Ancient Literacies

The book therefore differs from the other supports for writing in that it is autonomous. What is written on it is read for itsel ...

THE LIBRARY IN THE MUSEUM OF ALEXANDRIA: READING FOR WRITING The Alexandrian book, like that of classical Greece, is a papyrus r ...

these are only compilations, anthologies, commentaries, or imitations of the ancient authors whose original utterances^9 they th ...

temporal distance. Callimachus publishes written texts that are like the transcription of virtual oral works, uttered in another ...

thekleosof the artist, such as this one, which is addressed to a bull instead of a passerby (9.734): O bull, in vain you mount t ...

The material beauty of the book is frequently evoked in Roman poetry. Thus Catullus (22.1–11) gives a meticulous description of ...

circulate from friend to friend. Here is what Catullus writes in an epigram in the form of letter addressed to his friend Calvus ...

in turn to Catullus. Catullus as a joke says he will get his revenge by buying badbooksatabookseller,whichhewillgiveinreturn(rem ...

The dedication defines at the same time a recipient (the reader) and a beneficiary of the gift. Thevolumen, polished with pumice ...

There, says Horace, he will be raised to the ranks of thevates, the Greek singers, inspired (calcar) like Hesiod by the Muses of ...

is delicate and a succession of lovers (amator) is enough to ruin the book (laeserit), and then the Romans will quickly get tire ...

epistolary genre, according to the Alexandrian canon, a genre connected to satire but more mild. The poet’s glorious career—atte ...

when the epic is very old (cana), people will still unroll the scroll, because it has been recopied and preserved thanks to his ...

cannot come to plead his cause himself. Ultimately, the destiny that Augustus allots to it will ensure (or not) the safety of it ...

aspicies illic positos ex ordine fratres, quos studium cunctos euigilauit idem. cetera turba palam titulos ostendet apertos, et ...

But their poetic form is justified by a second fictive utterance: they are songs of mourning. Ovid is the new Orpheus sent on a ...

sed neque cui recitem quisquam est mea carmina, nec qui auribus accipiat verba Latina suis. ipse mihi quid enim faciam? scriboqu ...

can tear down, not even the innumerable succession of years and the flight of time.) The beginning of this text is strange to sa ...

Sume superbiam quaesitam meritis et mihi Delphica lauro cinge uolens, Melpomene, comam. (Take the pride you have so richly earne ...

Nicolet, Claude. 1994. ‘‘Ala recherche des archives oublie ́es: une contribution a l’histoire de la bureaucratie romaine.’’ InLa ...