I Times, Books, and Preconceptions ‘ow can we know what people did thousands of years ago? The short answer is that we can’t those people are ll Tong dead, and beyond the possibilty ofinterview, All we can dois make fragile inferences from what texts ‘or arefacs happen to survive from the distant past. “There is also a longer answer, one as long as the history of scholarship. An astonishing number of texts and artefacs have survived, and thanks to several ‘emuties of intense study some of the inferences that can be made from them are not s0 fragile after all, Of course itis sill tue, and inevitable, that every statement about the past a hypothesis that may one day be refuted if beer evidence tums up; nevertheless, some of those hypotheses are so secure that without misuse of language they can be called facts, For instance, iyou ate interested in Roman drama, i's fact that comedies by lasts and Terence were performed in Rome in te second century tis a fact tha three permanent stone theatres were construced in Rome in the frst century ‘andi i a face that Nero's adviser Seneca, belere committing suicide in a 65, wrote tragedies tha had a profound effect on Erlish and French drama in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But how do those facts relate to each othes? ‘This book is an attempt to understand literature, induding drama, as a com situent par of Roman society as it developed over a very long period of time. 11. The longue durée first task is wo understand the chronology. Figure 1 is a time-line of the ‘of Rome, fom the frst archaeologial evidence of continuous habitation, ed roughly 1300 ac, to the present day. Each ofthe subdivisions isa hundred see or four generations, a period lenge: than living memory AS we read it from left to right, at frst there sno history co report. For our the frst signifcant stage is the seventh century oc, when the community1. Ties, Books, and Preonceptions 1.3, Paper : he Sst publi open space om the site of he Ros mete 136041 presen A Aroma da ae . ‘the Roman republic, princips sof tain igre. C: Bed of nent theaes bln Rome. D- Abolition of pag Fesiv BC captrs4-6.C, chapters 7-9; C-D, caper 1 Forum, Bs Approsinate date of te ist writen Wo ‘Ruut ‘dass’ period of Roman erature rst erm Rorne,Cheoncogy ofthe books angumest. exces so the high ound by the cosine ofthe Ther dv : : y¢ and Capitol hills and laid out the ‘ravelled public area which became the Roman Forum. This fist evidence for Rome as a recognizable cy state is marked. "The use of wing was known, bur still an ‘oped the stream valley berween the Palatin as point Aon the timeline. jovelt, Inthe Greekspeaking world, Homer may have been writen dawn not long aftr ths, and western “pitied: But the Latins and ether peoples of Tay did not yet use thet alphabets to record the bard's chant or the storyteller’ tale oF the stage stall. It was not unl four centuries later, when ‘ontrol of Haly and challenging Carthage for supremacy in the had their own Latin literature created for ‘ty and drama. That fs marked as point B on the timetine for which the only contemporary evidence | nt us with a very particular methodo- “Thereafter, terry evidence becomes humor equally forall pesiods—and the argument becomes alitle ‘more straightforward. Point C on the timeline is “That was the ‘clasic’ period of Roman period of politcal crisis and civil war that: the first stages, under August, marks a major development in ‘purpose-built tone dheatres. Those great the city throughout the prinipate Point Don the time marks the this book is about. Since my argument the prohibition of sacri traitional—that i, ‘pagan’—put ‘westem Mediterranean thatthe Romans ‘them, in epic poet “Those four centuries from A to B, is achacologieal and iconographical, prese addressed in Chapters 2-3. placed in the second half of the fist century 9. iterature, From Cicero to Ovid, and the saw the end of the Roman republic and ofthe rule of the Roman emperor q the public culture of Rome, the creation of ‘buildings remained central to the hfe of 1 end, not of Rome, but of the Roman cule {much concemsed with games and festival, ce in ao 39% and the consequent obsole iblic holidays, in order to make the life of Ros Se eE SIS EELS oe eee ee wee Dee see SPEARE ireversibly Christian, is as appropriate a finishing point as any. In 410 Alaric and his Goths would sack the city, a disaster that ealy symbolized the end ofan era 1.2. Paper ‘When tear creed (pint, history becomes pon. Tent can ge ‘pearing to acta hat ae ober enigma Through text the people of the pst an pea to ‘fon [ustthe cn wong tht mate, bt wht gi ween nd what ses writen on Te Romans had lng been wed cinscrbing publi docinets teatone, brome, wood entero ren nen Foret lea document and cher everyday busines they used Wooden