by Gertrude Burford Rawlings
New York D.Appleton and Company 1901
It is easier to find the beginning of writing than the beginning of literature. Although we know for certain
that the ancient nations of the world had books and libraries, that they preserved traditions, stored
records and knowledge, and assisted memory by means of their tablets, their monuments, and their
papyri, we shall probably never know when the art of writing was first applied to strictly literary purposes,
and still less likely is it that we shall ever discover when works of the imagination were first recorded for
the edification of mankind. It is not very rash, however, to assume that as soon as the art had developed
the ancients put it to much the same uses as we do, except, perhaps, that they did not vulgarise it, and
no one wrote who had not something to write about. But we are not without specimens of antique
literatures.
Egypt has preserved for us many different specimens of her literary produce of thousands of years
ago-historical records, works of religion and philosophy, fiction, magic, and funeral ritual. Assyria has
bequeathed to us hundreds of the clay books which formed the great royal library at Nineveh, books of
records, mythology, morals, grammar, astronomy, astrology, magic; books of reference, such as
geographical tables, lists of temples, plants, birds, and other things. In the Old Testament we have all
that now remains of Israelitish writings, and the early literatures of China and India are also partly known
to us. After these the writings of Greece and Rome are of comparatively recent origin, and, moreover,
they are nearer to us in other respects besides the merely chronological. The literature of Greece, dating
from the far Homeric age, grew up a strong and beautiful factor in Greek life, and Rome, drawing first her
alphabet and then her literature from the land before which she stooped, even while she conquered it,
passed them on as an everlasting possession to the peoples of the western world. The fact of the literary
preeminence of Greece partly helps to explain why Greek manuscripts form the bulk of the early writings
now extant.
In considering how early literature has been preserved, therefore, we are hardly concerned with Egyptian
papyri or cuneiform tablets, but with the writings of Greece and Rome, or writings produced under Greek
or Roman influence. And it is curious that while the libraries and books of older nations have survived in
comparatively large numbers, there should be no Greek literary manuscripts older than about 160 B.C.,
and even these are very fragmentary and scarce. The earliest Latin document known is dated 55 A.D.,
and is an unimportant wax tablet from Pompeii. For this lack of early documents many causes are
responsible, and those who remember that it is not human beings only who suffer from the vicissitudes
inseparable from existence will wonder, not that we have so few ancient writings in our present
possession, but that we have any.
The evidence of many curious and interesting discoveries of manuscripts made from time to time goes to
show that accident, rather than design, has worked out their preservation, and that the civilised world
owes its present store of ancient literature more to good luck than good management, to use a handy
colloquialism. It is true, of course, that in early days there were many who guarded books as very
precious things, but in times of wars and tumults people would naturally give little thought to such
superfluities. Fire and war have been the agencies most destructive of books, in the opinion of the author
of Philobiblon, but carelessness and ignorance, wanton destruction and natural decay, are also
accountable far same part of the great losses which have wasted so large a share of the literary heritage,
and although we are deeply indebted to monastic work for the transmission of classic lore as well as of
Christian compositions, we can hardly conclude that the monkish scribes wrote solely for the benefit of
posterity.
Their immediate purpose, no doubt, and naturally so, was much narrower, and identified the service of
God with the enrichment of their houses. Besides, they did not hesitate to erase alder writings in order
that they might use the parchment again far their own, whenever it suited them to do so.
Before noting same of the ways by which ancient literature has come dawn to the present day, let us for
a moment transport ourselves into the past, and see haw a wealthy Roman lover of letters would set
about gathering a collection of books. Having no lack of means, all that is best in the literary world will be
at his service. He will first take care that the works of every Greek writer which can possibly be obtained,
as well as those of Roman authors, are represented in his library by well-written papyrus rolls containing
good, correct texts.
If he can obtain old manuscripts or original autographs of famous writers, so much the better; but
whereas ordinary volumes will cost him comparatively little, on these he must expend large sums. If a
book on which he has set his heart is not to be purchased, he may be able to obtain the loan of it, so
that it may be transcribed for him by his librarius or writing slave. If he can neither borrow nor purchase
what he desires, he may commission the bookseller to send for it to Alexandria, where there is an
unrivalled store of books and many skilled scribes ready to make copies of them.