Transcriber’s note

Variable spelling and hyphenation have been retained. Minor punctuation inconsistencies have been silently repaired. A list of the changes made can be found [at the end of the book].

AUTHORS AND THEIR PUBLIC IN ANCIENT TIMES

AUTHORS AND THEIR PUBLIC
IN ANCIENT TIMES

A SKETCH OF LITERARY CONDITIONS AND OF
THE RELATIONS WITH THE PUBLIC OF
LITERARY PRODUCERS, FROM THE
EARLIEST TIMES TO THE FALL
OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

BY
GEO. HAVEN PUTNAM, M.A.
AUTHOR OF “THE QUESTION OF COPYRIGHT,” ETC.

THIRD EDITION, REVISED

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

The Knickerbocker Press
1896

COPYRIGHT, 1893
BY
GEO. HAVEN PUTNAM

The Knickerbocker Press, New York

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

In printing the second and third impressions of my essay, I have been able to take advantage of certain corrections and suggestions submitted by friendly critics, among whom I wish to make special acknowledgments to Mr. Charlton T. Lewis and to Mr. Otis S. Hill, whose aid in the verification of the quotations has been particularly valuable. I may mention that in the printing of the first edition, I had been obliged, in connection with the increasing limitations of my eyesight, to confide the verification and the proof-reading of the quotations to an assistant, whose services proved, unfortunately, incompetent and untrustworthy. As a result, a number of errors which had been repeated from the German editions, or which had crept into the work of the transcriber, of the typewriter, or of the compositor, found place with annoying persistency, in the volume as printed. While I may not hope that the text as now printed is correct (and a book free from typographical errors is an almost impossible production), I can feel assured that the more serious misprints at least have been duly cared for.

Attention has also been given to the correction of certain errors of statement or of interpretation, but in some of the instances in which my critics have not been in accord with the authorities upon which my own statements have been based, I have ventured to abide by the conclusions of the latter. My little essay made, of course, no pretensions to establish any conclusions or to maintain any individual theories on questions of classical literature concerning which there might be differences among the scholars. My purpose was simply to trace, as far as might be practicable, from the scattered references in the literature of the period, an outline record of the continuity of literary activity, the methods of the production and distribution of literature, and the nature of the relations between the authors and their readers. For the citations utilised for this study, I was, as stated in my bibliography, chiefly indebted to such scholars as Wilhelm Schmitz, Joh. Müller, Paul Clement, Theodor Birt, Louis Haenny, H. Géraud, and A. Meineke. The citations given from the Greek or Latin authors were in the main based upon or corrected by the versions of these German or French writers, and were specifically so credited.

The majority of my reviewers were ready to understand the actual purpose of my book and to recognise that my part in the undertaking was limited to certain general inferences or conclusions as to literary methods or conditions. In one or two cases, however, the critics, ignoring the specified purpose and the necessary limitations of the essay, saw fit to treat it as a treatise on classical literature and devoted their reviews almost exclusively to textual criticisms and corrections. In these, of course (irrespective of certain obvious errors above referred to), they found ample opportunity for differences of opinion with the authorities whose versions I had utilised, and ignoring the fact that my renderings were specifically credited to the German or French editions, they criticised or corrected these as if they had been presented by myself. It seems to me worth while, therefore, again to point out that with these issues between the scholarly or critical authorities I am not at all concerned, and that in their controversies I assumed to take no part. My sketches of literary methods, and the suggestions submitted by me as to the relations of authors and their readers, are affected very little by these scholastic controversies, and whatever interest or value they may possess will be entirely independent, for instance, of such a question as the correctness of the account given by Aulus Gellius (cited by me from Schmitz and Blass) of the correspondence between Aristotle and Alexander.

A similar word may be given in regard to the forms utilised for certain terms or names which have become familiarised with our English speech. My most captious critic stated, for instance, very flatly that my spelling of “Piræus” was “neither Latin, Greek, nor English.” I can only explain that the name is so spelled in the latest edition of Lippincott’s Gazetteer, and for such casual references as I had occasion to make, I had considered this work a sufficiently trustworthy authority for the spelling of a name which has found place in English narrative.

The same critic saw fit to assume that, because I had used a German editor’s paraphrase in Latin of some saying of Suidas, I had imagined that this author had written in Latin; oblivious of the fact that, a few pages farther on, I had made specific references to the various writings of Suidas in Greek.

I refer to these details not because they are in themselves of any continued importance, but simply as examples of what struck me as disproportioned textual or verbal criticism of a volume which made no claims to textual authority. The text ought of course to have been correct, and it was certainly the case that some inexcusable errors had crept into it. Regrettable as these errors were, however, they did not as a fact affect the main theme of the essay or sketch. It is assuredly in order for a reviewer to call attention to any such oversights, but the reviewer who devotes the substance of the space at his command to a list of typographical errors or oversights, and who has hardly a word to say concerning the purpose of a book, or the extent to which such purpose has been carried out, loses sight, I think, of the real function of reviewing. He may make a good show of infallibility, or of authoritative knowledge, for himself or for his journal, but he certainly fails to give what the reader is entitled to expect, a just and well proportioned impression of the work under consideration.

Since the publication of the first edition, the larger work, as an introduction to which this essay was planned, Books and Their Makers in the Middle Ages, has been brought before the public, and has been received with a very satisfactory measure of appreciation. The readers of this last have occasionally raised question concerning a lack of harmony of design or of uniformity of method between the two books. It is in order therefore again to explain that they were never intended to serve as two sections of a continuous narrative. The record of the making and distribution of books during the centuries after 476, I have attempted to present with a certain degree of comprehensiveness; but for classic times, there are no materials available for any complete or comprehensive record. The sketch presented by me is, as stated, based upon a few references to literary methods which are scattered through the writings of classic authors. A much more comprehensive study of the conditions of literary production among the ancients could very easily, however, be prepared by a student who possessed the requisite familiarity with the literature of the time, and who was sufficiently free from limitations as to eyesight to be able to trace and to verify his quotations for himself, and I trust that some competent scholar may yet interest himself in producing such a treatise.

New York, June 15, 1896.

PREFACE.

The following pages, as originally written, were planned to form a preliminary chapter, or general introduction, to a history of the origin and development of property in literature, a subject in which I have for some time interested myself. The progress of the history has, however, been so seriously hampered by engrossing business cares, and also by an increasing necessity for economizing eyesight, that the date of its completion remains very uncertain. I do not relinquish the hope of being able to place before the public (or at least of that small portion of the public which may be interested in the subject) at some future date, the work as first planned, which shall present a sketch of the development of property in literature from the invention of printing to the present day, but I have decided to publish in a separate volume this preliminary study of the literary conditions which obtained in ancient times.

In the stricter and more modern sense of the term, literary property stands for an ownership in a specific literary form given to certain ideas, for the right to control such particular form of expression of these ideas, and for the right to multiply and to dispose of copies of such form of expression. In this immaterial signification, the term literary property is practically synonymous with la propriété intellectuelle, or das geistige Eigenthum.

It is proper to say at the outset that in this sense of the term, no such thing as literary property can be said to have come into existence in ancient times, or in fact until some considerable period had elapsed after the invention of printing. The books first produced, after 1450, from the presses of Gutenberg and Fust and by their immediate successors, were the Latin versions of the Bible, editions of certain of the writings of Cicero and of other Latin authors, and a few other works which, if not all dating back to Classic periods, were, with hardly an exception, the works of writers who had been dead for many generations.

The editions printed of these books constituted for their owners, the printers, a property, which, as distinguished from their buildings and from their presses and type, might fairly enough be described as a “literary property.” It was, however, not until the publishers began to make arrangements to give compensation to contemporary writers for the preparation of original works, or for original editorial work associated with classic texts, and not until, in connection with such arrangements, the publishers succeeded in securing from the State authorities, in the shape of “privileges,” a formal recognition of their right to control the literary work thus produced, that literary property in the sense of intellectual property (geistiges Eigenthum), came into an assured and recognized, though still restricted existence.

Property of this kind, namely, in the form of a right, duly recognized by the State, to the control of an intellectual production, assuredly did not exist in Athens, in Alexandria, or in classic Rome. There is evidence, however, although often of a very fragmentary and inconclusive character, that in these cities and in other literary centres of the later classic world, there gradually came into existence a system or a practice under which authors secured some compensation for their labors.

Such compensation, doubtless at best but inconsiderable as it did not depend upon any legal right on the part of either author or publishers, must have varied very greatly according to the personality of the writer, the nature of the work, and the time and place of its production. The evidences or indications of payments being made to authors are mainly to be traced in scattered references in their own works. Such references are in the writings of the Greek authors, but infrequent, and in not a few instances the passages have been variously interpreted, so that it is difficult to base upon them any trustworthy conclusions.

It is only when we reach the Augustan age of Roman literature that we find, in the works of such authors as Cicero, Martial, Horace, Catullus, and a few others, a sufficient number of references upon which to base some theory at least as to the nature of the relations of the authors with their publishers, and also as to the publishing and bookselling methods of the time.

I have attempted, in this volume, to present a sketch of these “beginnings of literary property”—that is, to outline the gradual evolution of the idea that the producer of a literary work, the poet, ποιητής, the maker, is entitled to secure from the community not only such laurel-crown of fame as may be adjudged to his work, but also some material compensation proportioned as nearly as may be practicable to the extent of the service rendered by him.

I have prefixed to the study of literary and publishing undertakings in Athens, Alexandria, and Rome, in which cities definite relations between authors and their public can first be traced, some preliminary sketches concerning the beginnings of literature in Chaldea, Egypt, India, Persia, China, and Japan. I admit at once that descriptions of legendary, prehistoric, or semi-historic periods, are not directly pertinent to my main subject. I have decided to include them, however, at the risk of criticism on the ground both of (necessarily) superficial treatment and of lack of relevance, because it seemed to me that the character of the earliest literary ideals and of the legendary literary productions of a people formed an important factor in helping to develop its later literary conditions, and was not without influence upon the relations of authors with their public, when such relations finally began to take shape.

It is, for instance, a matter of very decided interest, in tracing the literary history of a nation, to ascertain whether the source and initiative of its earliest literature was the temple, the court, or the popular circles outside of temple or court; whether the first compositions were produced by the priests, or by annalists or poets working under the immediate incentive of the favor of the monarch, or whether, like the epics of Greece and the folk-songs of China, they came from authors among the people, and were addressed directly to popular sympathies and to popular ideals.

It will be noted that I take pains to speak of “authors” and “public,” rather than of “writers” and “readers,” because it is evident that there were literary productions in advance, and probably very far in advance, of the discovery or evolution of written characters, and also that long after the use of script by authors, the greater portion of the public in all ancient lands received their literature, not through their eyes, but through their ears,—not by reading the text, but by listening to reciters, story-tellers, and “rhapsodists.”

In the preparation of this brief record, which makes no claim to scholarly completeness, or to be anything more considerable than a sketch, I have found myself hampered by lack of adequate classical knowledge and by the lack of familiarity with the works of even the more important of the Greek and Roman writers. It is doubtless the case, therefore, that I have failed to discover or to utilize not a few passages and references that would have a bearing upon the subject; and I shall be under obligations to any scholarly reader who will take the trouble to call my attention to such omissions.

I have given, in a brief bibliography, the titles of the more important of the books upon the authority of which my sketch has been based. I desire, however, to express my special indebtedness to the following works, the full titles of which will be found in the bibliography: Clement’s La Propriété Littéraire chez les Grecs et chez les Romains, Schmitz’s Schriftsteller in Athen, Géraud’s Les Livres dans l’Antiquité, Birt’s Das Antike Buchwesen, Haenny’s Schriftsteller und Buchhändler im alten Rom, and Simcox’s History of Latin Literature.

As is indicated by the titles in the list of authorities cited, the writers who have given attention to the relations of authors of antiquity with their readers, have been almost exclusively German or French. I shall be well pleased if this brief study of mine may serve as a suggestion to some competent American or English scholar for the preparation in English of a comprehensive and final work on the subject.

G. H. P.

New York, November, 1893.

CONTENTS.

PRINCIPAL WORKS REFERRED TO AS AUTHORITIES.

Barthelémi, J. The Travels of Anacharsis the Younger. London, 1832.

Becker, W. A. Charicles, or Illustrations of the Private Life of the Ancient Greeks. Trans. by F. Metcalfe. 7th Edition. London, 1886.

—— Gallus, or Roman Scenes of the Time of Augustus. Trans. by F. Metcalfe. 8th Edition. London, 1886.

Bergk, T. Griechische Literatur Geschichte. Leipzig, 1852.