bles Ga) en covered wha srr wring suc; Hed other, sch ables formed a clr, eal ‘wood Bia The diminutive form cdi was often wad or pg, ang & "Sx or iterate however, you netbooks nl forboks yu ee pape tnd per, nthe ancient word, was made fom te ph ofthe pays pln sid ge in ype Grek had been wading with Egypt since at a the seventh centr and the pharaoh Arai (570-56 0) eventually grumed therm »permanest om imesh! cee at Naucai, on th weve bch of he Nie de, I Probably no ace thatthe fst ear evden for Grek Merary tex (oF Home cfr othe 53s he ine of Pst un Aen, Themen tmacncpion hat the reels came ef te Room —an anu fst or archcologa emma be argel et the acetate Gres hd he mean o cea wrten Iteratr abou tres cere before the Roman di As we sal sein Chapter, the Roman republ fist esablshed diplomatic sion wth he lems ngom of ype in bots n- Thelra hat tone was Plemy Pidgin second of te any ad funder of te pest rary at Altra, Whether or nt ts contact asthe cata he [oman fins se of papyrs volumes o record eng and spoken speech canbe | eed the midshnd cnay oeling, Naural iar 13.68, and 70 Ccasiodoras Vange 37-5 and 5 Kenyon 195148 1. Times, Books, and Preconeptons {dea ofthe impact ofthe innovation if we listen 10 ‘We may begin to get an wae papyrus, First, Gaius Plinius what learned Romans of later ages said about ‘Secundus,sokter, historian, and encyclopaedic polymath, in the frst century A ie vied lif, and certainly memory, depends above all on the us of paper. ‘Se product on which the immorality of aman beings depends. Second, and nearly half a millennium later, Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus ‘Scnatos, senior administrator in the regime of Theodoric the Ostrogoth: this, on which the thoughts of dhe wise are What op groin any el wen wo Pr 7 ‘ it speaks of the past, reser? reserving a fafa witness of human deeds fois the enemy of oblivion rue record on paper wat was dane ad id would Be forge. The eRe ett covey, a coping of te wa maker san rang paper overblown, ahd Yen a fener amet Grek and atin save ong 2008 © serpents nan become ‘drs eau’ fo th mode we area pisos of what we hie we know aboot nen Grete maton kcal coal being sages fom anc es an yin eer ay py. Te ree wl aot bea coder rare 1 ea vce ft hope wl cle he necessary provionl ee cn oft dian pat. And becuse my argue wl rae ar at clas sco ae foe ged abou Roma Hey oe eae oem oul igh a he ar wht Roman Boks weve 1.3. Books Te elon scare vce tt Cn st “The sheets of paper so produced were usually about 3ocm x 20cm. They then glued together in sequence to form a continuous scroll, which might Snything up to to metres in length, In Egypt te eos of suc a scroll was 13. Books i. ‘equivalent of two to five days’ pay for an agrcutural worker; anywhere els, transport costs would make it substantially more expensive. An anecdote about the impoverished philosopher Cleanthes coofirs that in Athens in the third century 8 paper vas more than a poor man coull afford, “Then the text had to be writen on the scroll, The wealthy might have skilled slaves to do such thing; fling that, in the marke>place a copyist’s change fora mere 200 lines was the equivalent of a day's pay fe a skilled artisan, or two days pay fora farm labourer. Add the wooden rollers that had to be atached at each fend ofthe papyrus to make i usable for reading and it becomes clear that the final result was an expensive artefact. “The best evidence for what finished books costto buy is proved by Marta: Ihe gives 6 oF 10 sestertit (a4 oF 4o bronze ases) a typical prices, with 5 silver denart (80 asses) for ade le product. As a comparison, before Domitian raised ‘heir pay, Roman legionaries received 10 asses per day, from which food and equipment had to be found. In effect, if an ordinary Roman wanted to buy a ‘book, he would need to find the equivalent of several days’ living expenses; for about the same outlay he could buy a whole amphora of wine (sy 26 litres) ‘Only the rich could collect books. The frst libraries were funded by kings— ‘rolemy in Alexandria, Eumenes in Pergamum, Antiochus Il in Antioch—and “when substantial book collections frst came to Rome, they came as war booty. Inthe late republic, libraries were part ofthe luxury goods in the country houses ofthe seriously wealthy. Bringing books tothe Roman People in a public library svas one ofthe projects Caesar would have carved out if the aristocrats had not murdered him. As it was, it fell his fiend Poli in 39 9c, who used the profs ‘ofa military campaign in lyra to setup a bray inthe Hall of Liberty 8a later Roman recorded with admiration, Pollio was the fist to make works of genius public property, Thereafter, emperors provided libraries, as they provided baths snd porticos and gymnasia, "There was nothing like a publishing industry io the