¹ Denning social categories in Roman history is a dicey business. By ‘elite’ and ‘upper-class’ I mean senators and equestrians. There were wide social and economic distinctions within this category, some of which can be observed in Roman epistolary etiquette (see below, p. 474), but in general writing practices seem to have been uniform. ‘Sub-elites’ was coined by Hopkins, K., ‘Conquest by Book’, in Humphrey, J. H. (ed.), Literacy in the Roman World(Ann Arbor, 1991), p.145Google Scholar, n. 33, in a discussion that centred around Roman Egypt. It designates people wealthy enough not to have to work with their hands—‘ local town-councillors,… leading temple priests’. The portrait in question (Naples Museum, inv. 9058) was found on the wall of an exedra (tablinum) off the atrium of house VII, 2, 6;Schefold, K., Die Wände Pompejis (Berlin, 1957), p.168Google Scholar. The ambiguities of the portrait were discussed by Veyne, P., A History of Private Life: from Pagan Rome to Byzantium (Cambridge, MA, 1987), pp.6–7Google Scholar, (a reproduction of the portrait appears on the cover of the book), and by Harris, W. V., Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, MA, 1989), p.263Google Scholar, n. 459, who pointed out that the woman's pose is conventional and listed six other known examples. For writing scenes on funerary reliefs see Marrou, H.I., MOY∑IKO∑ ANHP (Rome, 1964), nos. 13, 187–97. Of these nos. 13, 192, and 193 depict women; cf. Harris, p. 252, n. 411. Harris judged the couple to be ‘reasonably prosperous, perhaps from the level just below the decurionate.’ (p. 263): and ‘ …well-to-do middle class, not the upper elite.’ (fig. 5).Google Scholar

² For educational attainments and social climbing in Roman society—‘education disguises humble origins’— see Hopkins (n. 1), p. 142–144; for the prestige of literacy see Harris (n. 1), p. 145.Horsfall, N., ‘The Uses of Literacy and the Cena Trimalchionis’, G&R 36 (1989), 74–89Google Scholar, and 194–209, discussed the role of literacy and social pretension as presented by Petronius.

³ Harris(n. 1), pp.262–263Google Scholar, arguing from the archives of L. Caecilius Iucundus as well as other evidence, suggested that most women of the sub-elite classes were not literate, while, p. 252, most upper-class women were.

⁴ E.g.Thomas, K., ‘The Meaning of Literacy in Early Modern Europe’, in Baumann, G. (ed.), The Written Word (Oxford, 1986), pp.97–131Google Scholar, on literate non-writers in England between 1500 and 1750.

⁵ Harris (n. 1), p. 249.Horsfall, N., ‘Rome without Spectacles’, G&R 42 (1995), 49–56Google Scholar;Starr, cf. R. J., CJ 86 (1990–1991), 337–43.Google Scholar

⁶ Harris(n. 1), p. 249. The subscription (with photograph) of Subatianus Aquila is found in PGraecBerol 35, dated to A.D. 209. The Theones document (also with photograph) is POxy 3197, dated to A.D. 111. That most papyrus letters were not written by their authors is irrelevant to our subject since, as Harris pointed out, p. 231, many of the persons concerned would have been semi-literates or illiterates.Google Scholar

⁷ Bowman, A. K., Thomas, J. D., Vindolanda: The Latin Writing-Tablets (London, 1983), pp.52Google Scholar,188 and 102. The great majority of these documents were written in ink on wood. The scribal documents are numbers 21 and 30. Document number 22 is an odd exception; see the editors′ comments on p. 105. See now Bowman, A. K., ‘Letters and literacy on Rome's northern frontier’, in Bowman, A. K., Woolf, G. (eds.), Literacy and Power in the Ancient World (Cambridge, 1994), p.110.Google Scholar

⁸ ‘Quare cum semper et ubique turn praecipue in epistulis secretis et familiaribus delectabit ne hoc quidem neglectum reliquisse’ (Inst. 1.1.29); the passage was quoted by Harris (n. 1), p. 249, n. 394, cf. Cic. Q.fr. 2.15 [14] (SB 19).l;Att. 6.9 (SB 123).l. For Atticus's hand see Cic.Att. 6.9 (SB 123).1; on Augustus see Suet.Aug. 64.5, noted by M. Corbier, ‘L'écriture en quete de lecteurs’, in Humphrey (n. 1), p. 106.

⁹ For neatly written letters in the papyri see, e.g.PHerm Rees, 2 and 3.

¹⁰ Timaeus's letter is PFlor II 259. In a mid-third century papyrus Lollianus, who was the public grammaticus of Oxyrhynchus, seems to have written the draft of a petition in a large and formal script, but employed a smaller ‘neat hand typical of the type used for commentaries’ for writing a letter; see Parsons, P. J., PCollYoutie, 66. I owe these references to Raffaella Cribiore.Google Scholar

¹¹ Bowmanand Thomas (n. 7), tablet 37, plate VIII, 1 and 2 and pp.126–127Google Scholar. The same authors argued that this document is part of the archive of Cerialis in Britannia 18 (1987), 126. Note also the mixture of capital and cursive scripts in the same Vindolanda document; Bowman in Bowman and Woolf (n. 7), pp. 118–119.

