by these strategies of control to those subjects who were able to master
writing or gain access to those who had. This is a very different situation to
that in, say, the Achaemenid empire. If we turn for a moment to literary
production, here, too, recent scholarship has made less of the exclusive
social circles from which almost all ancient authors emerge and more of
the observation that it is hard to find a text written in the imperial period
that does not ‘‘write back’’ to empire.^13 Literary texts claim authority
independent of the state from a variety of sources: from divine inspiration,
on the basis of philosophical argument, or simply by inserting themselves
in a canon that predates the emperors. Writing was at best a technology
that might be employed by subject as well as ruler. Perhaps it was even
more important to subjects than it was to rulers, given the emperors’
greater capacity to claim a monopoly of violence and ceremony.
More indirect links are more plausible. For instance, the appropriation
of elite writing practices by a wider social circle has sometimes been
explained as being part of the process through which a new urban culture
emerged during the middle Republic. Take, for example, this interpre-
tation of the complex lore and practices that surrounded the popular
Roman game of dicing (alea).
Thears aleatoriais essentially a cultural skill. The surrounding of quite
simple games with complex intellectual paraphernalia is a familiar phenom
enon. The passionate and exclusive detail with which the culture of the
racegoer or football supporter is maintained, forming a kind of parody
academic system, is an obvious case; it might be seen as a calque on a fact
based education curriculum as the perverted numeracy of the train spotter
is on the elementary mathematics and science of the same educational
philosophy. The cultural panoply of the game ofaleais likewise an offshoot
of the world of e ́lite literary culture, orliterae.^14The idea of a calque or parody implies that popular knowledge is in
some respects secondary to that mastered by the social elite.^15 This may
well have been the case in ancient Rome. The Roman e ́lite playedalea,
but not allaleaplayers had access to the educational curriculum described
by Quintilian or documented in the schoolbooks.
16
The kind of cognitive
skills required for the game were developed in one context—e ́lite educa-
tion—and then entered wider circulation through other less socially
circumscribed activities. But it was the fact that the adopters were already
familiar with these skills that made the transfer possible. An indirect
- A theme of Goldhill 2001.
- Purcell 1995, 31.
- Secondary in sequence clearly, but there is often an implication, too, of inappropri
ate appropriation, or a debasement consequent on vulgarization. As Purcell makes clear,
aleatoresranged in status from emperors to the soldiers at the foot of the cross. - For comparison of which, see Morgan 1998, Cribiore 1996.
50 Situating Literacies