Birt, Theodor. Das Antike Buchwesen. Berlin, 1882.

Breulier, Adolphe. Du Droit de Perpétuité de la Propriété Intellectuelle. Paris, 1851.

Bruns, C. G. Die Testamente der Griechischen Philosophie. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1872.

Buchsenschutz. Besitz und Erwerb im Griechischen Alterthum. Leipzig, 1879.

Bursian, C. Die Geographie Griechenlands. München, 1882.

Bury, J. B. A History of the Later Roman Empire. 2 vols. London, 1889.

Caillemer. La Propriété littéraire à Athènes.

Cassiodorus. The Letters of. Translated, with an introduction, by Thomas Hodgkin. London, 1886.

Catullus. Edited by Riese. Leipzig, 1884.

—— Edited by Ellis. Oxford, 1867.

Cicero. Letters. Edited by Watson. London, 1852.

Clement, Paul. Étude sur le Droit des Auteurs, Précédée d’une Dissertation sur la Propriété Littéraire chez les Grecs et chez les Romains. Grenoble, 1867.

Cruttwell, C. T. C. History of Roman Literature. New York, 1887.

Davidson, J. L. S. The Life of Cicero. New York and London, 1894. (From advance sheets.)

Donaldson, J. W. The Theatre of the Greeks. 8th Edition. London, 1876.

Encyclopædia Britannica. 9th Edition. Edinburgh and New York, 1884-1892.

Freeman, E. A. History of Federal Government. 2d Edition. London, 1892.

Frommann, E. Aufsätze zur Geschichte des Buchhandels im 16ten Jahrhundert. Jena, 1876.

Fronto. Edited by Naber. Leipzig, 1867.

Gellius, Aulus. Noctes Atticæ. Edited by Hertz. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1865.

Géraud, H. Les Livres dans l’Antiquité. Paris, 1840.

Gibbon, E. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. American Edition. 6 vols. New York, 1889.

Haenny, Louis. Schriftsteller und Buchhändler im Alten Rom. Leipzig, 1885.

Herodotus. Histories of. Trans. by Rawlinson. 4 vols. New York, 1886.

Hodgkin, Thomas. Theodoric the Goth. New York and London, 1890.

Horace. Edited by Müller. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1874.

—— Odes and Epodes. Edited by Wickham. London, 1874.

Jevons, F. B. History of Greek Literature. New York, 1886.

Johnson, A. J. The Universal Encyclopædia. 8 vols. New York, 1884.

Juvenal. Trans. by Gifford. London, 1852.

—— Edited by Weidner. Leipzig, 1873.

Kapp, Friedrich. Geschichte des Deutschen Buchhandels bis in das 17te Jahrhundert. Leipzig, 1886.

Karpeles, Gustav. Allgemeine Geschichte der Litteratur. 12 parts. Berlin, 1890.

Klostermann, R. Das Urheberrecht und das Verlagsrecht. Berlin, 1871.

Laërtius, Diogenes. De Vitis, Dogmatibus et Apothegen. Clar. Philos. Edited by Hübner. 4 vols. Leipzig, 1831.

Layard, Sir A. H. Nineveh and Babylon. American Edition. New York, 1852.

Lecky, W. E. H. A History of European Morals. American Edition. 2 vols. New York.

Louisy, M. P. Le Livre, et les Arts qui s’y Rattachent. Paris, 1886.

Mahaffy, J. P. Social Life in Greece from Homer to Menander. 6th Edition. London, 1891.

—— Greek Life and Thought, from the Age of Alexander to the Roman Conquest. London, 1892.

—— The Greek World under Roman Sway. London, 1893.

Martial. Edited by Paley. London, 1875.

—— Edited by Friedländer. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1886.

Meineke, A. Historia Comœdiæ Græcæ (in the Comicorum Græc. Fragmenta). Berlin, 1857.

Müller, J. Die Lustspiele des Aristophanes. Leipzig, 1868.

Müller, Max. History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature. London, 1860.

Oman, C. W. C. The Story of the Byzantine Empire. New York and London, 1892.

Plato. Works. Trans. by Jowett. 6 vols. Oxford, 1889.

Plautus. Edited by Fleckeisen. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1890.

Pliny. Works. Trans. by Melmoth. 5 vols. London, 1878.

Plutarch’s Lives. Trans. by Clough. 5 vols. Boston, 1878.

Ragozin, Zenaïde. The Story of Chaldea. New York, 1886.

—— The Story of Assyria. New York, 1887.

Rawlinson, George. History of Ancient Egypt. 2 vols. New York, 1890.

Rawnsley, H. D. Notes for the Nile, together with a Metrical Rendering of the Hymns of Ancient Egypt and of the Precepts of Ptah-Hotep. London and New York, 1892.

Records of the Past. Edited by S. Birch. 12 vols. London, 1882.

Renouard, Augustin Charles. Traité des Droits d’Auteurs. 2 vols. Paris, 1838.

Ritter, H. History of Ancient Philosophy (translation). 4 vols. Oxford, 1849.

Romberg, Edouard. Études sur la Propriété Artistique et Littéraire. Bruxelles, 1892.

Rozoir, A. Dictionnaire de la Conversation, etc. Paris, 1838.

Schaefer, A. Demosthenes und Seine Zeit. 3 vols. Leipzig, 1858.

Schöll, A. Aufsätze zur Klass. Liter. Berlin, 1884.

—— Hist. Lit. Græc. 3 vols. Berlin, 1886.

Schmitz, Wm. Schriftsteller und Buchhändler in Athen und im übrigen Griechenland. Heidelberg, 1876.

Simcox, G. A. History of Latin Literature. 2 vols. London, 1883.

Smith, George. The Chaldean Account of Genesis. London, 1880.

Statius. Edited by Müller. Leipzig, 1871.

Strabo. Works. Edited by Meineke. 3 vols. Leipzig, 1866.

Suetonius. Lives of the Twelve Cæsars. Trans. by Thomson. London, 1855.

Suidas. Lexicon. Edited by Braun. (Cited by Schmitz.) Leipzig, 1832.

Wehle, J. H. Das Buch, Technik der Schriftstellerei. Leipzig, 1879.

Williams, S. Wells. The Middle Kingdom: A Survey of the Geography, Government, Arts, Literature, etc., of the Chinese Empire. Revised Edition. 2 vols., 8vo. New York, 1883.

Xenophon. Works. Trans. by J. S. Watson. 3 vols. London, 1862.

Zeller, E. Die Philosophie der Griechen. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1872.

AUTHORS AND THEIR PUBLIC IN ANCIENT TIMES.

CHAPTER I.

The Beginnings of Literature.

WHEN Faust was puzzling his brain concerning the everlasting problem of the nature and origin of things, we find him questioning the utterance of the Hebrew seer: “In the beginning was the Word.” “No,” he says, “this must be wrong. We cannot place the word first in the scale of causation. The writer should have said ‘In the beginning was the Thought.’” On further reflection, this statement also seemed to him inadequate. Is it the Thought that creates and directs all things? Shall we not rather say “In the beginning was the Power?” Even this interpretation, however, fails to stand the test, and, after further wrestling, Faust presents as his solution of the problem the statement, “In the beginning was the ‘Deed.’”

I shall not undertake to consider in this monograph any questions concerning the line of evolution of the universe, and Faust’s questionings are recalled to me only because his final answer is in accord with the experience of man in what he knows of the development of himself, considered either as an individual or as a race.

Assuredly the first thing of which man was conscious was not the word, written or spoken, nor the thought behind the word, nor the power back of the thought, but the deed, which could be seen and felt and estimated. Conscious thought came much later, and the word spoken and the word written, later still. A mental conception, realized as such, and finally taking form as a production of the mind, is a development of a comparatively advanced stage of human existence, the youth of the individual or of the race, while for any definition of the nature of a mental production, and of its just relation to the individual by whom and to the community for which it was produced, we must look still further forward.

Literature—that is, mental conceptions in literary form—had been known for many centuries before the literary idea, and any individual ownership in the form in which such idea was expressed, had been thought out and defined. Literary property—that is, an ownership, on the part of the producer, in a definite expression of literary ideas—dates, nevertheless, from a comparatively early period, and, in one sense, may be said to have existed from the time in which the first “poet” (maker or creator) received his first compensation from a grateful public or an appreciative patron. In the more precise interpretation of the term, it is doubtless more correct, however, to say that literary property dates from the time when authors first received compensation, not from the state or from individual patrons, but from individual readers throughout the community, who were ready to make payment in return for the benefit received. The labor, however, of placing the literary production in the hands of the reader and of collecting from these the compensation for the authors, required an intermediary,—some one to create the machinery for distribution and collection, and usually also to assume the risk and investment required. Literary property could, therefore, come into an assured existence only after, or simultaneously with, the evolution of the publisher. This, then, is the chain of causation at which we have arrived: The deed, the thought awakened by the deed, the consciousness of the thought, the power, first of oral and then of written expression of the thought (usually the description of the deed), which marks the appearance of the poet, the “maker” or author; the consecration of this expression or literary production to a definite purpose, usually the glorification of an individual in the commemoration of his deed; the habit of receiving from such individual a tangible recognition; the widening of the purpose of the production and its dedication to the community as a whole; the giving, by the community in return, of a reward or honorarium; the evolution of the publisher who develops the system under which the amount of the honorarium secured for the author is proportioned (though somewhat roughly) to the number of persons benefited by his productions.

It is when the higher stage of civilization has been reached which is marked by the appearance of the publisher, that we have a true beginning of property in literature.

Centuries must, however, still elapse before we find record of any noteworthy attempts to arrive at precise definitions of the nature and origin of literary property, or to analyze the proper relations of the literary producer as well to the generation for which he originally worked, as to such later generations as derived benefit from his creations.

Chaldea.

—The earliest literature of which the archæologists have thus far found trustworthy evidence appears to be that of the Chaldeans. Their “books,” consisting of baked clay tablets, on which the cuneiform characters had been imprinted with a stylus, were well fitted to withstand the ravages of time, being practically imperishable by either fire or water. The important discovery of specimens of the earlier literature of Chaldea was due to Sir Henry Layard. In 1845 he was fortunate enough, while investigating the mounds at Koyunjik (ancient Nineveh) now identified with the ruins of the palaces of Sennacherib and Asshurbanipal (B.C. 650), to stumble into the chambers which had contained the royal library. Although he was not himself able to decipher the early cuneiform characters with which were covered the masses of clay tablets and fragments of tablets brought to light by his excavations, he readily recognized the importance of the discovery, and took pains to forward to the British Museum a large number of those in the best state of preservation. There they lay until 1870, when George Smith undertook the task of arranging and deciphering them. Smith had been originally employed in the Museum as an engraver, but in the course of his work in engraving cuneiform texts, he had become interested in their study, and by dint of persistent application he soon came to be one of the few acknowledged authorities on the subject.

Months of patient labor were given to the piecing together of the thousands of scattered fragments contained in Layard’s shipment. Then, owing to the enterprise of the London Daily Telegraph (which in 1876 made a novel precedent in journalism by printing from week to week, in juxtaposition with the news of the day, decipherings of the Chaldean writings of five thousand years back), Smith was enabled to go to Mesopotamia, and in three successive journeys very largely to increase the collections of tablets, which finally comprised over 10,000 specimens.

Smith’s untimely death by fever during his third sojourn in the East put a check for a time upon both the collecting and the deciphering, but the latter was later continued by workers who became equally skilled, and of a large number of the tablets translations have been put into print. During the past ten years, a great development has been given to the collecting and deciphering of the tablets by the labors of such scholars as Dieulafoy, Fritz Hommel, John P. Peters, and others.

Smith had found specimens of Chaldean literature in such departments as agriculture, irrigation, astrology, the science of government, the art of war, prayers and invocations to the gods, and above all and most frequent, records of campaigns. There were also a few tablets which appeared to be examples of children’s primers and children’s scribbling. As far as it was practicable to judge from those fragments that have been preserved of the literature of the nation, the several works had for the most part been prepared under the instructions and often apparently for the special use of successive monarchs or of the rulers of provinces. These books existed, therefore, in strictly “limited editions,” comprising either single copies or but two or three copies for the royal residences. The writers were apparently for the most part officials in the public service and often members of the royal household. On the campaigns, the king, or the commander who took the place of the king, appears to have been accompanied by scribes, who were expected to keep note of the number of cities taken, the enemies slain, and the prisoners captured, and of the amount of the spoils appropriated, and the records of campaign triumphs form by far the largest portion of the literature discovered. These campaign narratives finally came to take the shape of annual records, often beginning with the formula “and when the springtime came, the time when kings go out to war.”