¹² Parkes, Cf. M. B., Scribes, Scripts and Readers (London, Rio Grande, 1991), pp.1–18Google Scholar.Unlike modern business practice, where handwriting is normally restricted to a signature, in ancient practice it was the formulaic closing subscription that authenticated a dictated document; see Bowman in Bowman and Woolf (n. 7), p. 124. In addition to formulaic salutations, authenticating subscriptions were commonly in the form of the words legi and recognovi customarily signed by emperors and high officials; see Reinmuth, O. W., The Prefect of Egypt from Augustus to Diocletian (Leipzig, 1935, rep. 1963), p.92,Google Scholar following Wilcken, U., Hermes 55 (1920), 28–29.Google Scholar Extra-Egyptian papyri show the same practice. For a recently published document with the subscription in the hand of Julius Priscus, prefect of Mesopotamia and brother of Philip the Arab, see Feissel, D., Gascou, J., ‘Documents d'archives remains inédits du Moyen Euphrate (III siecle apres J.C.)’, Académie des inscriptions & belles-lettres (Paris, 1989), 545–553.Google Scholar

¹³ See Bowman, A. K., ‘Literacy and the Roman Empire’, in Humphrey (n. 1), p. 127.Google Scholar

¹⁴ ‘The ability to write well and quickly is not irrelevant, though it is generally neglected by respectable persons. Writing is of the greatest importance in our studies and by it alone can true progress, supported by deep roots, be acquired. But a slow pen delays thinking, while a clumsy and illegible hand cannot be understood, from which follows another nuisance, that of dictating what is to be copied.’ (Inst. 1.1.28).

¹⁵ ‘nam in stilo quidem quamlibet properato dat aliquam cogitationi moram non consequens celeritatem eius manus.’ (Inst. 10.3.19, cf. 19–22). Cf. T. Kleberg, ‘Commercio librario ed editoria nel mondo antico’, Livrea, E. (trans.), in Cavallo, G.ne (ed.), Libri, editori e pubblico nel mondo antico (Rome, 1975), p.46.Google Scholar Jerome echoed this sentiment; see Arns, E., La technique du livre d'après saint JérÔme (Paris, 1953), pp.47–48;Google ScholarHorsfall, cf. N., G&R 42 (1995), 50.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Inst. 10.3.31–32; for usus irrationalis see 10.7.11Google Scholar;Quinn, cf. K., ‘Poet and Audience in the Augustan Age’, ANRW 2.30.1 (Berlin, New York, 1982), p.82, n. 21, and p. 169.Google Scholar

¹⁷ ‘Satis apparet ex eo, quod hanc scribentium negligentiam damno, quid de illis dictandi deliciis sentiam’ (Inst. 10.3.18).

¹⁸ Aulus Gellius also refers to autographs of Vergil at 9.14.7; cf. 2.3.5. On autographs see Birt, T., Das antike Buchwesen (Berlin 1882, repr. 1959), pp.349–350Google Scholar, and Kleberg (n. 15), pp. 45–46.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Augustus's orthography was discussed at Aug. 88.Coninck, L. de, Suetonius en de Archivalia (Brussels, 1983), pp.52–57Google Scholar and 216, argued that Suetonius did not consult these letters in the imperial archive.

²⁰ Horsfall, G&R 42 (1995), 50–55Google Scholar; cf. 53, where Horsfall discussed the role of slaves in research. Dictation was practised by, e.g., Caesar (Plut. Caes. 17.3–4), the elder and younger Pliny (Ep. 3.5.15, 3.5.10,6.20.5), and Vergil (Suet.Vita Verg. 22); see also Hor. Serm. 1.4.10. For dictation and its use by prose writers and poets, see also Kleberg (n. 15), p. 46, and Quinn (n. 16), pp. 85–86.

²¹ Corbier, Cf. (n. 8), p.106.Google Scholar

²² Horsfall, G&R 42 (1995), 50 and n. 21, citing St. Ambrose (Ambros. Ep. 4 7.1;Paul. vit. Amb. 38.2).Google Scholar