ancient world, An author ‘would creat his text on wax tablets either writing i himself or dictating ito a slave. Having it written on to a scroll, or more than one, was a sign of, completion, though advice ffom Giends or exposure at an invited reading ‘might cause some revisions to be made, At this stage there would sill be just ‘one copy, safe in the author's control. ‘It’s a big thing, said Pliny, ‘co put something into other people's hands. ‘St on i for nine years’, advised Horace, though few did. ‘The act of ‘making it public’ (publicare) was the investment in further hand ‘writen copies to be ‘given out (edere) of ‘sent cut (emitter) to whomever the "author considered appropriate, The nearest moder parallel is not a published tation but an author's complimentary copies; how many there were depended fn what he could afford, and how many people he could rely on to appreciateBing 1988.07 6 1. Times, Books, and Preconceptions the text and not just reeyele the papyrus. Probably each separate scroll would hhave a personalized dedication. “Te best chance of finding readers beyond one’s own acquaintance (dvalgare) was the lbarias, whose business was as much a copy-shop as a bookshop. You Tent him your book, and he pat it on display with all the others. Perhaps someone might be prepared to pay that step price to buy itor have it copied Felling that, since people who liked books gathered in the shop to read and [gossip and argu, atleast twas availabe forthe browsers to unl 1.4. Literature as a Public Performance LU books were luxury items, it seems to follow that literature was the concern “only ofthe privileged Buti thar case, what abou drama? Plutus and Terence rere poets who wrote for public performance, and it would be an odd definition df iterature that exchuded dramatic poetry. Or consider epic poets: when Vite began the Aeneid with “Arms and the man Ising’ was the verb just an empey metaphor” Was he writing just for those who could read his words on papyrus? ‘ve were talking about the Greek world, these questions would be absurd. Homer and the Athenian dramatists composed their works for oral devery or pecformance at public festivals, copying them into books for readers wat & ccondary phenomenon. It is usually supposed that at some time between omer and Viegl, perhaps in the fourth and thind centuries ac, the secondary ‘Rage became primary, and poets began to write fo readers rather an audiences Tris taken for granted that Romans writing in Greek genres—as they neasly all dic_were book poets imitating oral poets across a great cultural divide, ‘For instance, Peter Bing’ exploration of Hellenistic poetry in bis influensal book The WellRead Muse (1988, reissued 2008) takes it asa given that by the third century se ‘the primary experience of literature was through books’ The poct did not ‘sway large audiences in a public forum any more through the Bullfal use of words: performance. .had given way to the private act of feading. Why should ths have come abou? No evidence is offered, but we are told it was ‘because the coherent fabric ofthe poliscommaniyy had disintegrate, supplanted ty ie remot, dlocated ease ofthe Oikournene, Poetry, ia concet wh si “lange Became a pvate act of communication, no Longe a public one One should be cautious in drawing conclusions from historical development deseribed with quite so broad a brush. [ts true that the Hellenistic monar hnad destroyed the political independence of the few city-sates—like Arhe that had enjoyed such a thing, But does the rest follow? 4, Literature 1 a Public Poformance ? NNo, it does not. It was pointed out with devastating erudition by Alan (Cameron in Callimachus and his Critics (1995) that though ‘modem scholars hhave often porited a radical discontinuity between Hellenistic and earlier Greek culture’, this unargued dogma tet inthe las on rothing more chan a feeing that sophie and allasve poetry conor have been public pesformed, htt was ty its very nature, poetry to be read Te fit 8 Cameron demonentes 2 ng that ‘Geek pty Adee Ionia eran every sot om ihe Dat ge downto he Cres Wat ten er pone Te pove Cameos pln you hare only read the two ln sting worse Hellenic ltecy ec, Demet On Send Longin Or te Sain, Where a modem cide would sy the author andthe eae’, Deme- tus an Longin conten refer tothe peter nd the adlence’Exay thesame wage ppesrin the ice shh comments teen he medieval macro dase authors, ind ee from ang tadion of Cre scholarship that sted from the fourth cetry x down nt he Roman mpc, The comtoctators ket fr ganed at you would ha Home, ja fs you would sr Atte waged indeed, one of the ways pocty alfred the dodenee was he vie the speaker sed in dling. Andy even the betsy can wll wie af Cares decive revaton had never happened It a gn of th power of prconepion hat end