The next largest division of the Chaldean literature is made up of invocations to the gods, narratives of the doings of the gods, and prayers and psalms. Many of these last bear a very close family resemblance to the war psalms of the Hebrews, the composition of which took place ten or twelve hundred years later. This religious literature was the work of the priests whose annual stipends came from the royal treasury, augmented probably by the offerings of the faithful. Remains of these priestly libraries were discovered by Layard and Smith in the ruins of Agadê, Sippar, and Cutha.

In the records that have come down to us, there is absolutely no trace of compensation being paid for the different classes of literary undertakings except in the shape of annual stipends to the writers, whose work included other services besides their literary labors, although it is, of course, probable that special gifts may have been given from time to time for exceptionally eloquent and satisfactory accounts of successful campaigns. Whatever property existed in these productions must, therefore, have been vested in the king, but this hardly constituted a distinctive feature of literary property, as the kings claimed and exercised a complete control over all the property and all the lives within their realms.

The earliest specimen of Chaldean literature which has as yet been discovered, and which is probably the oldest example of writing at present known, is given on a tablet of baked clay now in the British Museum. This tablet was made up by George Smith out of a mass of scattered fragments which had been brought from the Assyrian mounds. In going over the collection of inscribed tiles, Smith came across a small fragment the inscription on which evidently referred to the Flood, and in the course of his own three sojourns in Mesopotamia he was fortunate enough, after many months of patient labor, to find a large portion of the fragments required to complete the tablet and to give the main portion of the narrative. Such success could hardly have been possible if the royal library of Nineveh had not contained several copies of the Flood tablet, as was evinced by the finding of duplicates or triplicates of certain of the portions. The tablet, as now put together, comprises eighteen pieces, and presents, notwithstanding a number of gaps, a fairly complete account of the Flood. The incidents are so far paralleled by those given in the Genesis narrative, that it is evident either that the two scribes derived their information from the same sources, or that the Hebrew story has been based upon the Chaldean record. According to Lenormant, Smith, and Hommel, the former was inscribed about 4000 B.C., in that case ante-dating by more than two thousand years the actual writing of the Book of Genesis. Ragozin speaks of “the ancestors of the Hebrews, during their long sojourn in the land of Shinar, having become familiar with the legends and stories contained in the collection of the Assyrian priests, and after working these over after their own superior religious lights, having shaped from them the narrative which was written down many centuries later as part of the Book of Genesis.”[1]

Egypt.

—The literature of Egypt probably ranks next to that of Chaldea in point of antiquity. In fact, not a few of the archæologists have contended that the civilization of Egypt was of still earlier development than that of the countries of Mesopotamia or of any other portion of the world.

The earliest Egyptian writings were, with few exceptions, theological in their character and appear to have originated in the temples. First among the authors of Egypt stands, according to tradition, Thoth-Hermes, the ibis-headed god of wisdom and of literature, the “Lord of the Hall of Books.” His companion is the beautiful Ma, goddess of truth and justice, a very proper associate for the founder of a nation’s literature.

By later generations, Thoth-Hermes came to be known as Hermes Trismegistus, the god of threefold greatness or majesty. The forty-two works, the authorship of which is ascribed to Thoth or Trismegistus, formed, according to Karpeles, a kind of national encyclopædia, presenting the canon of the faith and the knowledge of ancient Egypt.

Of these so-called Hermetic books, only portions appear to have remained in existence with the beginnings of the historic period, but of these portions certain fragments have been preserved for the inspection of scholars of to-day. In the examination in 1892 of some newly discovered tombs, papyri were found which proved to contain religious writings based upon the Hermetic books, and which were themselves the work of scribes writing during the 4th dynasty, 3733-3566 B.C.

The founder of the 4th dynasty was Khufa, better known as Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid, who is also ranked as an author, and to whose reign belongs the first record of the famous Book of the Dead. This Book of the Dead consisted of invocations to the deities, psalms, prayers, and the descriptions of the experiences that awaited the spirit of the departed in the world to come, experiences that included an exhaustive analysis of his past life and his final judgment for the life hereafter. The Egyptian title of the book was, according to Karpeles, The Manifestation to the Light, that is, the book revealing the light. Rawlinson specifies for it another name, To Go Forth from Day. Portions of the book of the dead are said to have been written by Thoth, and other portions are spoken of as “the composition of a great god.” These belonged to what might be called the permanent part of the text or Ritual. Other divisions or pages containing special references to the deceased would, of course, be distinctive in each case. The copies prepared for any particular funeral were more or less comprehensive in their matter and more or less elaborate and costly in their form according to the wealth and importance of the departed, and according also to the probable buying capacities of the mourners. The material written upon was always papyrus, while for the covers, tinted or stained sheepskin was used. One copy of the book was always placed in the tomb, as a safe-conduct for the pilgrim soul on its journey through Amenti (Hades), and for its guidance in the world to come. This practice has secured the preservation in the tombs of a great number of copies of the Book of the Dead, more than one half of the existing papyri being transcripts of different portions of its text. The Book of the Dead enjoys the distinction of being the first literature of the regular sale of which there is any evidence. The undertaker, acting probably under the instructions of the priests, made a business of disposing of copies of the “book” among the mourners and friends of the deceased, for whom it served as a memorial of the departed. The Egyptian undertaker, distributing in this manner from a period three thousand years or more before the Christian era, authorized or authenticated copies of the sacred scriptures, accompanied in some cases by memorial pages concerning the deceased, must take rank as the first bookseller known to history. I speak of authenticated copies, for it is probable that the authorized text of the scriptures was kept in the temples or in the colleges of the priests, and that the copies were prepared by the priests themselves or by scribes working under their supervision and direction. In this case the proceeds of the sales were doubtless divided between the priests and the undertakers, and the priests’ portion may to some extent have found its way into the treasury of the temple. The scribes employed were sometimes assistants or students attached to the temple, but not infrequently slaves, although later the work of scribes came to be regarded as honorable and as semi-professional in its character, and some among them held high stations. The control exercised by the priests over the authorized texts of their sacred scriptures, including certain writings in addition to those belonging to the ritual of the dead, must have given to them a practical copyright of the material. The most complete copy of the Book of the Dead, ranking as one of the oldest works of literature in the world, is now in the British Museum. A small edition has been printed under the editorship of Mr. Budge, in precise fac-simile.

Apart from the Book of the Dead, the oldest book of which there is record in the literature of Egypt, and one of the oldest in the known literature of the world, is a collection of Precepts, bearing the name of Ptah-Hotep. Their author was a viceroy or governor of Egypt, and was a younger son of Assa, the seventh king of the 5th dynasty, whose reign began 3366 B.C. The Prisse papyrus, discovered at Thebes in 1856, and now in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, is said by its discoverer, Chabas, to be the oldest papyrus in existence, and to have been written about 2500 B.C.[2] This papyrus contains a copy of these Precepts of Ptah-Hotep, which have apparently retained their interest for Egyptian readers for nearly nine centuries, and which now, more than five thousand years after their first publication, have been issued, for the benefit of modern readers, in French and English versions.

The Precepts are characterized by simplicity, directness, high-mindedness, great refinement of nature, and a keen sense of humor, and they give to the reader a very pleasant impression of their noble author. The great importance laid by Ptah-Hotep upon courtesy of manner and of action recall to mind Lord Chesterfield, but the courtly Egyptian had a heart and convictions. English and American readers are under obligations to the Rev. H. D. Rawnsley not only for placing before them this antique and distinctively interesting production, but also for his excellent metrical versions of some of the representative hymns of Ancient Egypt.[3] The original translation from the papyrus of the Precepts was made by P. Virey for Records of the Past. It is Virey’s impression that the Precepts were in part original with the Viceroy, and in part collected by him from older sources. In reading these pithy words of wise counsel of the shrewd and kindly old Egyptian, one naturally recalls the proverbs ascribed to King Solomon, the sayings of Confucius, and certain of the utterances of Socrates. I do not mean that Ptah-Hotep, on the strength of the fragmentary utterances that have come down to us, is to be ranked with these great teachers, but that it is interesting to note how early in literature favor was found for the form of expressing opinions, or of giving counsel in the form of maxims or proverbs. The proverbs of Solomon are said to have been written about 1000 B.C. The conversations of Confucius were held about 500 years later, and the utterances of Socrates were closed with his death, 399 B.C.

Rawnsley gives, among other renderings, metrical versions of the following specimens of early Egyptian poetry: “A Festal Dirge of King Antef,” 2533-2466 B.C.; “The Song of the Harper,” about 1700; “Hymn to Pharaoh,” about 1400; “Dirge of Meneptah,” about 1333; “Hymn to Amen Ra,” about 1300; “Hymn to the Nile,” about 1300; “Lamentations of Isis and Nepathys,” about 320; “The Poem of Penta-ur on the Exploits of Rameses II.,” written in 1326 B.C. The last-mentioned is interesting as being almost the sole example of an Egyptian epic. It is not clear whether Penta-ur won his position as court poet-laureate by the production of this poem, or whether, being already laureate, the epic was written as one of his official compositions. Under the instructions of the king, however, whose exploits it commemorated, the poem was made a national epic, and copies of it appear to have been officially distributed throughout the kingdom. The reign of Rameses, which covered the years 1350-1300 B.C., marked, according to Rawlinson and Karpeles, the culmination of a period which was important not only for success in war, but for literary production. Under Rameses, literary activity, no longer confined to the temple, was in part at least transferred to the court. He collected about him scholars and philosophers, and gave great rewards for successful literary efforts. The approval given by royalty to Penta-ur’s poem doubtless secured for the author much better results than would have come to him through the royalty enjoyed under the modern literary system.

The king took pride in the great library which had been brought together under his instructions. Over the entrance to the great hall of the library was engraved the inscription, “A place of healing for the soul.”

By some historians, Rameses II., this king of a long reign and of great exploits, the patron of literature, whose massive and well-preserved figure has only recently been disentombed, has been identified with the Pharaoh of the Exodus. I believe, however, that the better authorities have decided that the Exodus took place under the Pharaoh who was the son of the great Rameses.

Rawlinson speaks of the Egyptians as possessing at a very early date an “extensive literature, comprising books on religion, morals, law, rhetoric, arithmetic, mensuration, geometry, medicine, books of travel, and above all, novels!” He says further, however, that, as far as can be judged from the specimens which have been preserved, “the merit of the works is slight. The novels are vapid, the medical treatises interlarded with charms and exorcisms, the travels devoid of interest, the general style of all the books forced and stilted.”

Rawlinson adds that, while “intellectually the Egyptians must take rank among the foremost nations of remote antiquity, they cannot compare with the great European races whose rise was later, the Greeks and Romans.... Egypt may in some particulars have stimulated Greek thought, directing it in new lines, and giving it a basis to work upon; but otherwise it cannot be said that the world owes much of its intellectual progress to this people, about whose literary productions there is always something that is weak and childish.”[4]

On the other hand, the long list of distinguished Greeks who sought learning in Egypt shows the respect in which Egyptian culture was held. In the list of the subjects considered in Egyptian literature, Rawlinson appears also to have overlooked astronomy, in which the investigations of Egyptian scholars were certainly of the first importance. Notwithstanding the production of a very considerable body of literature, there appears to be no evidence of any compensation being secured by the authors, or of literary productions taking shape as property. The scribes, who did the copying, must of course have been paid, for the Egyptians were probably not able, as were later the Romans, to secure the labor of skilled and educated slaves. These scribes were for the most part natives and freemen, and they came to form a very important class, in which class the most important were those engaged in what might be called the civil service of the government. Of payment to the authors, however, there is no trace, and they must have written solely for their own satisfaction or for hopes of favor. There is also nothing to inform us of the manner in which the copies of the books which had been “manifolded” were distributed amongst the readers, and we can only conjecture the existence of collections or libraries from which the books could be borrowed, or a practice on the part of the wealthy writers (a practice not unknown in modern times) of a wide distribution of presentation copies to friends whose appreciation was hoped for.

The royal library of Rameses contained, says Karpeles, works under such headings as annals, sacred poetry, royal poetry (i. e., poetry addressed to the king), travels, works on agriculture, irrigation, and astronomy, correspondence and fiction.

Rawlinson speaks of some characteristic tales which were preserved from generation to generation, such as the Tale of the Two Brothers (charmingly narrated by the late Amelia B. Edwards), The Doomed Prince, The Possessed Princesses, etc. He also refers to collections of correspondence apparently preserved to serve as models or patterns, after the fashion of the “complete letter-writers” of to-day.

