Out of the Hands of Slaves: A Comparative History of the Roman book production Economy

In the modern world, literature, and text in general, is so ubiquitous and presented in so many varied forms that we take the act of creating textual media for granted. Modern “authors” are able to create shareable works from anywhere, in a variety of typefaces, and at negligible repeated cost. The modern literary economy is so widespread that even as I acknowledge the carelessness with which we treat the written word, I create my analysis with taps of my fingers while music plays in my ears. While the scribes who created the works which have survived to us from antiquity would no doubt envy the ease with which works are created and copied today, their jealousy would not be limited to the act of production itself.

By nature of the economy and culture of the Roman Empire, the facilitators and writers of the ancient book economy were, first and foremost, slaves. While the extent of the network of book shops and the prices of the scrolls is subject to much scrutiny, it is clear that the works of authors and orators such as Cicero, Pliny, and Virgil were created, copied, and preserved by men who did not have dominion over their own lives. Our modern conception of slavery is based largely on the image of the plantation in the antebellum South, yet slave culture in antiquity was a much different entity. Instead of largely being used as tools of agricultural production, Roman slaves worked as scribes, doctors, teachers, and miners, along with farming crops for the empire as well. The lives of the creators of ancient literature, along with the constraints of technology and trade of the period, contributed to an economy of book production which served a much smaller group of consumers than our modern literary economy, yet required a much larger sacrifice of human life and liberty to function.

The main unit of literature production and copying in ancient Rome was that of the store of the bookseller. These wealthy merchants functioned as publishers, copiers, and distributors, and thus collected the lion’s share of the profits within the industry, with the leftovers being distributed to the authors of the works and their wealthy patrons. However, the hands which created these works, given names such as notarius, amenuensis, and librarius, received nothing in return. The nonexistent cost of labor, the vertical ownership of booksellers within the market, and the high demand for literature of all kinds within Roman culture led to enormous profits for the booksellers. Much of what we know and assume about Roman booksellers is derived from quotes from authors such as Horace and Ovid on the merchants who sold their works, as well as from letters by Cicero to his friend Atticus, the most historically-renowned Roman bookseller.

Atticus is described by Cicero as an exemplary Roman, just and honorable, scholarly and generous to his friends. Originally from Athens, the man who came to be known to history by his cognomen Atticus rose to prominence by employing an enormous staff of librarii, or copying slaves. According to Cicero’s letters, he was successful enough in his trade to allow his friends, namely Cicero, to use the services of his slaves free of charge. However, most Roman booksellers were not so charitable with the authors whose works they sold, as evidenced by the remarks of the very same authors on the way their books were sold. Even Horace, viewed by many classicists as a softer writer, described booksellers as pimps and his works as prostitutes, saying that his poems were “on the game, all tarted up with the cosmetics of Sosius & Co.” The ire which poets such as Horace directed at the booksellers was largely baseless, however, as successful authors enjoyed lives of luxury courtesy of their wealthy patrons. However, Horace’s metaphor still holds true for the relationship between shop owners and their librarii. As the slaves labored without pay with bent backs and cramped hands, vendors such as Atticus charged the same amount it took to feed a family of four for a year at a time for a high-quality copy of 500 lines.

As for the exact process which the librarii and other slaves had to repeat, my recent experience in scroll production has given me a small taste of the boredom and discomfort which the task of creating the Roman version of a book causes. The scrolls which the librarii would eventually write on were created in Egypt, where papyrus leaves were layered and pressed together to create a dry, relatively durable writing surface. Merchants would then ship the rolls of papyrus to men like Atticus, who would then task their slaves with writing and copying whatever work they had been commissioned to reproduce. Since papyrus only grew in one place, Egypt, it was a costly material, so there was precious little room for a scribe to make a mistake in the script.

