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Publishing in Rome: 1st century BC
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In describing the scene of literary Rome in the 1st century BC historians often mention publication dates for particular works. This sounds strange in any period before printing. Yet publication is a similar concept in a society where all books are hand-written.
Rome has no publishers in the modern sense. When a work is ready for publication, the author or his friends provide the necessary funds. The text is then sent to what is in effect a writing factory.
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The scribes, numbering perhaps as many as thirty, sit in a courtyard or hall with a papyrus scroll on a slab in front of each of them. Most are slaves, working for the master who owns the factory. Into their ink wells they dip either a bronze pen, with a flattened and pointed end as a nib, or a reed sharpened and split to hold the ink.
They all write the same text, which a reader declaims in measured tones. The written part of the papyrus rolls up on the left of each slab; the unwritten part unrolls from the right. As each completed batch of scrolls is taken off for delivery to customers, the team - depending on the size of the edition - starts the same book again. The work has been published.
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