When we look closely at what actually happened at these various types of
performances, six very important facts emerge.
- Not only did Romans not go to performances in order to hear
poetry and pass it on to others in the manner of folk songs, it is quite
clear that they did not learn, or expect to learn, any poetry there them-
selves. This can be illustrated by two telling anecdotes from Pliny.
He writes to a friend after attending a three-day-longrecitatio(4.27).
From all of this he manages to remember a mere eight lines (all about
him, and he is a trifle hazy about line 2). But when the poems are published
in a book, he will send his friend a copy.
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In another letter (3.21), he
announces that Martial is dead. He recalls part of a poem (again about
himself; Mart. 10.20.12–21): ‘‘You ask what are the verses that won my
gratitude. I would refer you to the very book-roll, if I did not have some of
them by heart. If you like these,you can look up the rest in the book.’’
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A poem of Martial shows the same thing (2.6.1–10):
I nunc, edere me iube libellos.
Lectis uix tibi paginis duabus
spectas eschatocollion, Seuere,
et longas trahis oscitationes.
Haec sunt, quae relegente me solebas
rapta exscribere, sed Vitellianis;
haec sunt, singula quae sinu ferebas
per conuiuia cuncta, per theatra;
haec sunt aut meliora si qua nescis.(Now go and tell me to publish my poetry books. You’ve only read two
pages and you’re already looking for the final sheet, Severus, and heaving up
long sighs. But these are the very poems that, when I reread them to you,
you grabbed and copied out and on Vitellian tablets. These are the ones
you used to carry as individual poems in the fold of your toga to every dinner
party to every theater. These are those poems or even better ones you don’t
know about.)Martial’s friend asked him to read his poems and called for encores at
the time (relegente), but in order to enjoy them later Severus copied them
out on special tablets and read them to himself.
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Pliny and Martial make
it clear. Poetry did not circulate orally. It circulated in books.
- 4.27.5: ‘‘ad hunc gustum, totumlibrumrepromitto, quem tibi, ut primum
publicaverit, exhibebo.’’ - 3.21.4: ‘‘Quaeris, qui sint versiculi, quibus gratiam rettuli? Remitterem te ad ipsum
volumen, nisi quosdam tenerem; tu, si placuerint hi, ceteros in libro requires.’’ Martial
himself is explicit that these very verses arrived at Pliny’s house in the form of a book
(10.20). - Cf. 7.51, in which Pompeius Auctus has memorized and will recite Martial’s verse.
Note: (a) the usual way to learn about a poet’s verse is to buy his books; (b) Pompeius
has learned and memorized Martial, not by attending lectures, but by reading his books;
Books and Reading Latin Poetry 207