Karpeles points out that the early Egyptian literature was particularly rich in folk-tales, or Märchen. It is possible that in Egypt, as in Greece and Persia, the folk-tales as well as the folk-songs, and such an occasional epic as the Poem of Penta-on, were recited to the people by peripatetic reciters or rhapsodists. There are references to such recitations taking place at court and at the banquets of the rich.

It would have been interesting if it had occurred to some Hebrew scribe, endowed with a sense of humor, to send for the royal library in Thebes, as a remembrance of the guests who had gone out of Egypt, an Egyptian rendering of the Book of Exodus, or even of the Song of Miriam.

China.

—The dates of the beginnings of literature in China are uncertain. If we could accept as authentic the claims of the Chinese historians, the origins of their civilization must be traced back to a period antedating by thousands of years the accepted records of Chaldea and Egypt. It is, however, I understand, the present conclusion of the archæologists that the beginnings of the development of the civilization of the Chinese, as also of that of the East Indian peoples, are to be placed at a time considerably later than the date of the earliest records of the peoples of Mesopotamia. According to certain authorities, written characters existed in China as early as 5000 B.C. According to others, they first took shape more than a thousand years later. The Emperor Fu-hi, reigning about 3500 years before Christ, is credited with the invention of the Chinese alphabet. As the Emperor was walking near his palace, possibly musing on the inconveniences of ruling a country without an alphabet, his attention was attracted by the beautiful markings of a very large toad that he encountered. He took the beast home with him, and (under the guidance of the proper deity) evolved from the designs on the toad’s back the figures of the original Chinese characters. He very probably said to himself (paraphrasing the old nursery saying), “It looks like an alphabet, and it hops like an alphabet, why not call it an alphabet?” One can imagine a scholar in later years, puzzling over the lengthy series of Chinese characters, wishing that his Imperial Highness had happened to meet a smaller or a less variegated toad.

About the year 3000 B.C., the Emperor Hoang-ti is said to have invented the decimal system and the measurement of time, and also to have completed the organization of the Empire. If this date is to be relied upon, the organization of the Chinese State was taking shape about eight centuries after the time of the great Sargon of Agadê, who brought to its highest power the earlier Chaldean empire. The national ballads or folk-songs, later collected under the title of the Book of Odes, are believed by Legge to antedate the Empire—that is, to have come into circulation while the territory was still separated into a number of independent states or principalities. These folk-songs were collected by the minstrels and historiographers working under the direction of the feudatory princes, and the complete collection, when reshaped by Confucius, is said to have comprised as many as three thousand songs. The writer of the article on China in the Encyclopædia Britannica (9th edition) speaks of the collection as probably antedating any other known work of literature. The folk-songs themselves certainly existed from a very early date, but, according to Karpeles, the collection did not take the form of a book until after 1000 B.C. Karpeles believes that the earliest known work in Chinese literature is the Y-king, the Book of the Metamorphoses, or of Developments, which dates from 1150 B.C., about two centuries earlier than the generally accepted date of the Homeric poems. The author, Wang-wang, having been put into prison for some political offence, employed his enforced leisure in working out a philosophical system based upon the maxims of the Emperor Fu-hi.[5]

The Book of the Developments continued in high honor for many centuries, and early in the fifth century B.C. was reissued by Confucius, with an elaborate analysis and commentary, serving to make its teachings available for later generations. He also issued a “final edition” of the Book of Songs, which comprised, out of the three thousand of the old collection, the three hundred which were best worth preservation. Confucius takes rank in China as practically the founder of its literature, of its system of morals, and of its religious ideal or standard. The name Confucius is the Latinized form of Kung Fu-tsze—Kung, the teacher or master. He was free, says one of his disciples, from four things: foregone conclusions, arbitrary determinations, obstinacy, and egoism. A good American of the present time may express the regret that Confucius, or some disciples like him, had not been spared to occupy seats in the Senate Chamber at Washington.

What is known as the religion of Confucius, comprises in substance the old-time national or popular faith freshly interpreted into the thought and language of the later generation, and shaped into a practical system of morals as a guide for the action of the state and for the daily life of the individual citizen.

It is interesting to compare the different forms taken by the earliest literary traditions of the different peoples of antiquity. The Greek brings to us as the corner-stone of his literature and of his beliefs, the typical epics, the Iliads and the Odyssey; poems of action and prowess, commemorating the great deeds of the ancestors, and describing the days when men were heroes, and heroes were fit companions and worthy antagonists for the gods themselves.

The imagination of the East Indian has evolved a series of gorgeous and grotesque dreams, in which all conditions of time and space appear to be obliterated, and in which the universe is pictured as it might appear in the visions of the smoker of haschisch. It is difficult to gather from these wild fancies of the earlier Indian poets (and the earlier writers were essentially poets) any trustworthy data concerning the history of the past, or any practical instruction by which to guide the life of the present. The present is but a tiny point, between the immeasurable æons of the past and the nirvana of the future, and seems to have been thought hardly worthy the attention of thinking beings.

The Egyptian literary idea has apparently been thought out in the temple, and it is from the priests that the people receive the record of the doings of its gods and of the immeasurable dynasties of monarchs selected by the gods to express their will, while it is also to the priests that the people must look for instruction concerning the duty of the present.

The Assyrian records read, on the other hand, as if they were the work of royal scribes, writing under the direct supervision of the kings themselves. The gods are described, and their varied relations to the world below are duly set forth. But the emphasis of the narrative appears to be given to the glory and the achievements of such great monarchs as Sargon and Asshurbanipal, as if a long line of scribes, writing directly for the king’s approval, had continued the chronicles from reign to reign.

The early literary and religious ideals of China took a very different form. We find here no priestly autocracy, controlling all intellectual activities and giving a revelation as to the nature of the universe, the requirements of the gods, and the obligations of men, obligations which have never failed to include the strictest obedience to the behests of the priests, the representatives of the gods. There are no court chronicles, dictated under royal supervision, and devoted not to the needs of the people, but to the glorious achievements of the monarchs. Nor is there any great epic, commemorating the deeds of heroes and demi-gods. In place of these we find what may be called a practical system of applied ethics. Confucius was evidently neither a visionary dreamer nor a poet, nor did he undertake to establish any priestly or theological authority for his teaching. He gives the impression of having been an exceptionally clear-headed and capable thinker, who devoted himself, somewhat as Socrates did a century later, to studying out the problems affecting the life of the state and of the individual. With Socrates, however, the chief thing appears to have been the intellectual interest of the problem, while with Confucius, the controlling purpose was evidently the welfare of his fellow-men. It was his aim, as he himself expressed it, through a rewriting of the wise teachings left us by our ancestors, so as to adapt them to the understanding of the present generation, to guide men to wise and wholesome lives, and to prepare them for a better future.[6]

The work of Confucius stands as the foundation-stone of the literature, the morals, and the state-craft of China. It was continued by such writers as Mencius, 350 B.C., and Tsengtze, 320 B.C.

The works of the earlier authors secured, we are told, an immediate circulation, but we have no knowledge as to the methods employed for their distribution. It seems probable that in the earlier as in the later centuries, the authors whose works found approval with the authorities received directly from the state compensation for their literary and philosophic labors.

The material used for the earliest known writings was made from bamboo fibre, and was prepared in the shape of tablets. Early in the third century B.C. (curiously enough, during the reign of Hwang-ti, the destroyer of literature), brushes were invented, with which characters could be traced upon silk. The bamboo was either scratched upon with a sharp stylus, or the characters were painted upon it with a dark varnish. Sometimes also the characters were burned into the bamboo, with a heated metal stylus. India ink was first used in the seventh century. The invention of paper took place about 100 B.C., the first material utilized for the manufacture being bark, fishing-nets, and rags. Printing from solid blocks was done as early as the first century A.D. The invention of the art of printing from movable type is credited to a blacksmith named Pi-Shing. The blacksmith’s first books were turned out towards the close of the tenth century A.D., or early in the eleventh century, more than three centuries before the presses of Gutenberg began their work in Mayence.

The movable type used by Pi-Shing were made of plastic clay. At the same time, or shortly thereafter, porcelain type were utilized. The printing from movable type never seems to have developed to such extent as to supersede block printing. The Emperor Kang-He had engraved about two hundred and fifty thousand copper type, which were used for printing the publications of the government. These type were afterwards melted for use as cash, but were replaced by his grandson with type made from lead.[7]

There is record of books being printed in Corea (at that time a province of the Empire) from movable clay type, as early as 1317 A.D.[8]

Literature has always been an honored profession in China, and seems even in the earliest times to have attracted a larger proportion of workers than, during the same period, were engaged in literary pursuits in any other countries in the world. The mass of literature was very much added to after the introduction of Buddhism into the country, which took place during the first century of the Christian era. Karpeles states that a selection of the early Chinese classics, with commentaries, undertaken under the direction of one of the emperors in the eighteenth century, would, it was calculated, comprise when completed, 163,000 volumes. By the year 1818, there had been published of the series, 78,731 volumes.[9] From this enormous mass of material a few books only stand out as possessing distinctive importance by reason of their influence on the thought and the life of many generations.

There are the five King and the four Schu, or “books.” The term “king” means literally a web, a thing woven, or fabricated. Its use in this connection recalls the ῥαπτός of the Greek rhapsodists, a term which, originally meaning a thing spun or a yarn, came also to stand for a literary production of a certain class, a “yarn” that could be recited. The five King were the “webs” or productions of wise and holy writers, but the names of these writers have not been preserved, even as a tradition. The first in order is the Y-king, already mentioned, the Book of the Developments, which is much the oldest in the series. The second is the Schu-king or Book of Chronicles, which begins its narrative with the time of Noah, and gives the record of the dynasties from 2400 to 721 B.C. In addition to the historical chronicles, the Schu-king contains, in the form of dialogues between the emperors and the councillors, the instruction in the principles of state-craft, in philosophy, in the science of war, in music, in astronomy, and in general culture. The headings of some of the chapters recall the matters treated in The Prince of Machiavelli. The following “royal maxims” do not, however, sound Machiavellian: “Virtue,” says the great councillor Yih, speaking to the emperor, “is the foundation of your realm”; “The ruler must lead his people in the paths of virtue”; “Guard yourself from false shame, and if you have committed an error, hasten to make frank acknowledgment of the same. Otherwise you will mislead your subjects.”[10]

The third of the canonical books is the Schi-king or Book of Songs, already referred to. This presents the selection made by Confucius of the hymns, ballads, and folk-songs collected from the earliest generations. The fourth is the Tschun-tshien, or Spring and Autumn Year-Book, which is ascribed to Confucius. It is a brief chronicle of events covering a space of 240 years. The fifth is the Li-ki, or Book of Ritual, or of Conduct. This gives detailed instructions concerning the proper ceremonials for all events of life, from the cradle to the grave.

With these classics should be grouped certain books prepared by the followers of Confucius, the most important of which, the Lün-yü, or Conversations, is a record of the instruction given by Confucius to his pupils in the form of talks. In these conversations we find questions shaped in a method quite Socratic. With this should be grouped the Mengtsze, the record of the work of the philosopher Mencius. His instruction seems, like that of his great forerunner, to have been very practical in its character. Associated with the earlier teachings of Confucius, the instruction of Mencius was accepted as the basis of the moral and the educational system of the nation.

The enormous respect which the Chinese have given to the works produced during their classical period is believed by authorities like Williams and Wade to have exercised an influence on the whole detrimental to the development and to the originality of their later literature.

The first active literary period preceded Confucius, 500 B.C. From this period have been preserved the classics already referred to. The next important epoch is that of the “interpreters,” the counsellors and the lawgivers, extending from Confucius to Mencius, 350 B.C. They were followed by a long line of annalists and commentators, whose work came to an abrupt close with the reign of the Emperor Che Hwang-ti, 221-226 B.C. Hwang-ti was evidently a man with opinions of his own. He objected to what seemed to him an exaggerated and mischievous reverence for the “good old times,” and he proposed to discourage the laudator temporis acti. He issued an edict directing all books to be burned excepting those treating of medicine, divination, and husbandry. This index expurgatorius (possibly the earliest in history) included all the writings of Confucius and Mencius, comprising both their original work and their compilations and editions of the earlier classics. It was further ordered that any one who dared to mention the Book of History or the Book of Odes should be put to death. Any one possessing, thirty days after the issue of the edict, a copy of the books ordered destroyed, was to be branded and put to labor for four years upon the great wall. This is probably the most drastic and comprehensive policy for the suppression of a literature that the world has ever seen. Fortunately, like similar attempts in later centuries, it was only partially successful. While the destruction of books was enormous, and while, of long lists of works, it is probable that all existing copies actually did disappear, the texts of the most important, including the specially obnoxious Book of History and Book of Songs, were preserved. According to one tradition, a large number of the songs were saved only by having been retained in the memory of public reciters and their hearers. After the death of the Emperor Che, the text of these was taken down and again committed to writing. This instance is, one recalls, fully in line with the methods by which in Greece, before the general use of writing, the earlier classics were preserved in the memories of the rhapsodists and their hearers.

