From Podium to Pen in Rome

So, we had a nice little break with King Benjamin and his teaching charity, one of the most important ideas of Christianity. Now... back to bloodthirsty and pagan Romans!

The Roman Empire serves as an excellent example of how a culture can change from being oral to being written. In a previous post, I mentioned how Virgil's Aeneid, published in 19 BC, showed how Roman culture was still principally oral. In his day, there would have been Romans who could tell the entire story of the Aeneas's journey in the Aeneid much like bards would have told stories such as Beowulf. Within half a century, however, this had changed. When Ovid published his Metamorphoses in 8 AD, there were still people who could orally tell the stories that he had published. Very few people, however, (if any other than Ovid himself) could tell all of these stories. Within the decade(s) after Metamorphoses was published, Rome had a very much written culture. (While Ovid's works, Metamorphoses in particular, played a role in this shift, I should clarify that I do not mean Ovid himself was solely responsible, for that would be a very generous assertion on his behalf.)

So why did Rome's culture change from an oral one to a written one so rapidly? One very important factor to consider is the extent of the Roman Empire. Although there had been empires larger than that of Rome (although we tend to think of Rome as "the great empire," this is misleading. Do you know what the largest empire in history was? If not, you're probably thinking too hard!), Rome managed its empire differently in the ways in which it governed its domain, mainly in that it was a more centralized power for greater control over its territory.
Remember when Augustus made the (overly ethnocentric) proclamation that "all the world should be taxed" sometime around 1 BC? We don't have an inclusive list of where this issue was sent (it may have been limited to the immediate Mediterranean or it may have gone much past this area), but we know that it made it across the sea to Israel. How much easier would it have been for Augustus to send letters than to have people be the sole carriers of the message? If Augustus hadn't used letters, it would have necessitated that many men would memorize the proclamation in a short time. Also, it would be necessary for more than one person per voyage to memorize in case he forgot something. Uniformity would also be lost with the Emperor's demands. By writing a letter, however, Augustus would be able to have complete uniformity in instruction without having to cause many men to waste time memorizing his words; instead, they could carry letters with the proclamation on it.

It was also much easier for the Roman government to make public address to citizens with writing when they were inside Rome itself. Roman triumphal arches often functioned as classical billboards. In the arch to the right, you can see an engraved proclamation on the arch. While today we might expect this to be something like the name of a street if it was shorter, these inscriptions on Roman triumphal arches almost always praised either the Emperor or the Senate (or both) or occasionally an exceptional general. Often, upon death, an emperor would have an arch made in his honor which would proclaim his deification and ascension to the Roman pantheon.

Furthermore, it would be easier for the Romans to teach the peoples of their expanding empire Latin if they placed more emphasis on an alphabet and written text.


Rome therefore transitioned from an oral tradition very quickly with imperial aspirations as an important reason behind the shift but which was not separate from literary changes as well. This reminds me of something that my Book of Mormon professor, Brother Merrill, said today. He asked us how Mosiah, one of only a few Nephite travelers to Zarahemla, could have become king of the Mulekites, who were a numerous people. After a brief period of no one answering, he simply said something along the lines of "You put someone who can read and write in with a group of people who can't and see who becomes in charge." Writing really is a powerful form of communication whereby power can be ascertained, a very important reason as to why it rose to prominence.

Also, something interesting that didn't really fit anywhere but I wanted to put in: in class Tuesday, Dr. Burton mentioned Thoth, the Egyptian ibis god of knowledge(/wisdom), magic, and writing, and how it was interesting that these three things were all attributed together to one deity. In Greco-Roman mythology, there isn't really a major deity for writing. According to Roman mythology, however, Minerva (Athena), goddess of wisdom (and curiously enough strategy) was the creator of the Latin language. Apollo, god of poetry (which was the form of pretty much all Latin literature and subsequently the closest thing to a major god of writing), was also the god of revelation. I thought it was interesting that writing was mythologically connected to wisdom/knowledge in both cultures. As far as magic and writing in Greco-Roman mythology, they seem to be relatively unconnected, but this may largely be attributed to the fact that there was not a major deity of "writing" or of "magic" in the Greco-Roman pantheon. Magic was associated with Hecate and later Diana (Artemis), but writing was not very connected to either of these women. So I thought that was interesting.