
 Sabinus, Petronius, copies the 
 Sibylline books, 244 
 
 Sabinus on immaterial property, 
 268 
 
 Sammoaicus, the library of, 249 
 
 Sanscrit literature, the earliest, 44 
 
 Sapor II. and the Avesta, 48 
 
 Sauppe on the Codex Paridnus of 
 Demosthenes, 124 
 
 Scaevola, the Annates Maximi of, 
 180 
 
 Schaefer, cited, 109 
 
 Schi-king, the, 32 
 
 Schmitz, W., on writers and book- 
 sellers in Greece, cited, 55, 90, 
 98, III 
 
 Scholars of Byzantium scattered 
 through Europe after the cap- 
 ture of the city, 293 
 
 SchoU, cited, 134 
 
 Sc/m, the, (" books,") in China, 30 
 
 Schu-king, the, 31 
 
 Scribes, in Egypt, 20 ; in Athens, 
 105 ; in Alexandria, 137 
 
 Seneca, cited, 181, 244 
 
 Senecio, Herennius, the Lauda- 
 tion by, 265 
 
 Sepluagint, the, begun in Alexan- 
 dria 285 B.C., 135 
 
 Servus literatus, requirements for 
 a, 182 
 
 Sibylline books, ownership in, 
 claimed by the State, 234 
 
 Sigean inscription, 57 
 
 Simcox, cited, 163, 177, 178, 179, 
 245, 250-253, 255, 260, 261 
 
 Skytale, the, 60 
 
 Smith, George, work in London 
 and in Chaldea, 5, 7, 150 
 
 Smyrna, the library of, 247 
 
 Solon, the laws of, 57 
 
 Songs (Chinese), the Book of, 24 
 
 Sophists, the, 65 
 
 Sosii, the, 202 
 
 Soto-oro-ime, Empress and poet, 41 
 
 Stahr's Aristotle, cited, 90 
 
 Statins, the Thebaid oi, 254 
 
 Stella, his poem on the " Wars of 
 the Giants," 251 
 
 St. John, Second Epistle of, writ- 
 ten on papyrus, 160 
 
 Stobseus, the writings of, 286 
 
 Strabo, refers to incorrect text of 
 Greek manuscripts, 120 ; refers 
 to bookmaking in Alexandria, 
 137 ; complains as to the in- 
 accuracy of books, 182 
 
3o8 
 
 Index 
 
 Suetonius, his Life of Domilian, 
 cited, 244, 247, 264; his Ludicra, 
 260 
 
 Suidas, cited, 76, 154; reference of, 
 to Hermodoros, 79 ; the Lexicon 
 of, 288 ; the plays of, 288 
 
 Susanoo arranges sounds into sylla- 
 bles, 40 
 
 Sylla, a. collector of Greek books, 
 117; purchases the manuscripts 
 of Aristotle and Theophrastus, 
 
 117 
 Syria, under the Seleucids, a 
 home of Hellenism, 139 
 
 Tablets of baked clay, 149 
 Tablets of wax, known to Homer, 
 
 in use with the Romans, 154 
 Tacitus, the Agricola of, cited, 
 
 265 
 Tacitus, the Emperor, orders the 
 
 histories of his ancestor to be 
 
 placed in the public libraries, 
 
 257 
 Tacitus, the historian, cited, 251 ; 
 
 education of, 257 ; writings of, 
 
 258 
 Tagenisice, the, of Aristophanes, 
 
 61 
 Telegraph, the London, employs 
 
 George Smith in Chaldea, 6 
 Temple, the copyists of the, 52 
 Terence, translates plates from the 
 
 Greek, 179 ; receives pay for 
 
 stage-rights, 225 
 
 TertuUian, the writings of, 261 
 
 Testament, the New, almost the 
 only literary production of im- 
 portance in Syrian Greek, 139 
 
 Theatre, in Greece, cost of admis- 
 sion to, 76 
 
 Theocritus, work of, in Alexandria, 
 132 
 
 Theognis, the Megarian, the device 
 of, 61 
 
 Theological writings distributed 
 without profit to their authors, 
 147 
 
 Theopompus, the Philippics of, 
 72 ; refers to booksellers, 103 
 
 Thoth-Hermes, god of wisdom 
 and literature, 11 
 
 Thucydides, listens to Herodotus, 
 86 ; the daughter of, 87 
 
 Tiberius orders certain historical 
 writings taken from the libraries, 
 264 
 
 Tibullus gives copies of his books 
 to the Palatine Library, 246 
 
 Tibur, the library of, 246 
 
 Timon, 132 
 
 Tiron, the freedman and friend of 
 Cicero, 184 
 
 Trajan, Asiatic expeditions of, 164 
 
 Tribonianus on immaterial prop- 
 erty, 268 
 
 Trimalchio, the libraries of, 249 
 
 Xsehun-tshien, the, 32 
 
 Tsengtze, the work of, 28 
 
 Type first used in China, 29 
 
 Tyrannion edits writings of Aris- 
 totle, 90, 120 
 
Index 
 
 309 
 
 Tzetzes, John, describes the Alex- 
 andrian Library, 130 ; the Chil- 
 iads of, 288 
 
 Williams, S. Wells, quoted, 27-36 
 Women as scribes, 183 
 
 U 
 
 Ulfilas translates the Bible into 
 
 Gothic, 284 
 Undertakers, the, of Egypt, the 
 
 first booksellers, 13 
 
 Xenophon, home of, at Scillus, 
 88 ; his method in the Anabasis, 
 88 ; completes the Cyropadia, 
 88 ; death of, 88 ; literary un- 
 dertakings of, 88 ; reference of, 
 to books saved from a wreck. 
 
 Varro, the writings of, 256 
 Vedas, the, 44, 45 
 Vendidad, the, 47 
 Virey, P., translation of Ptah- 
 
 Hotep's Precepts, 16 
 Virgil, the jSneid of, 198 
 Visparad, the, 47 
 Vitruvius, cited, 74 
 
 W 
 
 Wade, Sir Thomas, cited, 36 
 Wang Pih-ho, compiles a horn- 
 book, 36 
 Wilkinson, cited, 145, 152 
 
 Yasna, the, 47 
 Yescht-Sade, the, 47 
 Yih, the councillor, 31 
 Y-king, the, or Book of the Meta- 
 morphoses, 24 
 
 Zeller, cited, 82 
 
 Zend-Avesta, the, 47 
 
 Zeno, the shipwreck of, 113 
 
 Zenodotus establishes the first 
 
 grammar-school in Athens, 133 
 Zoroaster, or Zarathustra, 47 
 
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