²³ Three of the four senators selected—M. Valerius Messalla Rufus, P. Nigidius Figulus, and Ap. Claudius Pulcher—are known literary figures; little is known about the fourth, C. Cosconius. It is important to note that these senators wrote the minutes out in full, not in shorthand. The Latin word for taking shorthand is excipere. Here Cicero uses perscribere, which means ‘to write out fully’; see Gel. 10.1.7 with Winter, T. N., TAPA 100 (1969), 607–612Google Scholarand Talbert, R. J. A., The Senate of Imperial Rome (Princeton, 1984), p.316.Google ScholarPlut. Cat.Min. 23.3 refers to shorthand used not by senators, but notarii, probably servi publici; see Mommsen, Th., Gesammelte Schriften, iii, Juristische Schriften, iii (Berlin, 1907, rep. 1965), pp.290–313.Google Scholar On the use of shorthand writers (notarii or actuarii), slaves or men of low status, in the Senate, see Suet. Jul. 55.3, with Willems, P., Le sénat de la république romaine, ii (Louvain, 1883, repr. New York, 1975), pp.204–207,Google Scholar with Talbert, p. 129, and Teitler, H. C., Notarii and Exceptores (Amsterdam, 1985), pp.27–34Google Scholar and 38–44;Horsfall, cf., G&R 42 (1995), n. 23 and 24, and below, note 37. That writing literary works sua manu was not unusual is indicated by several well-known passages: Cat. 50.1.4–5; Hor.Serm. 1.10.72, 1.4.14–16.Google Scholar

²⁴ See Horsfall, N., Cornelius Nepos (Oxford, 1989), p.80Google Scholar. The Ciceronian evidence was collected by Miller, A. B., Roman Etiquette of the Late Republic (Lancaster, PA, 1914), pp.61–62.Google Scholar

²⁵ Dictated letters frequently contained a subscription written by the author, e.g., Cic.Fam. 2.13 (SB 93).3; Att. 8.1 (SB 151).l; 11.24 (SB 234).2; 13.28 (SB 299).4; 6.6.(SB 121).4; Plut. Caes. 63.4; cf. P. Herm. Rees, 6. In imperial correspondence the writing of subscriptions, sometimes no more than a few words, occupied a considerable part of an emperor's workday; see Millar, F., The Emperor in the Roman World (Ithaca, 1977), pp.221–222Google Scholar, 245–248.

²⁶ See the comment of Shackleton, Bailey D. R., Cicero's Letters to Atticus i (Cambridge, 1965), p.393 on Att. 2.20 (SB 40).5.Google Scholar

²⁷ A similar picture is found in Jerome's writings; see Arns (n. 15), pp. 40–43. Some of the abundant evidence for dictated letters was colleced by Kleberg (n. 15), p. 46, and Horsfall, G&R 42 (1995), 51–52, who also, 49, n. 10, discussed Roman ophthalmia.Google Scholar

²⁸ Kleberg(n. 15), pp.45–46Google Scholar, n. 52. On correspondence of the imperial period in general see Cugusi, P., Evoluzione e forme dell'epistolografia Latina (Rome, 1983), pp.265ff., on the letters of the emperors, pp. 265–270, and for the correspondence of Marcus Aurelius and Fronto, pp. 241–264.Google Scholar

²⁹ Horsfall, G&R 42 (1995), 51–52 and 54Google Scholar

³⁰ Handwritten documents, sometimes forged, figured as evidence in trials, see e.g., Cic. Brut. 277; AT. D. 3.74; Quint. Inst. 5.13.8,6.3.100; Suet. Tit. 6.2;Frier, cf. B. W., The Rise of the Roman Jurists (Princeton, 1985), p.207, and Dig. 22.5.3.1–4.Google Scholar

³¹ On Augustus's handwritten correspondence see above, note 19.Horsfall, Cf., G&R 42 (1995), n. 28 and 29.Google Scholar

³² ‘Ipsius Sulpici nulla oratio est, saepeque ex eo audivi cum se scribere neque consuesse neque posse diceret’ (Cic. Brut. 205). On another, in my opinion less likely interpretation, the words would mean that Sulpicius preferred extemporaneous speeches to those composed in advance.

³³ ‘It is important to you to deceive your men, write a letter by the hand of your slave girl or boy’ (Ars. 3.484–5). I owe these references to the anonymous reader.

³⁴ On upper-class women's education see Plin. Ep. 5.16, with Sherwin-White, A. N., The Letters of Pliny (Oxford, 1966)Google Scholar, ad loc, and Pomeroy, S. B., Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves (New York, 1975), pp.170–176Google Scholar; women and literary culture—e.g., Plin. Ep. 4.19.2; women and lawsuits—e.g., Plin. Ep. 2.20.10; 3.9.19 ff.; 4.17;Fantham, cf. E., etal, Women in the Classical World (Oxford, 1994), pp.360–367Google Scholar, Harris (n. 1), p. 252. Although excluded from public office, some women were entrusted with public administration; Julia Domna was placed in charge of imperial libelli and epistulae by Caracalla—Dio 77.18.2; 78.4.2–3. Paul wrote that women were excluded from judicial positions not because they lacked judgement, but by tradition—non quia non habent iudicium, sed quia receptum est, ut civilibus officiis nonfungantur (Dig. 5.1.12.2; cf. 16.1.1.1; 50.17.2). I owe these references to Michael Peachin. In general see Gardner, J. F., Women in Roman Law and Society (Bloomington, 1991), esp. pp.262–265.Google Scholar

³⁵ The evidence, especially from papyri, for non-elite women is slightly better and might allow somewhat firmer conclusions. Harris (n. 1), p. 262, pointed out that of the five sub-elite female creditors whose receipts survive in the archive of L. Caecilius Iucundus, none wrote out receipts in their own hand; of the 17 males creditors′ receipts, eleven are written sua manu. On Claudia Severa see Bowman, A. K. in Bowman and Woolf (n. 7), p. 124, and Britannia 18 (1987), 137–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁶ See Sommer, R., ‘Pomponius Atticus und Ciceros Werk’, Hermes 61 (1926), 389–422, esp. 403–415;Google ScholarKleberg, cf. (n. 15), p.49Google Scholar, and Starr, R. J., ‘The Circulation of Literary Texts in the Roman World’, CQ 37 (1987), 213–223Google Scholar, at 213–14.

