he concluded that the manuscripts that carried them must have been
fakes.^42 And from anecdotes in Aulus Gellius showing that such manu-
scripts were sold for exorbitant prices in Roman shops, he made a case
that the prime beneficiaries of the fraud would have been booksellers.^43
Dealers inevitably knew more than most customers about the provenance
and physical attributes of manuscripts, and it would be surprising if they
never manipulated their advantage in order to increase profits.
BOOKSHOPS AND LITERARY PERFORMANCE
I want now to connect the two strands of my argument, and to suggest
that the business orientation of Roman bookshops impinged on the
sociability they fostered to produce a distinctive mode of engagement
with texts. But the point will be clearer if I begin with some alternative
models of socioliterary intercourse.
One such model is the public presentation at which an author delivers a
reading from his work. The phenomenon of recitation has been so well
studied that the salient features will be quickly recalled.^44 At a recitation, a
single person reads while others listen, having no textual material to orient
or distract them. The reader’s script is not only unfamiliar to most of the
audience, it is not yet publicly available; as a rule, it is not yet a finished
book. The reader occupies a physically distinct space from everybody else,
a platform or open area that marks him as a performer. Yet in his per-
formance, unlike an actor’s or an orator’s, the written text serves as a
crucial prop and accompaniment. The audience does not gather casually
but has been recruited by invitation, and predominantly from members of
the capital elite. Among dozens of anecdotes about Roman recitations, not
one points to the presence of cultural professionals such as Greek literati,
or grammarians, or booksellers. The reciter’s performance is not normally
interrupted except by applause, nor is it followed by critical discussion.
Although the purpose of the occasion is ostensibly to try out work in
progress before a live audience, what the reciter looks for is not an
explicit critique, but signs of enthusiasm or ennui from listeners during
- Timpanaro 1986, 33 42 and 200 9, defending the value of the indirect tradition for
establishing the text of Vergil, prefers to take the more charitable view that these manuscripts
were indeed old, just not as old as their dealers and purchasers believed. In that case, the
booksellers profited from their honest mistakes. - The practice of booksellers in Rome would thus parallel what is reported of their
practice elsewhere. LucianInd. 1 accuses them of peddling phony antiquarian manuscripts,
and other sources (Comm. in Aristot. Graec. 18.128.5 9 and D.Chr.Or. 21.12) describe the
antiquing of papyrus by sellers of fakes. - Recent treatments of recitation at Rome include Binder 1995, Dupont 1997, and
Valette Cagnac 1997, 111 69, but Funaioli 1914 has not been superseded.
282 Institutions and Communities