It is in Rome that we find the first records of publishers whose names have been preserved. During the Second Century B.C. a number of im portant and costly literary enterprises were under taken ; and the continued production of books ad dressed to a general public implies the existence of machinery for their distribution. Here, as in Athens, those who first interested themselves in publishing undertakings were men who com bined with literary tastes the control of sufficient means to pay for the production of the editions. Their aim was not at the securing of profits, but the service of literature and of the State, and these earlier publishing enterprises must fre quently have resulted in a deficiency. As the size of the editions could easily be limited to the probable demand, and as further copies could always be secured when called for, one would imagine that the expense need not have been con siderable. The high prices, however, which under the competition of a literary fashion it became necessary to pay for the educated slaves trained as scribes. constituted a serious item of outlay. Horace speaks of slaves competent to write Greek as costing S000 sesterces, about $400. Cal•isius, a rich dilettante, paid for each of his serri lite rati as much as 10.000 sesterces. In one of the laws of .Justinian in which the relative price of slaves is fixed for the division of estates, notarii or scribes are rated fifty per cent. higher than artisans.
The man whose name is most intimately con nected with the work of publishing in .the time of Cicero was his friend Titus Pomponius Atti ens, who organized, about B.C. 65, a great book manufacturing establishment in Rome with con nections in Athens and Alexandria. The editions issued by him came to be known as the 'Armtard, Itikiana. and secured wide repute for their ae cnracy. _Miens did not confine his book business to his publishing house, but established retail dealers, tabernarii, in different quarters of Rome. and also in one or two of the provincial capitals. The publishers of Horace were the brothers Sosii. 'Their shop was in the Wiens Tus cue, near the entrance to the Temple of Janus. It was in a book-shop that Clodius hid himself (n.e. 5S ) from his pursuers. Later we find the stalls of the hibliopoles placed in the most fre quented quarters of the city. by the Janus gate of the Forum, by the Temple of Pea(T, on the Argiletum, in the Vieus Sandal arias, and on the Sigillaria. Martial speaks of the street Argiletum as being chiefly occupied by the booksellers, with whom were associated the fashionable tailors. Both Horace and Martial describe the book shops as places of resort where the more active minded citizens were in the habit of meeting to look over the literary novelties and to discuss the latest gossip, literary and social.
By the close of the First Century the hook trade in Rome and in other larger cities of the Empire had developed into large proportions. The packets from Alexandria brought into Rome great cargoes of papyrus from Egypt, which speedily found their way into the work-rooms of the publishers. Here a hundred skilled slaves followed with swift pens the rapid dictation of the readers, who from time to time relieved each other; others occupied themselves with the work of comparison and revision, while a third group covered the completed manuscripts with proper bindings. In the book-shop, taberna, collections of the accepted classics and of the latest literary novelties are attractively presented. Here a cheap edition of the ...Ene01 for school use is sold for a few pennies; there, great sums are ex pended for a veritable 'original' text of some work by Demosthenes, Thucydides, Cato, or Lueililts, while a third buyer is placing a whole sale order for a 'proper assortment' of literature to serve as an adornment for a new villa. From the Roman shops large shipments of hooks were made to other cities, even as far as Gaul. The average editions of works addressed to the gen era] public are estimated by Birt to have com prised from 300 to 1000 copies.
By the time of the accession of Constantine (A.D. 306) the P,oman hook trade had very muen decreased, and with the removal (in 328) of the capita] to Byzantium the activities of Rome in connection with general literature came very much to an end. Under the rule of Theodo•ie the (loth there was, mainly owing to the influ ence of his minister Cassiodorus, some continued interest in literature, which manifested itself in the preservation and extension of libraries and in the maintenance of the schools. There was, however, during the time of the Gothic rule in Italy, no such demand for hooks as to render practicable the continued existence of booksellers.
The next bookselling undertakings were carried on from the scriptoria of the monasteries. For some centuries, however, the books written in these scriptoria were produced for the use only of the Monks or of the pupils under, their charge. Later there came into vogue a practice of ex changing manuscripts between monasteries, a practice which developed in a measure into a trade in books. There would be in one Script riltin a manuscript of special antirynity and au tho•ity; from this the scribes would prepare copies which would carry with them a varying value, depending, first upon the 'word (the pedi gree, so to speak) of the original manuscript, and secondly upon the repute that had been se cured by that particular scriptorium for accurate and scholarly work. See BENEDICTINES.