be told to show the democratizing potential of writing. The inclusion in
muchpopularislegislation of clauses requiring its prominent publication
in places ‘‘from which it may be clearly read,’’ even if borrowed from the
epigraphic mannerisms of democratic Athens, strongly suggests some
Romans at least regarded writing as something that might empower the
masses and hold their rulers to account.
A stronger case for connections between imperialism and the expanded
use of writing can be made for the early empire.^9 Thea prioriargument
seems a powerful one. As states grow, their demands on their subjects
expand. State bureaucratization often stimulates greater document use
among its subjects. The more the state puts its faith in written documen-
tation, the more its citizens and subjects have to do the same.
10
Did this
not happen in the Roman provinces? In one formulation
one reason for the growth of literacy was the confrontation of Roman
subjects with Roman power. Subjects wrote petitions and did so in amazing
numbers. They learned the language of the conquerors in order to borrow
the conqueror’s power, and to help protect themselves from exploitation.^11ThisiswonderfullyillustratedfortheRomanempirebythepersonalarchive
of the Jewish woman named Babatha, found in the Cave of Letters on the
shoreoftheDeadSeaanddatingto theearly secondcenturyC.E.^12 Babatha’s
papers comprised thirty-five documents written in Greek, Nabatean, and
Aramaic or a mixture of these languages, with occasional transliterated
Latin terms for Roman institutions. The archive included documents relat-
ing to the sale of land, dates and probably also wine, various marriage
contracts and probably details of a dowry, a bequest, a court summons,
various notices of deposits and loans, a court summons and a deposition,
petitions, and an extract from the minutes of the council of Petra relating to
the guardianship of her son. Much of this was generated by private transac-
tions—both commercial and disputes arising from her complicated family
life. But it was the recourse to law, and to civic and provincial administra-
tion, that generated this mass of material, which she kept with her until her
death in the disturbances arising from the Bar Kokhba war.
Yet again we may choose to emphasize either the power of the state to
entrap its subjects in webs of documentation or the potential opened up
- For a recent exploration of this theme see Draper 2004.
- Clanchy 1993, for example, argues that the Norman conquest led to a fundamental
shift in attitudes toward and uses of writing in England, but also shows that this was simply
an accentuated form of a phenomenon that can be traced all over Europe as centralizing
states encroached on local societies. - Hopkins 1991, 137. Hopkins went on to show from Egyptian examples how the
use of tax receipts, the recruitment of locals as part time tax collectors, and the development
of official archives combined to empower those with the skills to use written texts of
this kind and disadvantage those who did not acquire those skills. - N. Lewis 1989.
Literacy or Literacies in Rome? 49