vocalizing in the transmittal of turns of phrase, metrical patterns, sound
effects, and the like. More generally, Wachter’s paper speaks to the way
in which elite artistic forms, then as now, routinely derive their energy
from popular traditions of singing, speaking, dancing, and depicting—a
point that will become relevant later in this chapter. Working outside
the mainstream of classical studies, linguist B. G. Campbell in 2001
further complicated our understanding of the relationship between read-
ing, writing, and listening in a monograph entitledPerforming and Process-
ing the Aeneid. There Campbell demonstrates that various stylistic
features of Vergilian epic can best be understood if we recognize
that the poem is to be processed orally. The suppression of anaphoric in
favor of deictic pronouns, the use of conjunctions for structural as op-
posed to strictly syntactic purposes, the foregrounding of key ideas: these
and other features make for a text that is easy for a listener to process
the first time through. Of course skeptics may still claim that all
this shows is that Vergil wrote his poem to make it seem like something
that could be read aloud, a ‘‘fiction of orality,’’ as it were; but thanks to
Campbell, Johnson, and others, the burden of proof would seem once and
for all to be on those who want to turn classical Roman audiences into
medieval monks or modern scholars. In Campbell’s case, we seem to
have confirmation of the argument Eduard Fraenkel made long ago that
Vergil could not have written theAeneidwithout first listening to Roman
oratory.^5
All of the works just cited—and the list could go on—demonstrate the
untenability of traditional accounts of Roman literacy. Literacy and oral-
ity are not mutually exclusive in Rome or in any other culture; nor can
Rome’s adoption of writing and reading be positioned on some imaginary
continuum between archaic Greek song culture and medieval scholasti-
cism or early modern print culture. Rome interacted with its Greek,
Etruscan, and Oscan neighbors, and we surely must consider the possi-
bility that its literacy practices were affected by theirs. But this is far from
saying that Rome partakes in a teleological movement culminating in us—
where reading and writing are concerned, or anything else for that matter.
Literacy must be situated at Rome, or better, in various specific contexts
at Rome.
6
The present paper aims to begin the project of situating Roman
literacy by viewing it from three perspectives—diachronic, synchronic,
and, for lack of a better term, ontological. How does the social impact and
significance of literacy at Rome change over time? How do the uses of
literacy at Rome differ from those found in other ancient societies? What
do Roman practices of reading and writing tell us about the Roman
understanding of what writing is and is not?
- Fraenkel 1926/7.
- For the concept of literacy as a ‘‘situated practice,’’ see Barton et al. 2000.
Situating Literacy at Rome 115