³⁷ Titus's proficiency in shorthand was unusual to judge from the low opinion Seneca expressed for the skill (Ep.Mor. 90.25). What Cicero employed (σημεîα) in his letters (Att. 13.32 [SB 305].3), were probably simple abbreviations, not shorthand; see the comment of Shackleton Bailey, ad hoc. On the servile associations of shorthand see H. C. Teitler (n. 23) p. 28, who collected the evidence for shorthand in a later period; cf. Arns (n. 15) pp. 56ff. For shorthand in the late Republic see above, note 23.

³⁸ Treggiari, S., ‘Jobs for Women’, AJAH 1 (1976), 78Google Scholar, noted women as librariae and women a manu and amanuensis. On copying by slaves and freedmen booksellers see Starr, CQ 37 (1987), 219–23; cf. Kleberg (n. 15), pp. 49, and 54ff. The preponderance of references to servile copyists in the literary sources may only reflect the economic status of elite authors; less wealthy readers having gone to booksellers. Non-servile public scribes whose principal business was writing letters and other documents for illiterates is another matter. Evidence for them is slim in the west; see Horsfall, N., Statistics or states of mind?′, in Humphrey (n. 1), p.69.Google Scholar

³⁹ ‘The laborious is not necessarily the honourable. There are many things that are laborious, which you would not consequently boast of. Unless you thought it a glorious undertaking to copy out in your own hand stories and whole speeches.’

⁴⁰ ‘What like this ever happened to M. Porcius, or Quintus Ennius, to Gaius Gracchus, or Gaius Titius the poet? What to Scipio or Numidicus? What like this ever happened to M. TuUius? The books of these men have a greater value and retain the highest fame, if the copies were written in the hand of Lampadio or Staberius, of Plautius or Decimus Aurelius, of Autrico or Aelius, or have been corrected by Tiro, or transcribed by Domitius Balbus, or Atticus, or Nepos. My speech will exist in the hand of Marcus Caesar. He that thinks little of the speech will covet the very letters; he who disdains the thing written will revere the writer’ (AdM. Caes. 1.7.4). The text is that of van den Hout, M. P. J., M. Cornelii Frontonis Epistulae (Leipzig, 1988), p.15.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Zetzel, J. E. G., ‘Emendavi ad Tironem’, HSCP 11 (1973), 225–243.Google Scholar The other texts are the subscription on a manuscript of Cicero's speeches contra Rullum; references in Aulus Gellius's Nodes Atticae to Tiro's handling of a manuscript of Cicero's Verrine orations; and a number of Vergilian manuscripts. Zetzel's conclusions have been accepted with various qualifications by Reynolds, L. D. &Wilson, N. G., Scribes and Scholars ³ (Oxford, 1991), pp.30 and 250;Google ScholarSkutsch, O., The Annals of Quintus Ennius (Oxford, 1985), p.9;Google ScholarRawson, E., Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic (Baltimore, 1985), p.44,Google Scholar n. 24;Kaster, R. A., Suetonius, De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus (Oxford, 1995), p.111Google Scholar;Goold, cf. G. P., HSCP 74 (1970), 162.Google Scholar Zetzel's conclusions were challenged by Timpanaro, S., Per la storia dellafilologia virgiliana antica (Rome, 1986), esp. pp. 33ff., 54ff., 183ff., and 197–209;Google ScholarHolford-Strevens, cf. L., LCM 7 (1982), 67Google Scholar and Horsfall, N., CR 37 (1987), 177–180.Google Scholar The passage was not discussed by Speyer, W., Die literarische Falschung im heidnischen und christlichen Altertum (Munich, 1971).Google Scholar