It is the opinion of Dr. Williams that the command of the Emperor Che for the destruction of all books was so thoroughly executed that “of many classical works not a single copy escaped destruction. The books were, however, recovered in great part by rewriting them from the memories of old scholars.... If the same literary tragedy should be enacted to-day, thousands of persons might easily be found in China who could rewrite from memory the text and the commentary of their nine classical works.”

Williams is also my authority for the statement that not only were the books destroyed as far as copies could be found, but that nearly five hundred literati were burned alive, in order that no one might remain to reproach in his writings the emperor for the commission of so barbarous an act.[11]

One of the most celebrated female writers in China was Pan Whui-pan, also known as Pan Chao, the sister of the historian Pan Ku, who wrote the history of the Han dynasty. She was appointed historiographer after the death of her brother, and completed, about A.D. 80, his unfinished annals. A little later she wrote the first work in any language on female education, which was called Nü Kiai or Female Precepts, and which has formed the basis of many succeeding books on female education. In the writings of this and of other Chinese authoresses, instructions in morals and in the various branches of domestic economy are insisted upon as the first essentials in the education of women, and as more important than a knowledge of the classics or of the annals.[12]

1050 A.D. Wang Pih-ho, of the Sung dynasty, compiled for his private school a horn-book or manual of education, entitled the San-tsz’ King. The manual is interesting not merely as giving a general study of the nature of man and the existence of modes of education, but because it includes a list of books recommended for the student, a list which gives an impression of the extent of the education and literature of that date.[13]

The golden age of Chinese literary production is fixed by Sir Thomas Wade at the period of the Tang dynasty, 620-907 A.D. In 922 A.D. an edition of the classical writers was printed and published under the instructions of the Emperor. The tendency of writers since the tenth century has been to devote their energies to commentaries on the ancient works, and to analyses and interpretations of these rather than to original production. The writing of historical annals has, however, gone on with great regularity, and the series of Chronicles of the Kingdom is very comprehensive in its completeness.

The rewards of authors are given in the shape of official appointments and preferments, and of honors and honorariums bestowed directly by the state. It seems probable that in modern as in ancient times the writers of China could look for no direct returns from the circulation of their productions. It is nevertheless the case that from the time of Confucius to the present day, that is for a period of two thousand four hundred years, the direct influence of scholars, thinkers, and writers has been greater in China than in any other part of the world. The state as a whole and the individual citizen, from the Emperor down, have, as a rule, been ready to recognize and accept the authority and the guidance of literary ideals and of intellectual standards. The case would be paralleled if the French Academy had existed from the time of Charlemagne to the present day, if the counsellors and rulers of the state had always been appointed from the forty, and if the remaining officials of all grades had been selected by competitive examinations, instituted and supervised by the forty. The parallel would not be complete, however, unless the Academy of to-day were still basing its examinations on a codex of Charlemagne.

The imperial government of China and the Chinese community as a whole have for many centuries, apparently ever since the time of the book-burning Hwang-ti, rendered a larger measure of honor (and also of direct reward as far as this could be given by official station) to students and scholars, than has been given by any state in the history of the world. The literary ideal and the literary productions, the study of which has thus been honored, have, however, been in the main those of a thousand years or more back. The fact, says Legge, that the earlier literary period was so fruitful, and that the works produced in it have been held by later generations in so great honor, is one cause why original or creative literary productiveness has been discouraged, and why the later literary activities continue in so large proportion to take the shape of commentaries. It has also, he thinks, been an important influence in keeping the language in an inflexible and undeveloped condition. It was the language of the fathers, and it would be sacrilege to modify it.

Japan.

—The civilization of Japan is an off-shoot or development of that of China, and the Japanese literature is based upon Chinese models and standards. The literary relation strikes one as in some respects similar to that which existed between Great Britain and the American Colonies, or later with the American States. The literature of Japan is described, however, as characterized by much more elasticity, variety, and creative originality than is possessed by that of China, and in place of stereotyping itself upon the models of old-time classics, it has shown from century to century a wholesome power of development.

At one time, says Karpeles, Japan possessed an alphabet of its own, but later, the Chinese characters were introduced, and were used together with the older alphabet. It is only the very earliest writings in which the Japanese characters alone are employed. The Japanese scribes have from the beginning worked with brushes rather than with pens, and in so doing, have been able to utilize such substances as silk, which would have been unsuitable for the work of the pen. The invention of paper, however, took place at an early date, possibly simultaneously with its first use in China. Printing from blocks, and later from type, was promptly introduced from China early in our era.

According to the native chroniclers, the earliest literary production of Japan was the work of the two gods Izanaghi and Izanami. These gods, having created the country, thought it was incomplete without some poetry, and the poetry was therefore added. Tsurayuki, a poet of the tenth century, takes the ground that all true expression of feeling is poetry. The nightingale sings in the wood, the frog croaks in the pool; each is giving utterance to a feeling, and each, therefore, is pouring forth a poem. There is no living being, he continues, who is not a producer of poetry. (This is as startling to us ordinary mortals as the discovery of Molière’s Monsieur Jourdain that he had been talking prose all his life without knowing it.) As poetry, says Tsurayuki, begins with the expression of feeling, it must have come into existence with the beginning of creation.[14] In the earliest times, he says, when the gods were poets, the arrangement of sounds into syllables had not been made, and rhythm had not been invented. These early divine poems or utterances of the gods are, therefore, very difficult to understand. Later, however, Susanoo-no-mikoto fixed sounds into syllables, and then, according to the tenth-century poet, Japanese literature had its actual beginning, but he does not give us the date of this useful piece of work. We are inclined to wonder what the wise Susanoo, etc., did about the announcing of his own name, say on really formal occasions, before the little matter of the invention of syllables had been accomplished.

While it is claimed that from prehistoric times there had been in Japan an active production and a wide distribution of poetry (folk-songs), the first collection of the “people’s ballads” appears to have been made as late as 700 A.D. At this time the Emperor, whose residence was at Nara, took an interest in literature, and during the quarter century from 700 to 725 A.D. lived “the noble poet” Yamabe-no-Akahito, and the “wise man of the poets,” Kakino-mo-to-Hito-Maro. (The god above referred to, who bestowed upon Japan the invention of syllables, seems to have done his work thoroughly.) The compilation which took shape during this period is known as the Man-yo-sin, or the “collection of ten thousand leaves.” The two later collections are known as The Old and the New Songs of Japan, and The Hundred Poets.

A special feature in the literature of Japan is the great number of poetesses. The fashion of women interesting themselves in the writing of poetry was initiated by the poetic Empress Soto-oro-ime, in the third century A.D.

The great epic of Japanese literature is the Fei-ke-mono-gatari, that is The Annals of the Fei-ke Dynasty, which is said to have been composed in 1083 A.D., and which was sung among the people by blind rhapsodists. An epic of later date, in twelve books, is credited to the poet Ikanage. The literary record shows a long series of tales and romances, which are described as possessing a graceful fancy and imagination much in advance of Chinese compositions of the same class.

The theatre has from early times played a very important part in the social life of Japan, and dramatic composers are held in high honor. The first dramas written for performance date from about 807 A.D. The people of Japan have from the early times of Japanese literature given cordial appreciation to literary producers, and especially poets and dramatists. The official recognition of literature and of men of letters appears, however, to have been much less distinctive and less important than in China. We do not find record of official positions and preferments being bestowed on the ground of proficiency in philosophy or literature, or by reason of a knowledge of the learning of the past; nor have the smaller government places been distributed by competitive examinations arranged for students of literature.

The distribution of literature among the people appears to have been from an early date very general, and the knowledge of the great classics has certainly been widespread. Of the methods by which such distribution was accomplished in the early centuries of literary production we know nothing. It seems probable from certain references by later authors, that in Japan, as in Greece, the rhapsodists and reciters were the principal distributors.

Of rewards or compensations given to the earlier Japanese authors there is no record. The national treasury does not appear to have been utilized as in China and Assyria. It is possible that the dramatists may have secured some share of the stage receipts, but it is probable that the other authors must have contented themselves with such prestige or honors as came to them from the readers of, or the listeners to, their compositions.

India.

—In India, the typical early literature is the myth. There is no national epic in the Greek use of the term, in which are described the doings of heroic men. The literary productions are the work of poets whose imagination has been impressed with the immensity and with the mystery of the universe, and whose poetic fancies take the form of visions. These fancies or visions are concerned with the doings of the gods, while man plays but a small part in the narrative.

Sanscrit literature is said to date back to the fifteenth century B.C. The written characters have an origin common with that of the Greek letters. The oldest existing monuments of Indian script are the edicts of the King Açoka, cut into the stone at Girnar and elsewhere “so that they might endure for ever”. They date back to the third century B.C.

The first literary period of India presents the poetry of the Vedas, the sacred scriptures of the Sanscrit peoples. The hymns and invocations comprising the Vedas are supposed to have been collected about 1000 B.C. This is the date that has by many authorities been accepted for the collecting of the Homeric poems, and corresponds nearly with the time fixed for the writing of the Chinese Book of the Metamorphoses. It also tallies with the period to which is ascribed the production of the Persian Zend-Avesta.

The term Veda means knowledge, or sacred knowledge. The collection of the Vedas comprises four divisions. The Rig-Veda, or Veda of Praises or Hymns; the Sama-Veda, or Veda of Chants or Tunes; the Yajur-Veda, or Veda of Prayers; and the Atharva-Veda, or Brahma-Veda.

The second literary period, beginning about the fifth century B.C., is that of the Folk-Songs, in which the myth becomes legend, and the gods, approaching a little closer to the earth, assume more nearly the character of heroes. The third period is that of the classic poets, whose productions in lyric and dramatic poetry are ranked with the great works of literature of the world. This period appears to have reached its height of productiveness between the sixth and tenth centuries of our era.

The earliest prose works are the theological writings of the Brahmanic priests, which take the form of commentaries on the Vedas, and which elucidate the sacred texts, principally from a sacrificial point of view. The production of these theological commentaries is supposed to date back to the seventh or sixth century B.C.

Buddha, or Gautama, philosopher, poet, reformer, and redeemer of his people, began his work towards the close of the sixth century B.C. His teachings gave rise to an enormous production of theological literature in India, Ceylon, China, and Japan.

The information concerning the materials used by the earlier writers of India, and as to the methods by which their books were placed before the public, is very meagre. According to Louisy, the use of diphtherai, or dressed skins, prevailed to some extent. Prepared palm-leaves were also utilized, particularly by the Buddhist writers of Ceylon. There appears to have been no general or popular circulation of the manuscripts. These were costly, and were beyond the means of any but the very wealthy, while it was also the case that the knowledge of reading was confined to but limited circles.

It seems probable that the manuscripts were in the main prepared in the monasteries or temples, and that they were exchanged between the temples. The teachings of the writers were brought before the people by preaching or recitations. Certain of the princes also attached to their courts poets and philosophers, and practically the only libraries or collections of manuscripts outside of those in the temples, must have been those contained in the palaces of the few princes who possessed literary tastes.

There could have been no other way of securing for an author compensation for his work excepting through princely favors or from the treasuries of the temples.

Persia.

—The first name that comes down to us connected with the literature of Persia is that of Zoroaster. The Persian form of his name is Zarathustra, meaning the gold-star. The date of his birth is said to be more uncertain than that of Homer, but he is supposed to have lived about 1000 B.C.

He is credited with the authorship of the Gâthas, hymns partly religious, partly political. To Zoroaster were also revealed the teachings which later took shape in the sacred scriptures of the Persians, the Zend-Avesta (commentary-lore). Of these scriptures, only one division, the Vendidad, has been preserved complete. Of the other parts only fragments remain. It is estimated that the Vendidad (which means the regulations against demons) represents about one twentieth of the original collection.

The oldest portion of the Avesta is the Yasna, or sacrificial liturgy. This is a grouping together of the commentaries surrounding the Gâthas. A third division is the Visparad, or the Seasons, in which are set forth the lists of the objects sacred to each season. A fourth division is the Yescht-Sade, or little Avesta, comprising prayers and hymns.

