What were books like in ancient Greece and Rome? |
If you were to visit a bookshop in the ancient world, what would it be like?
You don’t just have to imagine it. The ancient Roman writer Aulus Gellius, who lived in the 2nd century CE, gives us a number of descriptions of his adventures at bookstores. In one passage, he describes an encounter at one in Rome, which he was visiting with a poet friend:
I chanced to be sitting in a bookshop in the Sigillaria with the poet Julius Paulus […] There was on sale there the Annals of Quintus Fabius Pictor in a copy of good and undoubted age, which the dealer maintained was without errors.
Gellius then tells us that, while they are sitting there, another customer enters the shop. The new customer has a disagreement with the dealer. He complains that he “found in the book one error”. The dealer says that’s impossible. Then the customer brings out evidence to prove the dealer wrong.
In different passage, Aulus tells us about some bookstalls he came across when he arrived by ship at the port of Brundisium on the Adriatic coast. The books, he records, were “in Greek, filled with marvellous tales, things unheard of, incredible […] The writers were ancient and of no mean authority”.
The volumes themselves, however, were filthy from neglect, in bad condition and unsightly. Nevertheless, I drew near and asked their price; then, attracted by their extraordinary and unexpected cheapness, I bought a large number of them for a small sum.
Aulus goes on to describe in excited language all the weird facts he derived from these books – like how people in Africa can “work spells by voice and tongue” and through this witchcraft cause people, animals, trees and crops to die.
These sorts of stories bring us close to how ordinary people in ancient Greek and Roman times obtained books and engaged with books. But if we read stories like this it might lead us to want to know more. How did books and writing come into existence? And how were books written and produced?
Many people in the ancient world thought that writing had been invented by gods or heroes. For example, the ancient Egyptians believed the god Thoth was the first to create signs to represent spoken sounds.
The origins of writing are certainly mysterious. It’s unclear when writing began and who invented it.
The earliest written text is a wooden........