⁴² Zetzel, HSCP 77 (1973), 233–239.Google Scholar

⁴³ Zetzel, HSCP 77 (1973), 241–243.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Atticus's learned freedman, M. Pomponius Dionysius, seems to have been sent to help glue and catalogue Cicero's books (Att. 4.4a [SB 78]. 1,4.8. [SB 79].2). Shackleton Bailey, adAtt. 79.2, doubted that such a learned man would be asked to work in a humble capacity, but see Christes, J., Sklaven und Freigelassene als Grammatiker und Philologen im Antike Rom (Wiesbaden, 1979), p.108,Google Scholar n. 10. F o r the social background and multiple functions of grammatici, see Rawson (n. 41), pp. 66–67, Raster, R. A., Guardians of Language (Berkeley, 1988), pp.51–55Google Scholar, and for grammaticus as a term of abuse, see Booth, A. D., Florilegium 3 (1981), 1–20Google Scholar. On the nature of the social mobility of freedmen grammatici, see Quinn (n. 16), pp.131–132, and in general, Christes, pp. 179–192. A ‘deluxe edition’, written on special wide papyrus sheets (macrocollum), (Cic. Att. 13.25 [SB 333J.3, 16.3 [SB 413].l), cf.cartae regiae (Cat. 22.6), would require editorial as well as scribal skill; see Quinn (n. 16), p.170. Non-contemporary books were sent as gifts to friends; see Mart. 14. 183–196 with Starr, CQ 37 (1987), 217

⁴⁵ Staberius was later the teacher of Brutus and CJ

⁴⁶ See Christes(n. 44), pp.17–20Google Scholar, and Kaster, Suetonius, pp.110–16; cf. Rawson (n. 41), p. 4, n. 6.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ See Suet. Gram, et rhet. 2.4, with Kaster, Suetonius, ad loc. Lampadio is a slave's name in Plautus's Cistellaria; see Christes (n. 44), pp. 7 – 8, and W. Kroll, RE 17 (1937) ‘Octavius’ (67), col. 1850, Solin, H., Die griechischen Personennamen in Rom (Berlin, New York, 1982), p.95Google Scholar, Leo, F., Plautinische Forschungen (Berlin, 1895), p.29, n. 3, and Geschichte der römischen Literatur i (Berlin, 1913), p. 359.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ ‘Quod orationes nobilissimo cuique scribere solebat’ (Suet. Gram, et rhet. 3.2), with Kaster, Suetonius, pp. 73–77. Rawson (n. 41), p. 76, pointed out that significantly Suetonius did not record Aelius as a grammaticus, but rather as a man who advanced the study of grammar.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ For the identification of Plautius as L. Plotius Gallus see Zetzel, HSCP 11 (1973), 242Google ScholarRawson (n. 41), p. 238, n. 55, and esp. Kaster, Suetonius, p. 292. Censors′ disapproval—Cic. de Orat. 3.93; Suet. Gram, et rhet. 25.2, 26; Quint. Inst. 2.4.42, with Ziegler, K., RE 21.1 (1951) ‘Plotius’ (16), cols.598–601Google Scholar, and Kaster, Suetonius, pp.273–275Google Scholar. Plotius was highly regarded by Marius (Cic. Arch. 20). For the low status of rhetores, see Cic. Orat. 142; Sen. Cont. 2. pr. 5;Marrou, H.I., Histoire de l'éducation dans antiquite ⁶ (Paris, 1965), pp.412–413Google Scholar, and Treggiari, S., Roman Freedmen During the Late Republic (Oxford, 1969), p.118. Treggiari also suggested (p. 117) Plotius's freedman status, but see Kaster, Suetonius, p. 292Google Scholar

⁵⁰ On Atratinus, Austin, R. G., Cicero, Pro M. Caelio Orario ³(Oxford, 1960), appendix vi, pp.154–157Google Scholar, and Kaster, Suetonius, pp.294–297.Google Scholar

⁵¹ That Suetonius (Gram, et rhet. 2.4) mentioned Lampadio only in connection with Naevius's Bellum Punicum does not prove that Lampadio did not also work on the text of Ennius, or of Cato. Nor does it prove a bogus autograph; contra Zetzel, HSCP 77 (1973), 242Google Scholar;Timpanaro, cf. S. (n. 41), pp.38–39.Google Scholar

⁵² For Plotius and Marius see Cic. Arch. 20. Plotius almost certainly was the man who taught Latin rhetoric to the popularis annalist Gaius Licinius Macer (Cic. Leg. 1.7); cf. Rawson (n. 41), p. 78. This is not to say that Plotius's teaching was necessarily attacked by the censors because of popularis connections or that his teachings were part of a popularis program; see Gruen, E. S., Studies in Greek Culture and Roman Policy (Leiden, 1990), pp.180–181Google Scholar, with n. 95, and Kaster, Suetonius, pp.273–275Google Scholar, 293.

⁵³ Kenter, L. P., M. Tullius Cicero, De Legibus: A Commentary on Book I (Amsterdam, 1972), p.45, held that Cicero here referred to Plotius.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ On C. Titius see Cic. Brut. 167.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ ‘However he wrote orations which others delivered, for Q. Metellus, son of…, for Quintus Caepio, for Quintus Pompeius Rufus,… I am amazed however that Cotta, himself a great orator and by no means lacking in judgment, should have been willing to let the trivial little speeches of Aelius be thought his own’; and see Brut. 169.

