Palaeography 2 2010

Roman Scripts of the Antiquity Phoenician alphabet 1300-1000 B.C. Genesis of the Latin alphabet

• Phoenician alphabet > Greek alphabet (c. 800 B. C, vowel signs!) > Etruscan alphabet (26 letters) ( VIIIth-VIIth c.) > Archaic Latin alphabet (VIIth-IVth c.) > Classical Latin alphabet (s. I a.C.) The uses of archaic Latin script

• hard materials: stone, metal, ivory, ceramics • soft materials: linen (Libri lintei ), skin etc. • seventh-fourth c. B.C.1) public use (laws, lists of magistrates, acts of religious corporations, e.g. Fratres arvales); 2) private use: genealogical lists of the gentes, funeral orations to ancestors, inscriptions of ownership or dedication • restricted circle of users: public administration, public and private religions, patricians Fibula Praenestina c. 670-650

Archaic Latin alphabet: Manios med fhefhaked Numasioi Duenos c. 450 Normalisation of the Latin script 1 IIIrd c. BC: G, Ist c. B.C.: YZ • from c. 250 B.C.: graphical normalisation according to the Greek epigraphic capital script • IInd c. B.C.: spreading of written culture (expansion of the Roman empire), development of administration, trade > private use becomes more frequent Normalisation of the Latin script 2 • from c. 100 B.C.: process of canonisation of the capitalis completed in the Augustan age (31 B.C. – A.D. 14): • 1) geometric forms with right angles and elliptical arches approaching sections of a circle; • 2) uniformity of scale and aspect; Normalisation of the Latin script 3 • 3) shading in the strokes; • 4) ends of vertical minims enlarged with horizontal and oblique spatulae CAPITALIS MONVMENTALIS

Senatus // populusque Romanus // Divo Tito Divi Vespasiani f(ilio) Vespasiano Augusto c. 81 d.C.

Book publishing in Rome from the first c. B.C. • NB bilingualism L-G of the upper classes, importance of Greek book culture, importance of Greek among the lower classes (multi-ethnic origins of population) • T. Pomponius Atticus, Cicero’s friend and editor • publication: reading aloud to friends and general public (cf. Petronius, Seneca, Pliny the Younger, Juvenal, Martial) • written copies circulating among friends • written copies in public and/or commercial circulation Book publishing 2

• dictation vs. autograph (poets?) • debate: Quintilian preferred to write • evidence from copies: both techniques • corrector: revision and correction of the copies Copying mistakes

Cic. Ad Quint. Fr . 3.5.64: de latinis libris quo me vertam nescio; ita mendose et scribuntur et ueneunt • Martial, epigrammata 2.8.1 • Si qua videbuntur chartis tibi, lector in istis • sive obscura nimis sive Latina parum • non meus est error: nocuit librarius illis • dum properat versus annumerare tibi Book trade in early Imperial times (first-second c.) • economically important • increasing number of private libraries < social prestige of the book • free scribes (as well as slaves) • stichometry: payment by line, i.e. dactylic hexameter, i.e.15 syllables(Gr. stikhos) from the first c. A.D. • prices fixed by Diocletian (A.D. 301) • flourishing interregional trade 2nd c.: Pliny the Younger (ep. 9.11.2), books sold in Lugdunum(Gaul) Public libraries

• 39 B.C. Asinius Pollio • 28 B.C. Augustus: next to the temple of Apollo (Palatine) • Trajan’s Forum (beg. 2nd c.): Greek, Roman libraries • Forma urbis, 4th c.: 28 public libraries Private libraries

• first c. B.C..: Cicero, Atticus, Varro • first c. A.D.: Persius, Martial, Silius Italicus, Pliny the Younger Capitalis rustica

• upright script, smooth, regular ductus, no ligatures, no cursive elements • well-developed shading, no sharp corners, spatulae at the end of vertical minims • in use between 1st c. A.D. until mid-6th c. as book script • only (luxury) book script first-third c. A.D. • 42 papyri from Herculaneum, papyrus fragments from e.g. Doura Europos 3rd c. • fourth-sixth c.: concurrence with other book scripts CAPITALIS RVSTICA

Vergilius Romanus, BAV lat. 3867 f. 1 c. 500 Vergilius Vaticanus, BAV 3225, f. 19 c. 400 Old Roman cursive

• more informal variants of the capitalis certainly in use before 3rd c. • 100 B.C.: rapid writing on wax tablets and papyrus, majuscule cursive = old Roman cursive • in use until 5th c. A.D. (West Roman imperial chancery, litterae caelestes) BL, Papyrus 229 c. 245-266 • Nomine Abban quem Eutychen sive quo alio nomine

• vocatur annorum circiter septem pretio denariorum Tabl. Vindol. II 128

renuntia[ue]r[unt optio- 2 nes et curatores http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk 3 detulit Arquittius optio 4 (centuriae) Crescentis Minusculisation of the cursive A.D. 2nd-3rd c. • ascenders and descenders start differentiating themselves • literary majuscule cursive showing minuscule features: De bellis macedonicis, c. A.D. 100 De bellis Macedonicis BL, Papyrus 745 New Roman cursive

• develops in offices and chanceries, among privates • main cursive script by A.D. 400

BL, Papyrus 447, c. 345-6 ]estia pietatis vestrae Constantinopolim atque obtulistis eis clementiae vestrae from Bischoff From rotulus to codex 1