The monotheistic or dualistic nature of the faith as originally taught by Zoroaster has, in the later religious writings and practices, been overlaid and obscured by the different phases of nature worship. Fire is accepted as the symbol of holiness, but, according to the views of the educated Parsees, is not itself the thing worshipped.

The existing canon of the Avesta was compiled and published under the direction of King Sapor II., who reigned 309-330 A.D. Among the poems of the Avesta we find the legend of which the hero is Rustem, who stands as the representative of Iran in its long contest with Turan.

The literature of Persia prior to the fourth century of the Christian era was probably controlled in great part by the priests. The exceptions would have been in the case of the court poets or court historians, writing under the incentive of royal remuneration. It is probable that songs and recitations were to some extent given to the public by minstrels or rhapsodists. There is some evidence also of the development in later centuries of the story-teller or improvisatore, who made a business of exchanging, for the pence of the public, stories partly original, but chiefly borrowed from older sources. The Oriental capacity for story-telling, and the Oriental readiness to devote an abundance of leisure time to listening to stories, is clearly indicated not only by modern practices, but also by the history of such collections as the Arabian Nights. Of this famous series of tales, neither the nationality nor the date of origin has been fixed with any degree of certainty. It is probable, however, that the collection first took shape in Bagdad about 1450 A.D., the date of the invention of printing. Von Hammer is of opinion that the Bagdad Tales are based upon a Persian collection called Hezar Afsaneh, The Thousand Fanciful Stories. From a passage in the Golden Meadows of El-Mesoudee (quoted by von Hammer) this Persian collection is known to have been in existence as early as 987 A.D.

It seems probable, as suggested, that the practice of publicly reciting poems or of narrating stories prevailed in Persia from a very early date, and constituted here, as in Greece, the first method for the distribution or the publication of literary compositions. The material employed for manuscripts was first diphtherai, or skins, and later papyrus and parchment.

Judæa.

—There is a similar lack of evidence concerning the existence among the Hebrews of anything that could be called literary property. The great body of the earlier Hebrew literature belonged, of course, to the class of sacred writings, best known to us through the books of the Old Testament and of the Apocrypha. In addition to these, and partly, of course, included with these, were the various collections of the law and of the comments on the law, while later years produced the long series of commentaries known to the reader of to-day under the general name of the Talmud. The various transcripts required of these writings of the law and the prophets gave employment to numbers of scribes, who, in the first place, apparently were usually connected with the Temple, and must have derived their support from the ecclesiastical revenues, but who later formed a separate commercial class, receiving payment for their work as done.

Professor Peters speaks of the age of Hezekiah as the golden age of Hebrew literature. He quotes the text, Prov. xxv., I, which says that “the men of Hezekiah translated” or transcribed, or wrote down the Proverbs of Solomon, as evidently an effort to collect and preserve the literary treasures of the past. He says, further:

“It is not unnatural to suppose that the writing down of Solomon’s Proverbs was for the purpose of a library in Jerusalem, such as the Assyrian kings had long since collected at Nineveh. The Book of Amos was edited (somewhere about 711 B.C.) apparently for this library ... and I suppose Hosea and Micah also to have been edited about this time and for the same purpose. It was the formation of this library at just this time and the desire to collect and preserve all the literary remains of the past, which led to the collection and preservation of so much of the literature of the Northern Kingdom, but lately brought into Judah by the Israelite emigrés. No tales of the valor of the heroes of Judah, no Judæan folk-lore ante-dating the time of David, have been handed down to us; this literature belonged to the Northern Kingdom. Literary and antiquarian zeal led to the collection and reception of these northern tales and poems into Hezekiah’s library ... where their use in historical works, owing to the awakened zeal for a knowledge of the past, was assured. So with the transfer of intellectual activity from Samaria, a new era begins in Judah, and soon the charming tales and poems of the north, preserved in the library of Hezekiah, begin to be woven into the more solid and ambitious works of the historians and lawyers of Jerusalem.

This literary awakening could not fail to act upon the priests. They were the custodians of those ancient religious and legal traditions, which, coming down from the age of Moses, had grown with, and been modified by, changing times and conditions. While some portions of the ‘law’ were written, presumably the larger part of it was handed down mainly by word of mouth.

Moreover, that which was written probably existed in various independent codes relating to different subjects. Some of these—such as a tariff of offerings, or tables of civil and criminal law, like those contained in the Book of the Covenant—may have been published, or set up at the Temple gates, where they could be read by the worshippers. The greater part of the ‘law,’ however, seems to have been the exclusive, if not esoteric, possession of the priesthood of the Jerusalem Temple. The literary activity of the Renaissance made itself felt within the circle of the priests, leading them to begin to commit to writing their unwritten law as well as the ancient traditions, customs, and ceremonies. Thus was commenced the work which has given us the middle books of the Pentateuch, as well as much of Genesis and Joshua.”[15]

It appears, therefore, as if the Hebrew literature of the time (the reign of Hezekiah, covering the period referred to, lasting from 728 to 699 B.C.) consisted substantially of the “law,” that is of the authoritative teachings of the “church,” and was almost exclusively in the hands of the priests. They exercised a control, which amounted practically to an ownership, over the sacred, that is the official, records of the “law,” and it appears as if the attested copies or transcripts could be made only with their permission and under their supervision. It is probable, therefore, that the copyists were attached to the Temple, and that such moneys as were received from the sale of their transcripts belonged to the treasury of the Temple,—but the manner of such sales can only be guessed at, as the records give us no information. If, however, this understanding of the practice should prove to be correct, we should have an example, if not of literary property, at least of a species of “copyright” control.

The severe Jewish law, directing the penalty of death to be inflicted upon prophets speaking “false words,” or uttering as inspirations of their own, words which had originated with others, has been quoted as an early example of regulation of plagiarism, but it appears evident, says Rénouard,[16] that the crime here to be punished was not plagiarism but sacrilege, “Vates mendax qui vaticinatur et quæ non audivit, et quæ ipsi non sunt dicta, ab hominibus est occidendus.”[17] The utterance of the prophet Jeremiah (c. xxiii. v. 30) evidently refers to the same regulation.

CHAPTER II.

Greece.

THE literature of Greece has become the property of the world, but of the existence of literary property in Greece—that is, of any system or practice of compensation to writers from their readers or hearers, either direct or indirect—the traces are very slight; so slight, in fact, that the weight of authority is against the probability of such practice having obtained at all.

It is fortunate for the literature of the world that the Greek poets, dramatists, historians, and philosophers were content to do their work for the approval of their own generation, for the chance of fame with the generations to come, or for the satisfaction of the work itself, as their rewards in the shape of anything more tangible than fame appear to have been either nothing or something very inconsiderable.

Clement says: “After the most painstaking researches through the records left us by the Greeks, we are compelled to conclude that in none of the Greek states was any recognition ever given under provision of law, to the right of authors to any control over their own productions.”[18] Breulier writes: “Literary property, in any sense in which the term is understood to-day, did not exist at Athens.”[19] Wilhelm Schmitz concludes that “no such relation as that which to-day exists between authors and booksellers (publishers) was known among the Greeks. In none of the writings of the time, do we find the slightest reference to any such publishing arrangements as Roman authors in the time of Martial were accustomed to secure.”[20] This treatise of Schmitz’s is a painstaking and interesting study of the conditions of Greek literature in classic times and of the relations of Greek writers to their public, and for certain portions of this chapter I am largely indebted to the results of his investigations.

Géraud remarks that in the first development of written language and literature among the Hebrews and Egyptians, it is easy to recognize the “fatal influence of the spirit of priestly caste, an influence from which the Greek peoples were comparatively free.”[21] The richest literature of antiquity, he goes on to say, is that of Greece, and it was also in Greece that the art of writing made the most rapid advances. The teaching of the priests, whether given through the oracles or not, was purely oral, so that the Greeks did not come into possession of any body of sacred scriptures such as formed the original literature of other peoples. On the other hand, the ardent nature, inquiring and active intellect, and brilliant imagination of the Greeks, gave an early and rapid development to the arts, to poetry, and to speculative philosophy.

The old-time tradition credits the introduction of the alphabet in Greece to Cadmus, and fixes the date of the first Hellenic spelling-school at about the fifteenth century before Christ. I believe the authorities are divided as to whether this mythical Cadmus represents a Phœnician or an Egyptian influence, but this is a question which need not be considered here. I understand the philologists are in accord in the conclusion that the Cadmus story represents, not a first instituting of a Greek alphabet, but merely certain important modifications in the form of letters already in use. Birt asserts, as if it were now a settled fact, that while the Greeks derived their written characters from the Phœnicians, they were indebted to Egypt for their first ideas in the making of books. There is a very distinct family resemblance between the Greek characters as known in literature and those of the Hebrew, Phœnician, and Syriac alphabets, while the names of the Greek letters Alpha and Beta are found in all the Semitic dialects. It seems further to be certain that the earlier peoples of Greece, after for a time having written perpendicularly according to the fashion of the Chinese, began later to write from right to left according to the Oriental manner.

The so-called Boustrophedon, a term meaning “turning like oxen when they plough,” was a method of writing from left to right, and from right to left in alternate lines. Among the earlier specimens of this method were the laws of Solon (about 610 B.C.) and the Sigean inscription (about 600 B.C.). This system represents a period of transition between the earliest style and that of which the invention is credited to Pronapides, and is simply the modern European fashion of writing from left to right. The inscriptions of the Etruscans are largely written in Boustrophedon. Neither in Greece, however, nor elsewhere, did this method remain in use for any writings which are to be classed as literature.

While Greek literature, as far as known to us, must be considered as beginning with the Homeric poems, the date of which is estimated by the majority of the authorities at about 900 B.C., there appears to be no trustworthy example of Greek writing earlier than about 600 B.C. Curiously enough, this specimen was found not in Greece but in Egypt. Jevons describes it as follows:

“On the banks of the Upper Nile, in the temple of Abu Simbel, are huge statues of stone, and on the legs of the second colossus from the south are chipped the names, witticisms, and records of travellers of all ages, in alphabets known and unknown. The earliest of the Greek travellers who have thus left their names were a body of mercenaries, who seemed to have formed part of an expedition which was led up the Nile by King Psammitichus.”[22]

Jevons goes on to give the grounds for the conclusion (based mainly on the formation of certain of the letters, and in part, of course, on the references to King Psammitichus) that the inscription was written, or rather was cut, upon the statue between 620 B.C. and 600 B.C., according as we take the king mentioned to have been the first or second of his name.[23] We have, then, a date fixing a time at which the art of writing certainly existed among the Greeks, while it is further evident that if in the year 600 the art of writing was so well established that it was understood by a number of mercenaries, it must have been quite generally diffused through certain classes of society, and the date for its introduction into Greece must have been considerably earlier than 600. Jevons knows, however, of no example of Greek writing which can be ascribed to an earlier date than that above quoted.

The conclusion, based upon this inscription, that in the year 600 B.C. writing had for some time been known in Greece, enables us, however, says Jevons, to accept as probably authentic a reference to writing ascribed to an author who lived nearly a century earlier. Archilochus, a poet who is believed to have flourished about 700 B.C., uses in one of his fables the expression “a grievous skytale.”

“A skytale was a staff on which a strip of leather for writing purposes was rolled slant-wise. A message was then written on the leather, and the latter being unrolled, was given to the messenger. If the messenger were intercepted, the message could not be deciphered, for only when the leather was rolled on a staff of precisely the same size (i. e., thickness) as the proper one, would the letters come right. Such a staff, the duplicate of that used by the sender, was of course possessed by the recipient.”

This primitive method of cipher was for a long time in use with the Spartans for conveying State messages. In the figure of speech used by Archilochus, his fable was to outward appearance innocent of any recondite meaning, but would prove a grievous “skytale” for the person attacked.

It seems reasonable, continues Jevons, to accept this passage as indicating a knowledge of writing in Greece as early as 700 B.C. This date allows a century for the diffusion of the art and for the spread of the Ionic alphabet which are implied by the Abu Simbel inscription. And the passage does not prove too much. It does not imply even that Archilochus himself could write. The invention or introduction was sufficiently novel and admirable to furnish a poet with a metaphor; and the skytale was probably then, as in later times, a government institution. This mention of it accords with the probable supposition that writing was used for government purposes for some time before it became common among the people.