⁵⁶ Contra Kaster, Suetonius, pp.76–77Google Scholar, whose argument is based on a narrow interpretation of Cicero's words, his enim scriptis etiam ipse interfui (Brut. 207). Cicero did not have high regard for the speeches of Numidicus; an attitude not shared by others.Cf. Cic. Brut. 135 and the opinions canvassed by Bardon, H., La littérature latine inconnue (Paris, 1952), p.100.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Aulus Gellius, who refers to the speeches of Numidicus at 1.6, 7.11.2, 12.9.4, and 15.14, seems to have used a collection of Numidicus's works and Aelius is a likely compiler; see Hornsby, H. M., A. Gellii Noctium Atticarum Liber I (Dublin, 1936), p.92.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Setaioli, A., SO 51 (1978), 105–120CrossRefGoogle Scholar, argued cogently for ‘ early’ publication (general access) of Cicero's letters.

⁵⁹ See McDermott, W. C., ‘M.Cicero and M. Tiro’, Historia 21 (1972), 259–286.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ On the meanings of emendare see Zetzel, J. E. G., CP 75 (1980), 38–59Google Scholar, esp. 41 and 56, and Timpanaro(n. 41), pp.23–24.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Zetzel, HSCP 11 (1973), 242, also attacked the genuineness of Fronto's Tironian manuscript by identifying it with a document which he considered to be undoubtedly forged, that is the liber Tironianus discussed by Aulus Gellius at 1.7. Iff., and 13.21.15. But that Gellius's Tiro was a forgery has been questioned by Timpanaro (n. 41), pp. 203–205. Even if it were, there is no compelling reason to think that Fronto was referring to the same manuscript.Google Scholar

⁶² ‘In truth, we who have given ourselves to the bondage of guarding over the ears of the cultured, must attend to these fine and subtle [distinctions] with the greatest care’ (Ad M. Caes. 4.3.6).

⁶³ Notare—Quint.Inst. 10.3.33, Gel. 9.4.5;adnotare—Gel. pr. 2;excerpere—Cic. Inv. 2.4, Plin. Ep. 3.5.10, Suet.Aug 86.3; see ThLL 5.2, 1227, 1. 77ff.

⁶⁴ Hypomnemata (long enough that Cicero junior wanted a slave to take them for him)—Cic Fam. 16.21 (SB 337).8. To jot down a name—PI.Rud. 15; lines of poetry or short poems—Gel. 3.3.8, 9.3.4, Mart. 2.6.6 (referring to)vitelliani for which see Mart. 14.9.1; copies from accounts (tabulae)—Cic. Verr. II 1.98, II 2.198; see ThLL 5.2, 1830,1. 68 to 1831, and Horsfall, N., ‘Two Problems of Late Imperial Literary History’, Liverpool Classical Papers 3 (Liverpool, 1993), p.321.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Describere meaning ‘ to copy’ occurs first in Cicero's works. Of the cognates rescribere means to reply (Cic. Q.fr. 3.7 [9] (SB 27).9), or to rewrite so as to correct (Suet. Jul. 56.4, Plin. Ep. 7.9.5). Conscribere means to compose a letter or a literary work (Suet. Nero 15.1, Cic. Att. 11.5 [SB 216].3), or simply to write on something, such as a wall (Plin. Nat. 28.20) or a tablet (Suet. Jut. 81.1); see ThLL 4, 375, 1. 36–377. For perscribere see note 23 above.

⁶⁶ ‘On my orders a great numbers of scribes run in together and deliver to me a copy of the law.’ On this and the following Ciceronian passages see R. Sommer (n. 36), 391ff. The scribes here and at Sull. 42 were probably servi publici; cf. Plut. Gal. 8 and see Th. Mommsen (n. 23), pp. 290–313. When describere otherwise refers to the copying of a public legal inscription (Cic.Att. 2.20 [SB 40].4; Suet.Gaius 41.1) or of a political pamphlet (Cic. Phil. 7.5), its unspecified subject is the Roman people.

⁶⁷ ‘At once I ordered that [the records] be copied by all the scribes, distributed everywhere, and published and made public to the Roman people.’ cf.Plut. Cat.Min. 23.3. For other references to librarii making copies (descibere) see Cic. Fam. 12.17 (SB 204). 2.

⁶⁸ ‘I have even done what no one before me has done, consoled myself with letters. I will send you the book as soon as the copyists have finished copying it. I swear to you, there is no consolation like this. I write all day long.’

⁶⁹ ‘I am so eager to send Varro what I have written, on your advice, that I have already sent to Rome for copying. You shall have it immediately if you wish. I wrote to the copyists to let your people make a copy, if you wished.’

⁷⁰ ‘I n fact I have finished writing it [a rhetorical assignment], so you c an send me something else to write, but my scribe was not present to copy it.’ For transcribere used in this way, see also Cic. N. D. 3.74, Rhet. Her. 4.6, and cf. Plin. Ep. 4.72, and Gel. 2.2.13

⁷¹ ‘Balbus writes to me that he copied On Ends, book five from your manuscript; a book in which I have made changes, admittedly not many, but some nevertheless.’ On the tone of this letter see Sommer (n. 36), 410–411.

