Thanks to Valette-Cagnac, Dupont, Johnson, and others, a more balanced
picture has emerged, and we can begin from two obvious facts. First, the
Romans read to themselves; second, the Romans read to each other.
Because the first fact oddly enough seems to be in danger of being
forgotten or ignored, it needs to be pointed out that Romans did in fact
read books while alone. We discover people reading all the time, with no
need for, or mention of, company. I have chosen a few examples, out of
potentially hundreds, in which the circumstances are sufficiently detailed
to let us know that the reader had the book in his own hands and was
reading by himself.
29
So, Cicero goes down to young Lucullus’s villa to
consult some books of Aristotle. There he bumps into Cato, who is sitting
in the library, surrounded by piles of Stoic philosophers, reading all by
himself.
30
In a later anecdote, Cato reads thePhaedoall alone just before
he commits suicide. He does not read aloud to friends; he does not get a
lectorto read to him. He reads and rereads the book by himself inside his
tent and then stabs himself.
31
Several jokes by Martial crucially depend on
the social fact that people regularly read alone. In 3.68.11–12 after a
warning to thematronathat the poems are now going to get a little blue:
Si bene te noui, longum iam lassa libellum
ponebas, totum nunc studiosa leges.- Most examples oflegere(and its derivatives) do not, of course, specify that the reader
is alone, because reading alone is the unmarked case. Two examples. Sen.Ep. 46: Seneca has
received a new book from Lucilius; he has read it himself and is going to reread it; the
style and the effect areas ifhe had heard it: ‘‘De libro plura scribam cum illum retractavero;
nunc parum mihi sedet iudicium, tamquam audierim illa, non legerim.’’ Note the contrast
betweenlegerimandaudierim. So, too, in the famous misunderstood anecdote about
AmbroseConf. 6.3: ‘‘cum quibus quando non erat, quod perexiguum temporis erat, aut
corpus reficiebat necessariis sustentaculis aut lectione animum’’ (‘‘When he was not with the
crowds, which was only for the briefest of moments, he refreshed his body with the
minimum of necessary food or his mind with reading’’); that is, reading isassumedto
be solitary. The marked case of reading aloud has its own proper term:recitare. See
Valette Cagnac 1997, 26 7, on etymology and semantics: ‘‘D’ou`l’emploi privile ́gie ́du
verbelegereen contexte prive ́, pour de ́signer une lecture individuelle, solitaire.’’ - Cic.Fin. 3.7 10 (the setting for the third dialogue): ‘‘quo cum venissem,
M. Catonem, quem ibi esse nescieram, vidi in bibliotheca sedentem multis circumfusum
Stoicorum libris. erat enim, ut scis, in eo aviditas legendi, nec satiari poterat, quippe qui ne
reprehensionem quidem vulgi inanem reformidans in ipsa curia soleret legere saepe, dum
senatus cogeretur.... quo magis tum in summo otio maximaque copia quasi helluari libris,
si hoc verbo in tam clara re utendum est, videbatur.’’ (‘‘When I got there, I saw M. Cato,
who I didn’t know was there, sitting in the library surrounded by many books of the Stoics.
His zeal for reading was so great, you know, and unsatisfiable, that disdaining the empty
censure of the mob, he was accustomed to read even in the Curia while the senate was
assembling.... All the more then, when at complete leisure and with such a supply, he
seemed to be having a veritable orgy of books, if one can use such an expression of so
important a matter.’’) Cf. Plut.Cat. Min. 19. The whole scene shows how common were
reading, reading by oneself, and reading silently to oneself (Cicero does not mention
hearing Cato vocalizing as he snuck up on him). - Plut.Cat. Min. 68 70, App.BC2.98 99, Dio 43.11.2 5.
196 Books and Texts