The next date or period which in connection with my subject it is of interest to fix, however approximately, is that when it is possible to speak of the existence of a reading public. On this point also I take the liberty of quoting one or two paragraphs from Jevons in which the probabilities are clearly presented:

“Reading and writing were certainly taught as early as the year 500 B.C., and half a century later, to be unable to read or write was a thing to be ashamed of. Herodotus speaks of boys’ schools existing in Chios in the time of Histiæus, who lived about 500.”[24]

“Instruction of this kind does not, however, prove the existence of a reading public. Enough education to be able to keep accounts, to read public notices, to correspond with friends or business agents, may have been in the possession of every free Athenian in the period between 500 and 450 B.C., and the want of such education may have caused a man to be sneered at; but this does not prove the habit of reading literature.”

There are, however, various references which indicate that by the year 450 B.C. the habit of reading was beginning to become general, at least in certain circles of society. Jevons quotes a passage from the Tagenistæ of Aristophanes, in which, speaking of a young man gone wrong, the dramatist ascribes his ruin to “a book, to Prodicus or to bad company.”[25] Jevons also finds in fragments of an old comedy such expressions as “an unlettered man,” “a man who does not know his A B C.” A passage in the lyric fragments of the poet Theognis (who lived 583-500) is of interest not merely as an evidence of some public circulation of literature, but as possibly the earliest example of an author’s attempting to control the circulation of his own productions. Theognis says he has hit on a device which will prevent his verses from being appropriated by any one else. He will put his name on them as a seal (or trade-mark) and then “no one will take inferior work for his when the good is to be had, but every one will say ‘These are the verses of Theognis, the Megarian.’” As Jevons says: “This passage certainly implies that Theognis committed his works to writing.” It also appears to imply that there was likely to be sufficient literary prestige attaching to the poetry of Theognis to tempt an unscrupulous person to claim to be its author, while it is at least possible to infer that the plan of Theognis had reference not only to his prestige as an author, but also to certain author’s proceeds from the sales of his works, which proceeds he desired to keep plagiarists from appropriating. Clement does not, however, believe that there is adequate ground for the latter supposition, but contends that if the poet caused copies of his poems to be multiplied and distributed, it was not for the purpose of having them sold, and not even in order that they might be read, but to enable his friends to learn them and to sing them at drinking parties or other social gatherings. In his opinion, the nature of the poetry of Theognis shows that it was not composed for a reading public.

Giving the fullest possible weight to the evidences for the early development of the knowledge of reading and writing, and the possible facilities for the multiplication and distribution of books in manuscript, it is certain that Greek literature between the ninth and the sixth centuries B.C. cannot have been prepared for a reading public. The epics which have come down to posterity from that period must have been transmitted by word of mouth and memory. Mahaffy and Jevons are in accord in pointing out that the effort of memory required for the composition and transmission of long poems without the aid of writing, while implying a power never manifested among people possessing printed books, is not in itself at all incredible. Memory was equal to the task, and the earlier Greek poems, memorized by the authors as composed, were preserved by successive generations of Bards. They were also evidently composed with special reference to the requirements of the reciters whose recitations were in the earlier periods usually given at the banquets of the royal courts or of great houses to which the bards were attached. The practice of reciting before public audiences can hardly have been begun before the year 600 B.C.

The early epics were as a rule much too long to be recited within the limits of a single evening, and they must therefore have been continued from banquet to banquet. The authors have apparently kept this necessity in mind, and have provided for it by dividing their narratives into clearly defined episodes, at the close of which the reciters could leave their audiences with some such word as that given at the close of a weekly installment in the “penny dreadful”—“to be continued in our next.”

As the practice was introduced of entertaining larger audiences in the open air with the recital of the Homeric and other epics, a class of professional reciters arose, known as Rhapsodists, who declaimed in a theatrical manner, with much gesture and varying inflection of the voice. The term rhapsody is believed by Jevons to be derived from ῥάπτω, to sew or stitch together. He quotes a line from Pindar, Ὁμηρίαι ῥάπτων επέων ἀοιδοί, “sons of Homer, singers of stitched verses.” Words are metaphorically said to be stitched together into verses, and the word ῥαχ-ῳδός Jevons derives from ῥάπτω, to stitch, and ἀοιδός, a singer.[26]

These rhapsodists travelled from place to place to compete for the prizes offered by the different cities, and while the national poems (carried in their memories) were probably common to all, each reciter doubtless had his own special method of declaiming these. This practice helps to account for the transmission and for the diffusion of the earlier epics. The rhapsodists may, therefore, be said to have served in a sense as the publishers of the period. The derivation of the word comedy throws some light on the literary customs of the time. It means literally “a song of the village,” from κώμη, a village, and ἀείδω, I sing.

The purposes of Greek writers were either political or purely ideal. The possibility of earning money by means of authorship seems hardly ever to have occurred to them, and this freedom from any commercial motive for their work was doubtless an important cause for the high respect accorded in Greece to its authors. In the time of Plato, the Sophists, who prepared speeches and gave instruction for gain, were subject to more or less criticism on this account—a criticism which Plato himself seems to have initiated.[27]

At the threshold of Greek literature stands the majestic figure of Homer; and to Pisistratus, the Tyrant of Athens, is to be credited the inestimable service of securing the preservation of the Homeric poems in the form in which they have been handed down to posterity. The task of compiling or of editing the material was confided to four men, whose names, as predecessors of a long list of Homeric editors, deserve to be recorded: Conchylus, Onomacritus, Zopyrus, and Orpheus, and the work was completed about 550 B.C.[28]

Another creditable literary undertaking of Pisistratus was the collection of the poems of Hesiod, which was confided to the Milesian Cecrops. We have the testimony of Plutarch that by these means the Tyrant did not a little towards gaining or regaining the favor of the Athenians, which speaks well for the early interest of the city in literature. There are no details on record as to the means by which these first literary products were placed at the service of the community, but there can be no question that the service rendered by the Tyrant and the editors selected by him, consisted simply in providing an authoritative text, from which any who wished might transcribe such number of copies as they desired. This Pisistratus edition of the Homeric books is said to have served as the standard text for the copyists and for Homeric students not only in Greece but later in Alexandria, and is, therefore, the basis of the Homeric literature that has come down to modern days.

Prof. Mahaffy remarks that the writings of Hesiod differed from those of the other early Greek authors in being addressed, not to “the powers that were,” but to the common people.[29] Referring to the style of Hesiod’s works, Simcox says, rather naïvely, “Hesiod would certainly have written in prose, if prose had then existed.” Works and Days (the only one of Hesiod’s poems which the later Greek commentators accept as certainly genuine) consists of ethical and economic precepts, written in a homely and unimaginative style, and setting forth the indisputable doctrine that labor is the only road to prosperity. Mahaffy is my authority for the statement that Hesiod’s poems came into use “at an early period as a favorite handbook of education.”[30]

I wish this brilliant student of Greek life had given us some clue as to the methods by which copies of this literature were multiplied and brought into the hands of the country people and common people to whom it was more particularly addressed. The difficulty of circulating books among this class of readers must have been very much greater than that of reaching the scholarly circles of the cities.

While it was a long time before authors were to be in a position to secure any compensation from those who derived pleasure from their productions, they began at an early date (as in the case before mentioned of Theognis) to raise questions with each other on the score of plagiarisms, and to be jealous of retaining undisturbed the full literary prestige to which they might be entitled.

Clement remarks that “an enlightened public opinion helped to defend Greek authors against the borrowing of literary thieves, by stigmatizing plagiarism as a crime, and by expressing for a writer detected in appropriating the work of another a well merited contempt instead of the approbation for which he had hoped.”[31] It seems probable, however, that this is too favorable a view to take as to the effectiveness of public opinion in preserving among Greek writers a spirit of exact conscientiousness, as the complaints in the literature of the time concerning unauthorized and uncredited “borrowings” are numerous and bitter.

Such terms as “accidental coincidence,” “identity of thought,” “unconscious cerebration” (in absorbing the expressions of another), were doubtless used in these earlier as in the later days of literature to explain certain suspicious cases of “parallelisms” or similarities. In fact, at least one Greek author, the sophist Aretades, wrote a volume, unfortunately lost, on the similarity or identity of thought creations.[32]

Clement gives some examples of borrowings or appropriations on the part of writers and orators, and his list is so considerable as to leave the impression that the public opinion to which he refers was either not very active in discovering the practice, or was not a little remiss in characterizing and in condemning it. Isocrates copies an entire oration from Gorgias; Æschines makes free use in his discourses of those of Lysias and Andocides. Even Demosthenes, the chief of orators, occasionally yielded to the temptation; and among other instances, Clement cites extracts from orations against Aphobos and Pantænetos which are identical with passages in the Discourses on Ciron by the old instructor of Demosthenes, Isæus.

Rozoir tells us that an anonymous work of six volumes (rolls) was published under the title Passages in the Writings of Menander which are Not the Work of Menander, and that Philostrates of Alexandria accused Sophocles of having pillaged Æschylus, Æschylus of having permitted himself to draw too much inspiration from Phrynichus, and, finally, Phrynichus of having taken his material from the writers who preceded him. Such charges become, of course, too sweeping to be pertinent, and can probably in large part be dismissed with the conclusion that each generation of writers ought to familiarize itself with the work of its predecessors, and may often enough with propriety undertake the reinterpretation for new generations of readers of themes similar to those which have interested their fathers and grandfathers.

One evidence that the subject of plagiarism was a matter which in later days engaged public attention is given by the Fable of Æsop on the Jay masquerading in the plumes of the Peacock.

Clement points out that in connection with the fierce competition between the poets of Athens for dramatic honors, no means were neglected by the friends of each writer to bring discredit upon the productions of his rivals, and that very many of the charges of plagiarism can be traced to such an incentive. Aristophanes, who amused himself by utilizing for his comedies the strifes between his literary contemporaries, puts into the mouth of Euripides, whom he makes one of the characters in The Frogs, the following biting words, addressed to Æschylus:

“When I first read over the tragedy which you placed in my hands, I found it difficult and bombastic; I at once made a severe condensation, freeing the play from the weight of rubbish with which you had overloaded it; I then enlivened it with bright sayings, with pointed philosophic subtleties and with an abundance of brilliant witticisms drawn from a crowd of other books; and finally I added some pithy monologues, which are in the main the work of Ctesiphon.”[33]

In the same comedy, Æschylus is made to accuse Euripides of having carried on literary free-booting in every direction. Further on, Bacchus, in expressing his admiration for some striking thought expressed by Euripides, asks whether it is really his or Ctesiphon’s, and the tragedian frankly admits that the credit for the idea properly belongs to the latter. Clement concludes that there must have been foundation for the raillery of the comedian, and refers, in this connection, to the remarks of Plato that if one wished to examine the philosophy of Anaxagoras, the simplest course was to read the tragedies of Euripides, the choruses of which reproduced faithfully the teachings of the philosopher. Aristophanes, while scoffing sharply at the misdeeds of others, was himself not beyond criticism, being charged with having made free use of the comedies of Cratinus and Eupolis.[34]

The philosophers and historians appear to have been little more conscientious than the poets in their literary standard. The historian Theopompus included, without credit, in the eleventh book of his Philippics a whole harangue of Isocrates, and with a few changes of names and places, he was able to make use of passages from Androtion and Xenophon. His appropriations were so considerable that they were collected in a separate volume to which was given the fitting title of The Hunters.[35] Lysimachus wrote a book entitled The Robberies of Ephorus. Timon, in some lines preserved by Aulus Gellius, charges Plato with having obtained from a treatise of the Pythagorean philosopher Philolaus the substance of his famous dialogue the Timæus.[36] The lines, from the version of Clement, read as follows: “You also, Plato, being ambitious to acquire knowledge, first purchased for a great sum a small book, and then with its aid proceeded yourself to instruct others.”

Even our moral friend Plutarch does not escape from the general charge of borrowing from others.

“In reading,” says Rozoir, “the text of many of the Lives, one cannot but be struck with the very great differences of style and of forms of expression, differences so marked, that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that many portions are extracts taken literally and without credit, from other authors.”[37]

From these examples, out of many which might be cited, it seems evident that during the centuries in which Greek literature was at its height, the practice of plagiarism was very general, even among authors whose originality and creative power could not be questioned. Emerson’s dictum that “man is as lazy as he dares to be” was assuredly as true two thousand years ago as at the time it was uttered.

We may further conclude that while plagiarism, when detected, called forth a certain amount of criticism and raillery, especially when the author appropriated from was still living, it did not bring upon the “appropriators” any such final condemnation as would cause them to lose caste in the literary guild or to forfeit the appreciation of the reading public. This leniency of judgment could doubtless be more safely depended upon by writers who had given evidence of their own creative powers. The acknowledged genius could say with Molière: “Je prends mon bien où je le trouve,” and such a claim would be admitted the more readily as, when a genius does to the work of another the honor of utilizing it, the material so appropriated must usually secure in its new setting a renewed vitality, a different and a larger value.