⁷² ‘Caerellia ablaze in her wonderful enthusiasm for philosophy no doubt, is copying from your people. She has this very work On Ends. Now, I assure you (being human I may be wrong) that she did not get it from my people—it has never been out of my sight. Moreover, so far from writing two copies they had difficulty in finishing one.’

⁷³ ‘I received the books from Vibius: a poet without skill, and yet he does not know anything! But he is not useless. I am copying and returning them.’ On Alexander of Ephesus see Strabo 14.1.25.

⁷⁴ ‘I have been working hard on the book on oratory. It has been in my hands for a very long time. You can copy it.’ Cf. Att. 4.6 (SB 83).3, and see Sen.Cons.Polyb. 6.3,‘ omnes illi, qui opera ingenii tui laudant, qui describunt,…’Transcribere is used in the same sense at Plin. Nat. 14.33, Sen. Ben. 1.3.8, Curt. 9.1.34, and Ovid, Met. 7.173.

⁷⁵ See Kühner-Stegmann 100.26.6, where other examples are cited.

⁷⁶ Since at the time the usage would have been formed, the world of the books at Rome was in large measure a Greek world—see V. Burr, RLAC (1959), coll. 600 and Reynolds & Wilson (n. 41), p. 22— it is possible that this use of describere was modelled on the Greek phrase πογρΨαοα τινα.

⁷⁷ Cf. ‘nc.nomenque Campanorum a Q. Flacco deleri sinerent’—‘lest they permit the name of the Campanians to be wiped out by Q. Flaccus’ (Livy 26.27.11); ‘Teutoni a Mario tracidati’—‘the Teutoni were slaughtered by Marius’ (Julius Obsequens, Prod. 44); ‘multi… bello a Severo superati sunt’—‘many men… were defeated in war by Severus’ (SHA, Severus 12.5)

⁷⁸ See e.g. Cic.Att. 13.22 (SB 329).3 and see Sommer (n. 36), esp. 409–411.

⁷⁹ On scale see Nepos, Att. 13.3. Note the comment of E. J. Kenney, CHCLII, p. 20, ‘What Atticus did on a large scale and in a way that happens to be well documented, many others must have done to the extent that their more limited resources allowed’. Sommer (n. 36), 415, demonstrated the limited productivity of even Atticus's copyists and stressed the role of other contemporaries in the copying and distribution of Cicero's works.

⁸¹ He is mentioned only here in Fronto's letter and perhaps again as the third person listed in a subscription of Statilius Maximus on the manuscript of Cicero's speeches contra Rullum: ‘emendavi ad Tyronem et Laetanianum et Dom. et alios veteres’; see Zetzel, HSCP 77 (1973), 228.Google Scholar

⁸² For the process of producing and distributing literary texts, with variations noted, see Sommer (n. 36), 403–414Google Scholar;Kleberg (n. 15), pp.43–50Google Scholar;Quinn (n. 16), pp.169–170Google Scholar; and Starr, CQ 37 (1987), 213–223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸³ ‘That speech of mine copied by your hand.’

⁸⁴ To excuse turning in an assignment late, Marcus pleaded that his scribe was absent: ‘ego adeo perscripsi (tu mitte aliud quod scribam), sed librarius meus non praesto fuit qui transcriberet’ (AdM. Caes. 5.41.1); see above, note 70. Fronto read and corrected such texts by hand, see Ad Am. 2.1, ‘legam libenter itaque ut soleo corrigam quantum manus, quae infirmissimae sunt, tolerare potuerunt’; cf. Plin. Ep. 7.9.16. Fronto also listened to readings and corrected them orally, Ad. M. Caes. 4.3.3. For Marcus's writing letters to his friends sua manu see Dio 71.36.2 and Ad M. Caes. 4.8.1. For his regular practice of dictating see Ad M. Caes. 4.7.1.

⁸⁵ Marcus was not, therefore, an amateur calligrapher such as the fourth century Furius Dionysius Filocalus, on whom see Cameron, A., ‘Filocalus and Melania’, CP 87 (1992), 140–144;Google Scholar or Theodosius II, whose sobriquet was καλλιγρΦος, see Jahn, O., Ber d sachs Ges d Wiss zu Leipzig, Phil Hist Klasse 3 (1851), 342–345,Google ScholarMomigliano, cf. A., Essays on Ancient and Modern Historiography (Oxford, 1977), p.152Google Scholar. For other later examples see Cameron, A., The Greek Anthology (Oxford, 1993), pp.130–131.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ This is especially so of the early correspondence; see Cugusi (n. 28), pp. 252ff.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ The case involved a disputed will, but the details are obscure. It is not even certain that Fronto ever delivered the speech. For a discussion see Champlin, E., Fronto and the Antonine Age (Cambridge, MA, 1980), pp.61–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the chronology of the letters, see Champlin, JRS 64 (1974), 136–59, esp. 141; Cugusi (n. 27), pp. 240ff.; and van den Hout (n. 40), pp. 292–4.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Passages chosen by Fronto—‘orationis meas particulas, quas excerpseram’ (Ad M. Caes. 1.7.2); recommendation to cite passages from famous orators and historians—Quint. Inst. 2.7.1–4; declaiming before fathers—Inst. 2.7.2. Quintilian recommended declamationes for polished orators as well as for students;Inst. 10.5.14.

