Ancient Literacies

(Marvins-Underground-K-12) #1

institoresthe Roman jurists conceived of a mass of written communica-


tions linking them and their principals: these included reports, queries,


written instructions, and even a form of written dismissal. We should


probably also envisage the Republicanviliciof urbaninsulae, pottery


workshops, and farms using writing as a means of storing information


for actual or potential auditing. This was certainly the case in the Appi-


anus estate of third centuryC.E. Egypt, the accounts of which were so


detailed they included the cost of the papyrus on which they were


written.^20 Because financial records, even if often compiled by slaves,


ex-slaves, and freeinstitores, have to be potentially auditable and compre-


hensible to landowners, this is not really scribal literacy. Likewise, be-


cause these documents linked the richest men in the community with


their slaves and agents, this is not an example of commercial literacy or


craftsman’s literacy.
21
Roman landowners had good reason not to permit


the development of segregated literacies. The joined-up nature of Roman


writing practices—so different from those of Achaemenid Persia or


Anglo-Norman England—owed a good deal to the fact that the land-


owning classes of Rome also formed the political and military elite.
Perhaps the aristocratic household was the key node, the place where


most forms of writing came together. If so, then slavery was the key


institutional and cultural context. Slaves educated their masters’ children


and kept records of their property; they transcribed literary compositions


and compiled business letters alike. They kept complex accounts


(rationes) and must have managed some information systems if only in


connection with enterprises like leasing property or ensuring that indi-


vidual businesses were adequately supplied and made a reasonable return.


As managers of remote farms and productive enterprises, some slaves and


ex-slaves received their instructions and returned accounts in written


form.^22 As domestic slavery, supported by ever more complex legal


instruments, emerged as the key managerial mechanism for private and


public business alike, so writing provided its essential operating system.


Magistrates, and especially those serving away from Rome, relied on


their trusted slaves to assist them in their official functions. The ‘‘short


account of the entire empire,’’ passed on to the senate with Augustus’s


will, famously itemized not only the empire’s financial and military


resources but also those members of hisfamiliafrom whom more detailed


rationesmight be sought.
23
The imperial household is just the best


attested example of the use of domestics to conduct public business.


The long-term consequences can only be sketched here. Societies in


which multiple literacies coexist, distinguishable by language, function,



  1. On which Rathbone 1991.

  2. Harris 1989 for explanation of these terms.

  3. Aubert 1994 for all this.

  4. Suetonius,Divus Augustus101.


52 Situating Literacies

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