The case of a small writer venturing to appropriate from a greater one was naturally judged much more harshly, and if a literary theft was detected in a production which was submitted in open contest for public honors, the verdict was swift and severe.

An instance of such public condemnation is referred to by Vitruvius.[38] One of the Ptolemies had instituted at Alexandria some literary contests in honor of Apollo and the Muses. Aristophanes, the grammarian, who on a certain day acted as judge, gave his decision, to the surprise of the audience, in favor of a contestant whose composition had certainly not been the most able. When asked to defend his decision, he showed that the competing productions were literal copies from the works of well known writers. Thereupon the unsuccessful competitors were promptly sentenced before the tribunal as veritable robbers, and were ignominiously thrust out of the city.

“Itaque rex jussit cum his agi furti, condemnatosque cum ignominia dimisit.”

This was, however, certainly an exceptional case, as well in the clumsiness of the plagiarism as in the swiftness of the punishment. The weight of evidence is, I am inclined to believe, in favor of the view, that in the absence of any protection by law for the author’s “rights,” whether literary or commercial, in his productions, the protection by public opinion, even for living writers, was very incidental and inadequate; while it seems further probable that, especially as far as the works of dead authors were concerned, but a small proportion of the “borrowings” were ever brought to light at all or became the occasion for any criticism. Much, of course, depended upon the manner in which the appropriation was made. As Le Vayer cleverly says: “L’on peut dérober à la façon des abeilles sans faire tort à personne; mais le vol de la fourmi, qui enlève le grain entier, ne doit jamais être imité.”[39]

There is one ground for forgiving these early literary “appropriators” even of les grains entiers—namely, that by means of such transmissal by later writers of extracts borrowed from their predecessors, a good deal of valuable material has been preserved for future generations which would otherwise have been lost altogether.

In considering such examples of plagiarism as are referred to by Greek writers and the general attitude of these writers to the practice, it is safe to conclude that authors cannot depend upon retaining the literary control of their own productions and cannot be prevented from securing honor for the productions of others unless public opinion can be supplemented with an effective copyright law.

Suidas, the lexicographer, relates that Euphorion, the son of Æschylus, and himself also a writer, gave to the world as his own certain tragedies which were the work of his father, but which had not before been made known (nondum in lucem editis).[40] It does not appear that any advantage other than a brief prestige accrued to Euphorion through his unfilial plagiarism.

Such advantage was, however, more possible for the author of a drama than for the author of any other class of literature, for seats in the theatre, which had at first been free, were later sold to the spectators at a drachme (Plato’s Apology of Socrates). The drachme was equal in cash to about eighteen cents, and in purchasing power to perhaps seventy-two cents of our money. This price was, according to Barthelémi,[41] reduced by Pericles to an obolus, equal in cash value to about three cents.

The expenses of the presentation of a drama were very slight, and even this smaller payment by the audience should have afforded means, after the actors had been reimbursed, for some compensation to the dramatist.

Instances of compensation to orators are of not infrequent occurrence, and, as Paul Clement remarks, it seems reasonably certain that experienced orators were not in the habit of writing gratuitously the discourses so frequently prepared for the use of others. Isocrates is reported to have received not less than twenty talents (about $21,500) for the discourses sent by him to Nicocles, King of Cyprus.[42]

Aristophanes speaks of the considerable sums gained by the jurists, but the service for which Isocrates was paid was of course of a different character.

The intellectual or literary life of Athens, initiated by the popularization (at least among the cultivated circles) of the poems of Homer and Hesiod, was very much furthered through the influence of Plato. Curiously enough, notwithstanding Plato’s great activity as a writer, he placed a low estimate on the importance of written as compared with that of oral instruction. This is shown in his reference to the myth concerning the discovery of writing.[43]

The ten books of Plato’s Republic were undoubtedly prepared in the first place for presentation in the shape of lectures to a comparatively small circle of students, and were through these students first brought before the public. Plato’s hearers appear to have interested themselves in the work of circulating the written reports of his lectures, of which for some little time the number of copies was naturally limited. We also learn that the fortunate possessors of such manuscripts were in the habit of lending them out for hire. From a comedy of the time has been quoted the following line: “Hermodoros makes a trade of the sale of lectures.”[44]

Hermodoros of Syracuse was known as a student of Plato, and this quotation is interpreted as a reference to a practice of his of preparing for sale written reports of his instructor’s talks. Plato had evidently not yet evolved for himself the doctrine established over two thousand years later by Dr. Abernethy, that the privilege of listening to lectures did not carry with it the right to sell or to distribute the reports of the same. Abernethy’s student had at least made payment to the doctor for his course of lectures, while if, as seems probable, the teachings of Plato were a free gift to his hearers, his claim to the control of all subsequent use of the material would have been still better founded than that of the Scotch lecturer. But the time when it was not considered incompatible with the literary or philosophical ideal for the authors or philosophers to receive compensation from those benefited by their instruction, had not yet arrived. This reference to Hermodoros has interest as being possibly the first recorded instance of moneys being paid for literary material. The date was about 325 B.C.

Suidas calls Hermodoros a hearer (ἀκροατής) of Plato, and says, further, that he made a traffic of his master’s teachings (λόγοισιν Ἑρμόδωρος ἐμπορεύεται). Cicero, in writing to Atticus, makes a jesting comparison of the relations of Hermodoros to Plato with those borne by his publishing friend to himself, when he says: Placetne tibi libros “De Finibus” primum edere injussu meo? Hoc ne Hermodorus quidem faciebat, is qui Platonis libros solitus est divulgare.[45] “Possibly you may be inclined to publish my work De Finibus without securing the permission of the author. Even that Hermodorus, who was in the habit of publishing the books of Plato, was not guilty of such a thing.”

The term libros, employed by Cicero, is of course not really accurate, and ought properly to be interpreted as teachings, as Hermodoros appears not to have had in his hands any of Plato’s manuscripts, and to have used for his “publications” simply his own reports of his instructor’s lectures. It seems probable from these several references that Hermodoros secured from his sales certain profits, but it was evidently not believed that he considered himself under any obligation to divide such profits with Plato.

We have no word from Plato himself concerning the method by which his writings were brought before the public, but we find references in Aristotle to the “published works of Plato.”[46] Cephisodorus, a pupil of Isocrates, makes it a ground for reproach against Aristotle (considered at the time as a rival of his own instructor) that the latter should have published a work on Greek proverbs, a performance characterized as “unworthy of a philosopher.”[47]

The greater portions of the writings of Aristotle appear to have been composed in the course of his second sojourn in Athens, during which he was specially indebted to, and was possibly maintained by, the affectionate liberality of his royal pupil Alexander the Great. A curious claim was made by the latter to the ownership, or at least to the control, of such of the philosopher’s lectures as had been originally prepared for his own instruction. “You have not treated me fairly,” writes Alexander to Aristotle, “in including with your published works the papers prepared for my instruction. For if the scholarly writings by means of which I was educated become the common property of the world, in what manner shall I be intellectually distinguished above ordinary mortals? I would rather be noteworthy through the possession of the highest knowledge than by means of the power of my position.”

Aristotle’s reply is ingenious. He says in substance: “It is true, O beloved pupil, that through the zeal of over-admiring friends these lectures, originally prepared for thy instruction, have been given out to the world. But in no full sense of the term have they been published, for in the form in which they are written they can be properly understood only if accompanied by the interpretation of their author, and such interpretation he has given to none but his beloved pupil.”[48]

Alexander’s claim to the continued control of literary productions prepared for him and for the first use of which he, or his father on his behalf, had made adequate payment, raises an interesting question. It is probable, however, that the principle involved is at the bottom the same as that upon which have since been decided the Abernethy case and other similar issues between instructors and pupils; such decisions limiting the rights of the students in the material strictly to the special use for which he has paid, and leaving with the instructor, when also the author, all subsequent control and all subsequent benefit.

Aristotle made a sharp distinction between his “published works” (ἐξωτερικοὶ or ἐκδεδομένοι λόγοι) and his Academic works (ἀκροάσεις). The former, written out in full and revised, could be purchased by the general public (outside of the Peripatos). The latter were apparently prepared more in the shape of notes or abstracts, to serve as the basis of his lectures. Copies of these abstracts, such as would to-day be known in universities as Précis, were distributed among (and possibly purchased by) the students,[49] and could not be obtained except within the Peripatos.

From the bequests made by certain of the philosophers of their books, it appears that such a distinction between the two classes of books was general. In these legacies the copies of current publications, purchased for reading (Τὰ ἀνεγνωσμένα), are distinguished from the unpublished works (ἀνέκδοτα). It was from such an unpublished manuscript (ἀνέκδοτον)[50] that in the Theætet. of Plato a reading is given.

It is easy to understand that the more abstruse works of Plato and Aristotle were not fitted for any such general distribution as was secured for the then popular treatises of Democritus on the Science of Nature, or for the writings of the Sophist Protagoras. It is by no means clear by what channels were distributed these works, which appear very shortly after their production to have come into the hands of a large number of readers not only in Greece itself, but throughout the Greek colonies. The sale of copies, made by students and by admiring readers, seems hardly to furnish a sufficiently adequate publishing machinery, but of publishers or booksellers, with staffs of trained copyists, we have as yet no trustworthy record.

Protagoras, who came from Abdera, was said to have been intimate with Pericles. He was the first lecturer or instructor who assumed the title of Sophist, and what is more important for our subject, was said to be the first who received pay for his lessons. Plato, whose view of the responsibilities of a literary or philosophical worker seems to have been extremely ideal, makes it a charge against Protagoras that during the forty years in which he taught, he received more money than Phidias. And why not, one is tempted to enquire, if his many hearers felt that they received a fair equivalent in the services rendered? The receipts of Protagoras appear to have come entirely from the listeners or students who attended his lectures; at least there is nothing to show that he himself derived any business benefit from the large sales of the copies of these lectures. His remunerated work is therefore an example of property produced from an intellectual product but not yet of property resulting for the producer of a work of literature.

The history, or histories of Herodotus were first communicated to the world in the shape of lectures or readings of the separate chapters of the earlier portions. We find references to four such lectures delivered respectively at Olympia,[51] Athens,[52] Corinth,[53] and Thebes[54] between the years 455 and 450, B.C. In 447 B.C. Herodotus was sojourning in Athens, still engaged in the work of his history, and becoming known, through his public readings, to Pericles, Sophocles, and other leaders of Athenian thought and culture. In 443 he joined the colonists whom Pericles was sending out to Italy, and became one of the first settlers at Thurium, where he remained until his death in 424. It was at Thurium that the great work, in the shape in which we now know it, was finally completed, about 442. The promptness with which the History became known in Greece and the very general circulation secured for it, seems to have been in large part due to the personal interest in it of Pericles and Sophocles and possibly also to the financial aid of the former in providing funds for the copyists. It is related, on uncertain authority, says Clement, that in 446, the Athenian Assembly decreed a reward to Herodotus for his History, after certain chapters of it had been read publicly. There appears to be no other reference to any compensation secured by the author for this great work to the preparation of which he had devoted his life and which had cost him so many toilsome and costly journeys. The History of Herodotus, the first work of any lasting importance of its class in point of time, and in the estimate of twenty-three centuries not far from the first by point of excellence, was practically a free gift from the historian to his generation and to posterity.

The system of instruction or literary entertainment by means of readings or lectures became one of the most important features of intellectual life in Greece. Mahaffy speaks of the culture and quickness of intellect of an Athenian audience as being far in advance of that of a similar modern assembly. Freeman says: “The average intelligence of the assembled Athenian citizens was unquestionably higher than that of the House of Commons.”[55]

It is stated by Abicht[56] that the young Thucydides, then a boy of twelve, was one of the listeners to a recital of Herodotus at the great Olympian festival, and, moved to tears, resolved that he would devote himself to the writing of history. Later, when he had entered upon his own historical work, Thucydides remarks with a confidence which later centuries have justified, that he “was not writing for the present only, but for all time.”[57]

His History was left unfinished, apparently owing to the sudden death of the author, although the exact date of this death is not known. It does not appear who assumed the responsibility for the first publication of the History. Marcellinus speaks of a daughter of Thucydides having undertaken the transcribing of the eighth book, and having provided means for the issue of the same.[58] If this daughter inherited the gold mine in Thrace which her father tells us he owned, there should have been no difficulty in finding funds for the copyists.