⁸⁹ ‘Actio, inquam, in dicendo una dominatur’ (Cic. de Orat. 3.213).

⁹⁰ Quintilian treated all these in great detail;Inst. 11.3.1 –149. In Ad M. Caes. 1.7.2, Fronto wrote ‘qua in re et oculos mihi tuos utendos et vocem et gestum et inprimis animun accommodasti’—‘on doing all this you lent me the use of your eyes and voice and gesture and above all, of your mind.’

⁹¹ On Antonius the orator—‘erat memoria summa, nulla meditationis suscipio; imparatus semper aggredi ad dicendum videbatur, sed ita erat paratus… ’ (Brut. 139). At Brut. 301, Cicero commented on Hortensius's powerful memory. For Quintilian see Inst. 11.3.12, ‘nam certe bene pronuntiare non potuit, cui aut in scriptis memoria… defuerit’—‘For certainly he would be unable to speak well who could not remember what he had wrote.’ For the continued importance of spontaneity see Gleason, Maud W., Making Men, Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome (Princeton, 1995), p.53.Google Scholar On classical Greek orators learning speeches by heart but appearing spontaneous see Hudson-Williams, H. LI., ‘Political Speeches in Athens’, CQ 45 (1951), 68–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹² See Cic. de Orat. 2.350–60; lengthier descriptions in Rhet. Her. 3.29–40 and Quint. Inst. 11.2.17–22. For memory and rhetoric see Rhet. Her. 3.28;Cic. de Orat. 2.355–60;Quint. Inst. 11.2.8–9, 11.2.40ff., 1.1.35. For memoria as one of the five officia oratoris see Rhet. Her. 1.3; Inv. 1.7.9;Cic. de Orat. 1.142–143.

⁹³ ‘The same [method] will be less effective in memorizing parts of a completed speech’ (Inst. 11.2.24); ‘but how can a series of words be learned by the same method?’ (Inst. 11.2.25); see also Rhet. Her. 2.21–39, where the visual method's deficiencies are admitted.

⁹⁴ ‘This will help everyone, to memorize from the same wax tablets that one has written on. For one will follow the memory by certain tracks and one will fix one's eyes not only on the passages, but also on the lines’ (Inst. 11.2.32); ‘thus it happens that what we write over the course of many days in order to memorize it, we retain by virtue of the mental effort itself (Inst. 11.2.10).

⁹⁵ Marcus wrote letters and extracts with a pen,‘… et haec ad te eodem calamo scribo’ (Ad. M. Caes. 2.7).

⁹⁶ Quintilian referred to it in a series of practical tips (Inst. 11.2.27ff.) which were characterized as ‘of a simple and technical sort’ by Kennedy, G., The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World 300 BC—AD 300 (Princeton, 1972), p.505Google Scholar, who gave it no further comment. The technique was not commented on by Blum, H., Die antike Mnemotechnik (Hildesheim, 1969).Google Scholar

⁹⁷ ‘Sota Ennianus remissus a te et in charta puriore et volumine gratiore et littera festiviore quam antea fuerat videtur’ (Ad. M. Caes. 4.2.6), noted by Timpanaro (n. 41), p. 199.

⁹⁸ ‘For every letter of yours I imagine that I possess a consulship, a victory crown, a triumph, and a triumphal robe.’

⁹⁹ The relationship between Fronto and Marcus was obviously close enough that a comparison to a copyist or an actor would not offend Marcus.

¹⁰⁰ The one questionable item, Lampadio's Cato (see above, p. 480), should not be pressed. Under the circumstances in which the letter was written, we simply cannot know how much credence either Fronto or Marcus placed in each and every name. So Timpanaro (n. 41), p. 198, ‘si è trovato nella necessita di “imbrogliare un po le carte”.’

¹⁰¹ Zetzel, HSCP 11 (1973), 233–239Google Scholar, also argued for forged Vergilian autographs. Lucian mentioned selling a forged autograph manuscript at Pseudologista 30, and one of the targets of his satire on the ignorant bibliophile is gullibility that could believe that Demosthenes had produced in his own hand not one but eight copies of Thucydides's history (Adv. Indoctum 4) or that Atticus was a himself a copyist—βιβλιογρΦος (Adv. Indoctum 24; cf. 2 where ‘beautiful copies written with great care by the famous Atticus and Callinus’, are referred to). For the relationship between this passage, T. Pomponius Atticus, and Atticiana editions, see Dziazko, RE 2.2 (1896) (Aττικιαν) cols. 2237–39. Under Roman law only forged wills were illegal, see Speyer (n. 41), p. 89.

¹⁰² Corbier, Cf. (above n. 8), pp.105–107.Google Scholar