• papyrus rotulus: standard book form in W Europe between 3rd c. B.C. until A.D. 400 • lat. codex: wooden tablets bound together • Egypt 2nd c. B.C.: papyrus leaves plied and attached by the spine > papyrus codex Christian papyrus codex Egypt, 2nd c. A.D. P.Mich.inv. 6238 From rotulus to codex 2

• parchment codex maybe Roman invention 1st c. A.D. = notebook • Horace (65 B.C. – A.D. 8 ) ars poetica 386ff: • si quid tamen • olim scripseris, in Maeci descendat iudicis auris • et patris et nostras, nonumque prematur in annum, • membranis intus positis: delere licebit • quod non edideris • membranae = parchment rotulus? Parchment codex? • informal use From rotulus to codex 3

• experiment, 1st c. A.D.: parchment codex as a ”real” book • Martial, epigrammata 1.2.5: quos artat brevibus membrana tabellis • scrinia da magnis, me manus una capit • later poems: no reference to this commercial book form • authors 2nd c.: no references, but parchment and papyrus codices preserved • Ulpianus (m. 228): codex = ”real” book? • Paulus (fl. 235): YES!

De bellis Macedonicis BL, Papyrus 745 From rotulus to codex 4

• majority early fragments of rotulus and codex : Oxyrhynchus (excavations from 1882, Oxyrhynchus (Bahnasa) B.P. Grenfell, A.S. Hunt) • http://www.papyrology .ox.ac.uk/POxy/ From rotulus to codex 5

• 1st-2nd c. A.D.: 857 papyrus rotuli, 17 non- Christian codices: 2 parchment, 15 papyrus • all Christian mss. 2nd c. A.D. = codices (papyrus & parchment) • early use of codex among Christians: notebook = poor people’s book form? Easy to hide? • but: early non-Christian use (cf. Martial): first Latin parchment codex = De bellis Macedonicis, literary text from Oxyrhynchus From rotulus to codex 6

• competition codex – rotulus from c. early 4th c. A.D.: < triumph of Christianism (legalisation by Constantine the Great in 313) ? • non-Christian texts adopt codex form from beg. 4th c. A.D. • elimination rotulus in the whole Empire by A.D. 400 • parchment codex supersedes papyrus codex in the Latin part of the Empire by 400, in the Greek part by 500 • few papyrus codices preserved from the West • media revolution: only texts considered interesting are copied into the new format > significant losses of Ancient texts Luxury codices 4th-5th c. 1

• codices in Capitalis rustica for the cultured upper class (Pagan) laymen, especially • the circle of Q. Aurelius Symmachus Eusebius, c. 345-402), cf. Macrobio fl. 430, Saturnalia • aristocrats, grammarians, Roman teachers of eloquence • preserving Roman lay traditions, Graeco-Roman cultural heritage • textual criticism, creation of corpora • evidence: subscriptiones in Foro (=

Legi ego (=395)

legi et emendavi

Ego Sallustius (= Servius, commentator : starts in the Carolingian age

Golden Ass

Subscriptiones aristocrat of the circle of Symmachus) of Virgil, cf. Macrobius; 4th c.) of Apuleius, codices colophons of individual editors, re-copied in later mss. As part of the text; circulation (= 397) (8th-9th c.) redaction of Juvenal in the Nicomachaen codices (Nicomachi = dynasty related to Symmachus): Niceus apud M. Serbium Romae Romae felix Olibrio et Probino V.C. cons. Martis controversiam declamans oratori Endelechio. Rursus Constantinopoli recognovi Caesario et Attico cons. • • • Luxry codices 2

• Symm. ep. 9.13: Munus totius Liviani operis quod spopondi etiam nunc diligentia emendationis moratur (NB importance Livy for traditionalists) • Mediaeval tradition of the first Decade < Nicomachaen edition Vergilius Romanus, BAV lat. 3867 f. 1 c. 500 Luxury codices 3

• codices in Uncial for the triumphant Christian Church From Bischoff Literary majuscule: uncial • mixed alphabet: minuscule with capital B, R, G • influence from Greek ”Biblical” majuscule • calligraphical script of the triumphant Christian Church • possibly as early as 2nd, certainly 4th-9th introduced in England 6th c. Jerome, pref. Liber Job

• Habeant qui volunt veteres libros vel in membranis purpureis auro argentoque descriptos vel uncialibus (ut vulgo aiunt) litteris – onera magis exarata quam codices: dummodo mihi meisque permittunt pauperes habere schedulas et non tam pulchros codices quam emendatos Saint Gall 226, Italy c. 650 Digitised mss. from Swiss collections: e-codices • http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en The Ashburnham Pentateuch BNF, nal 234 (7th c.?) English Uncial Canterburyn Codex aureus c. 750-760 Paris, BNF lat. 1 f. 166v The Bible of Charles the Bald, 9 th c. Half-uncial

• minuscule • Bischoff: Oriental (old) half- uncial = calligraphical form of new cursive (3rd, Berytos, Egypt) • Western (new) half-uncial: calligraphical form of another form of new cursive (4th, Africa?) • introduced in Ireland 5th • > insular script • one of formative elements in the Carolingian minuscule Cologne, Diözesanbibliothek 212 Lyons 590-604 Insular half-uncial

The Durham gospel fragment c. 600 The Gospels of Willibrord c. 690 St Matthew Book of Lindisfarne c. 698 Position of scribe, cf. Duomo di Rossano, Evangeliary, c. 500 (Jerusalem)