Nini inhi exch nal ofthe oie seins of he hin ‘yteatcaly tants thet abate seat, His tin ton fr hat i an equal excllen are by ik Scheneveld, who demon. Ste th cxitene of Grek tom, have hard Xing ening have teal in that Ysa mephor ke the one wed above Chere modern Cie Would yy and at ehenkeveld igh pons ot, probably sees theances hai of reading loo and of hig Hooks rnd 04 The Inter custom sparc imporant n'a wodd witout reading aves ny poole were phystaly unable wo rend fr GenoceBut t tne eann to mire hon, "The Gack etc feed tony 0 ‘nee amg he wha ne mol cl eer, ae ‘het book read to her—but equally often to ‘the listeners’ in the plural, sath cen os an ee oe ete 5 Ths race o let ane tenis mean wha hy ty parla res _ lent in che study of Latin literature, where Cameron's argument is simply Spor Rather than ey to do justice to the hag bloga, shal dnp ‘one authoritative contibution (from Michile Lowrie’s discussion of Ccamezon 195.30Lawrie 200049) 5 +. Times, Books, and Preconceptions “Horatian lyri), which offers an admirably dear statement of what most scholars don't even feel required to spell out: eas about ancient song need to take account ofthe breakin stor ines fom waeye a imagined wadion, Despite great activity i popular entertainment, these aa a comanuous formal performance tration for high iterature sm Augusta TERE” gay performance medium dat may have eansmined Horan Tic oF de genes was, fnot enough invention, some sortof reconstruction whether aan er aman, Once there hasbeen a breakin the tradion, estarting titan ac ‘of wil tat consis the Iiterary. tis worth noticing that no evidence is offered either for the break in tradition oF for the disnetion berween popular entertainment and bigh literature, The wo potions are s0-widely accepted that no justification is thought to be necessary. vAatheres Uke ‘Greek/Roman’ and ‘popular/elit’ are too crude to be his: contatly urea andthe ist of them has been fatally undermined by advances ip irchaeology, We now know, for instance, 38 we didnot know thirty years 380, ‘hat there ere Greckespeakers inthe land of the Latins as erly a8 about 800 1 Scholarly specialisms have been unhelpful here. Archaeologists and historians seaman with dhe culie and artic influence ofthe Greek world on Latium form at leat the sath century 8c; specialists in Latin Nterature, on the other fond arly query Horace'smiaconceved idea thatthe Latins were unaware of ‘Greuk culture unal afer the Punie Wars (Say, 200 20); and one stl finds thories on ancient theatre writing as ifthe Romans had ro conquer the cies tsputh taly and Sialy before they could have any idea of what Gree drama was ike ws forthe distinction between popular and ‘cite’ culture, that depends on « uastsodologial abstraction which not wel suited to storia enauiy, Who sane the ‘lve when Roman literature begat As ithappens, the hind century 96 vere io have been a time when plebeian magistrates hostile to socal and | nancial pevlege were particularly influential im che Roman republic and though ta tue that distinctions of rake subsequently mulpid,ewo centuries Tuer’Marcus Varro stl insisted that from the beginning Rome had been @ communisy of equals. ‘Or are we to think of an elite defined by education rather than social statu “Theenene of iteray inthe ancient worlds a controversial questions bur even f icoras very lite, as seems ely, that doesnot mean that education ina broad sense, was limited to che same degree. Tes avoid anachronism on this point, i is Important (0 remember that ancient sources had mo need to record what people in their world simply took panied. Sometimes only a commentin passing alerts uso dreumstances wh eran otherwise not have occurred t0 us. For instance, Plato én the fo sg, Literature asa Publi Peformance 9 cer ref 1 pls owe of gm ‘os erin guy a cer, Cav he eyo eno sept of Brute pe eps an man worn peoples eth fe eng ay Pris ne were ony vo ve pope Seeing "tet av bar om cen inched age Th te i he thea tage the recom ow tons tosh spect. segs perme, Yu dd shve obese oa Sher ns eeng cine inone of Pin ecrs ween oss 04 conan ral ae lle las Reg hve oun aha lal Notcomen wih conmssonng mae ste by em cy wonatop. pwn, be erg noone’ ep erly ee xg cas wd ed en pn eho pene bk bt i Me TSOvEMdh ue tsa tena ea os pes mayan eed 1a gh yu pm me he tees romero om omg ew oe Se sige ran Perhaps i wast erly a thoutand copie: sce th ; ya thousand copies sce the pot of the ory wa Tsong ey ay a ay ie nin, Wit ter focour purposes the Tig throws ono texts eae the pub ‘he orl delivery tou ade came eee he tuto of writen cope sie wens tron glu wared ‘the peopl o know about hs son's, Wat tat excep ona par ois overt tp Behaviour, or wat he nom? Ife wan 0 Ica rr ma whem tea al woot Ek wm nue tt ssn kw ths ook san tempt to cll he evidence for ht We. Piny Lets 472