Nowadays, when we take a book in our hands, we are not always aware that we are perpetuating a tradition of more than 2000 years of history and that had its origin in the notebooks made up of several wax tablets that the Romans used at the end of the Republic. The word book comes, in fact, from the Latin “liber ” that alluded to the bark of the tree used as the support of the wax tablets used to write letters, notes or short texts.
Although, in any case, the usual form of the book in imperial Rome was the papyrus scroll. The stems of the plant were cut and pressed to obtain fine strips that were later intertwined horizontally and vertically to obtain sheets of about seven or eight meters in length, ready for use. The text was arranged in columns, so the reader had to unroll the book with one hand while rolling it up with the other. But the fragility of the papyrus roll, the fact that a single work required several volumes or rolls to contain it, and the higher cost of the material meant that from the 4th century A.D. the parchment codex will triumph made with dried animal skins:cheaper and more manageable, prevailing over the roll. Except for poems and letters, which were normally written by the author himself, the rest of the literary genres were dictated to one or more copyists. This is how Caesar, Cicero or the two Pliny did it.
The publishing business
Once the author had finished the original manuscript, he began the circuit of the book itself. Some authors who worked by dictation used their own copyists, usually slaves or freedmen, to produce some private copies that they distributed freely among friends with the double purpose of making a gift and gathering criticism or advice for the future commercial edition. It was also usual for authors to organize public readings of their manuscripts but they rarely motivated a sincere interest among those invited to listen to them, since they were so common and of such varied interest that Pliny says that it was a rare day when there was not one or two in Rome. When the reading was carried out before the edition and sale of copies, the comments of the attendees were decisive when it came to encouraging publishers to invest or not in the publication. The figure of the publisher in Ancient Rome has in Titus Pomponius Atticus to his highest representative. He was a man of vast culture and great economic resources, who became the exclusive publisher of the works of Cicero around the 50s B.C.
You are going to allow me a small aside since we are talking about Cicero... Marco Tulio Tirón he was a slave of Cicero who performed the duties of what would today be a personal secretary. Tiro was to take note of everything Cicero ordered; on many occasions of everything that was deliberated in the Senate. To do this, he developed an abbreviated writing system that allowed him to faithfully transcribe speeches and letters at the same speed at which they were spoken. That system was called Tironian notes . The use of these notes, being useful and practical, later spread throughout the Empire and the specialists in this writing system were called notarii … origin of the term notary. Tironian notes could be considered the origin of shorthand.
Titus Pomplius Atticus
Returning to the edition… Titus Pomponius Atticus's business worked as follows:Cicero delivered his manuscripts to Atticus; he had a copy workshop on the Quirinal mount with a template of copyists (libraries ) and correctors (anagnostas ) that produced in a few weeks many copies of high calligraphic quality. The librarians copied at the dictation of the publisher and, later, the anagnostics corrected the copies. "Print runs" of several dozen copies could be made in a few weeks, although print runs of thousands of copies were never reached as I never learned the list of the Gothic kings o Of the human and the divine . Other well-known publishers were the Sosios brothers , editors of Horace , who owned a business near the arch of Janus; the Greek Doro , editor of the monumental “History ” by Livy Titus; or Tryphon , editor of Quintilian and Martial .
The costs of the edition were borne by the publisher, but if a more luxurious or larger edition was desired, the author had to assume part of the cost. There was also the commissioned edition that used to be financed by some rich reader to whom the author had dedicated his work. Thus published, for example, the poet Estacio .
Collaboration of Edmundo Pérez .
Sources and image:What to read in the ancient world – Miguel Angel Novillo López, Juan Luis Posadas. Photo images