Becoming Roman, Writing Latin?

Becoming Roman, Writing Latin? with the subtitle Literacy and Epigraphy in the Roman West was published by the Journal of Roman Archaeology in 2002 (special supplement # 48). The papers presented here are the product of a panel on this subject organized at the Fourth Roman Archaeology Conference held at Glasgow in 2001.

The JRA is edited by John Humphrey. The special supplement is edited by Alison E. Cooley - author of The Cambridge Manual of Latin Epigraphy (2012) – and it contains 11 contributions by 12 classical scholars (including two by the editor). Here is the table of contents [with information about illustrations in square brackets]:

** Chapter 1:

“Introduction”
By Alison E. Cooley
[No illustrations]

** Chapter 2:

“Epigraphy by numbers:
Latin and the epigraphic culture in Sicily”
By Jonathan R. W. Prag
[10 illustrations]

** Chapter 3:

“Latin on coins of the western empire”
By Andrew Burnett
[No illustrations]

** Chapter 4:

“Writing Latin in the Roman province of Lusitania”
By Jonathan Edmondson
[10 illustrations]

** Chapter 5:

“Writing Latin - from resistance to integration:
Language, culture, and society in N. Italy and S. Gaul”
By Ralph Häussler
[5 illustrations]

** Chapter 6:

“The survival of Oscan in Roman Pompeii”
By Alison E. Cooley
[1 illustration]

** Chapter 7:

“Seal-boxes and the spread of Latin literacy in the Rhine delta”
By Ton Derks and Nico Roymans
[13 illustrations plus 12 plates]

** Chapter 8:

“Pottery stamps, coin designs, and writing in late Iron Age

Britain

”
By Jonathan H. C. Williams
[4 illustrations]

** Chapter 9:

“Language and literacy in Roman Britain:
Some archaeological considerations”
By William S. Hanson and Richard Conolly
[No illustrations]

** Chapter 10:

“Writing to the gods in

Britain

”
By Roger S. O. Tomlin
[6 illustrations plus 4 plates]

** Chapter 11:

“Afterword: How the Latin West was won”
By Greg D. Woolf
[No illustrations]

Each chapter has its own bibliography. References are given in footnotes placed at the bottom of the page. At the end of the book we find a thematic index and an index locorum; both indexes are prepared by the editor.

The text is illustrated by numerous charts, maps and photos (in black-and-white). There are 49 figures and 16 plates, but some chapters have more illustrations than others, as you can see from the information listed above [in square brackets].

This special supplement is not a general history of the Roman Empire. The authors assume the reader has a basic knowledge of this subject. Therefore this volume is not recommended for the beginner.

If, on the other hand, you are already familiar with the history of the ancient world, and if you wish to learn more about the topics discussed here – literacy and epigraphy – then this collection may be just the right one for you.

When you read the papers presented here, you will get a chance to see how a classical scholar can work. You will get a chance to find out what we know and how we know it; or (in some cases) how little we know, because the evidence available is quite limited.

As you can see from the table of contents above, several geographical areas of the Roman Empire are covered here, e.g. Sicily,

Spain

, and

Britain

. The authors deploy an impressive range of materials, as Greg Woolf says on page 182 in his afterword:

“Stone and bronze inscriptions, tablets of wood and lead, coins and seal-boxes, graffiti scratched on walls and pottery all feature.”

The authors are careful. They do not jump to conclusions. They present and discuss the ancient evidence as well as relevant modern scholarship. When they draw a conclusion, it is based on the evidence and not on speculation.

I like these papers. I like, in particular, chapter 4 about the Roman province of Lusitania by Jonathan Edmondson. On page 44 Edmondson mentions W. V. Harris and his famous study of literacy in the ancient world: Ancient Literacy (hardcover 1989, paperback 1991).

Edmondson shows that the figures used by Harris are too low and furthermore that the methods used by Harris are too mechanical and simplistic, perhaps so much that they may be misleading. On page 47 Edmondson says:

“As we have seen, W. V. Harris used the appearance of texts inscribed in Latin as a rough index to the spread of literacy in the western provinces. However, it is not necessarily the case that those who commissioned these texts could read, let alone write, Latin. A customer could easily have discussed the sort of text required with a stone mason, who would then suggest an appropriate written format for the epitaph – hence the overwhelming stereotypical nature of the texts that we find. Moreover, tracking the errors in the Latin inscribed does not necessarily prove anything about the quality of the Latin that was spoken by the inhabitants of a given region, although it might say something about that of the lapidarii.”

I also like chapter 10 about the curse tablets discovered Bath and Uley in the south of

England

by Roger S. O. Tomlin. On page 170 Tomlin says:

“Obviously we cannot quantify rural literacy, but its quality here is remarkable. If illiteracy were greater in the countryside than in the towns – and surely it was, for this is a truism confirmed by the distribution of stone inscriptions – then we would have expected to see the difference reflected in the Bath and Uley collections. It does not seem to be. Both use the same language, formulas and styles of handwriting.”

The use of formulas raises a central question: who wrote the tablets? Were they written by the victims themselves or by a professional scribe? W. V. Harris seems to favour the latter option, which is known as the minimalist position. To answer this question Tomlin makes several observations, including this:

“The formulas, which are widespread in southern

Britain

and find echoes elsewhere, indicate a broad consensus of how one should address a god, but they have many variations, and there is not a single duplicated text. Moreover, at Bath, where the hands have been drawn and tabulated …, it can be seen that no writer is responsible for more than one tablet.”

Having made a strong case against the minimalist position, Tomlin decides to leave the question open. The reader may judge for himself or herself.

I have two critical remarks about two minor flaws:

(1) On page 68 Ralph Häussler mentions Caecilius Statius and Marcus Tullius Cicero:

“In the early 2nd c. BC the Insubrian author Caecilius Statius was described by Cicero as malus auctor Latinitatis.”

Cicero did not do anything in the early second century BC. He was not even born then, and therefore Häussler’s statement is impossible. What the author wants to say is:

“The Insubrian author Caecilius Statius (ca. 220-ca. 166 BC) was described by Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) as malus auctor Latinitatis.”

(2) On page 185 Greg Woolf mentions the “highly incorrect texts from Bu Njem.” Having made this statement, he proceeds to write two sentences with highly incorrect English!

Here is the first: “The connections that Williams make … is also suggestive.” The verb should be “are” (not: is). Here is the second: “The military connections … also suggests that …” The verb should be “suggest” (not: suggests).

Becoming Roman, Writing Latin? is an academic work, not suitable for the beginner, but highly recommended for the serious student. With this volume the Journal of Roman Archaeology has produced an excellent contribution to modern scholarship about the Roman Empire.

PS # 1. Special supplement # 48 was published in 2002. Eleven years earlier the JRA published another collection about this topic: Literacy in the Roman World (special supplement # 3, 1991).

PS # 2. For more information about this topic, see Literacy and Power in the Ancient World edited by A. K. Bowman and G. D. Woolf (hardcover 1994, paperback 1996, transferred to digital printing 2005).

PS # 3. Ralph Häussler developed his paper (chapter 5) into a book that was published in 2012: Becoming Roman? Diverging Identities and Experiences in Ancient Northwest Italy. On the cover, his last name is spelled Haeussler (in order to avoid the German letter ä).