The primary script which high-quality scrolls would be written in was capitalis rustica, a script adapted for the written word from the uniformly linear capitalis quadrata, which was used on monuments such as the famous phrase adorning the front of the Parthenon in Rome. Librarii would have written the letters of the script using a reed pen, creating columns from left to right on the papyrus rolls. Due to the aesthetic preferences of the period, no space was given between the words, creating even more difficulties for a scribe attempting to copy a work for a wealthy client. Mistakes were relatively common, and the frequency of mistakes created by each bookshop, as well as each scribe, was well noted by the wealthy patrons of the stores. According to a list of prices from the third century AD, prices for both copies and original were scaled based both on the quality of the letters themselves, as well as the propensity for errors within the text.

Regarding my personal experience with the creation of a papyrus scroll and how it relates to the process which scribes repeated their whole lives, the production of 150 lines for personal edification cannot match the effect of copying and creating script for a lifetime. I was able to draw peace and personal satisfaction from the improvement of my writing and the accomplishment of the task, enough to at least balance out the negative effects of cramped hands, aching back, and sore eyes. However, it was apparent that these positive experiences were not true indicators of the life of a scribe in antiquity. First, the relative benefits of job satisfaction would decrease with time due to the accumulated effects of the writing process. Second, the large part of the benefits I experienced helped me in relation to my life outside of this project. The ability to relate the experience of creating a scroll to the rest of my life is not one I share with a librarius or a similar slave since, for the scribe, the process of scroll creation was their entire life.

Similar to the disparity between my experience creating a scroll and the life of a scribe in antiquity, the clearest differences between ancient book production and the modern literary economy lie in the target audience of the works produced, and the human effect of the production of the works themselves. Due to the high cost of papyrus, the high profit margins of the booksellers, and the literary culture of the time, scrolls in antiquity were exclusively created for the wealthy. Well-documented in both primary sources and secondary analysis, the private readings held by both authors and their patrons were decadent affairs intended to support the prestige and social standing of the host. As stated above, the cost of a high-quality work equated the cost of feeding a family of four for a year, so the possession of even a modest collection of literary works was an extravagance only the most upper-class Romans could afford. While literacy is not a given in the modern world, the widespread availability of books and the advent of e-texts allows for a much larger and more economically diverse market for the consumption of literature.

As technology has lowered the entry cost for the consumption of books, so has it facilitated a much broader production of books. While the life of a paper factory worker is by no means a life of ease, it pales in comparison to the hardships endured to the slaves who facilitated the production of scrolls in antiquity, from the manufacturing of the papyrus to the copying of texts. Innovations in book production, from the Gutenberg press to pulp paper production to e-books, have minimized the human cost of literature. While purists can bemoan the lack of intrinsic value of the written word in modern culture, the reduction in the human effect of the preservation of creations of authors, as well as the increase in accessibility of the same creations, from the book production methods in antiquity to the modern day is a progression which has undoubtedly improved the cumulative power of literature itself.

Annotated Bibliography:

My information on papyrus production comes from: Bagnall, Roger S. The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

My information on the Roman book economy comes from: Beard, Mary. "Scrolling Down the Ages." New York Times, April 16, 2009. Accessed May 16, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/books/review/Beard-t.html?_r=0.

My information on the lives of slaves comes from: Cartwright, Mark. "Slavery in the Roman World." Ancient History Encyclopedia. November 1, 2013. Accessed May 16, 2016. http://www.ancient.eu/article/629/.

My information on the greater book economy in antiquity comes from: Johnson, William A. Bookrolls and Scribes in Oxyrhynchus. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004.

My information on the specifics of Book Economies comes from: Norman, Jeremy. "Economic Aspects of Book Production and Bookselling." Economic Aspects of Book Production and Bookselling. June 16, 2011. Accessed May 16, 2016. http://www.historyofinformation.com/narrative/economic-aspects.php.

My information on Atticus comes from: Watson, J.S., Rev. "Cornelius Nepos: Life of Atticus." Cornelius Nepos: Life of Atticus. Accessed May 16, 2016. http://www.attalus.org/translate/atticus.html.

A general contextual survey of the Roman Book Economy can be found in: Winsbury, Rex. The Roman Book. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2009.