Literacy in the Roman World.

What is literacy? While this may sound like a straightforward question, it is one that is not all that easy to answer. The Collins English Dictionary defines literacy as the ability to read and write. It is also described as the ability to use language proficiently. To take another example, UNESCO classifies a literate person as “someone who can with understanding both read and write a short, simple statement on his everyday life”. In addition, a literate person can “use reading, writing and calculation for his own and the community’s development”. (Hanson 1991, 161)

Looking at these two definitions, we can see that the similarity between them is that they both define literacy as possessing the capability to read and write; being able to do one is apparently insufficient. The UNESCO definition raises an issue which is important to highlight. Here, we are given the precise level of competency that a person must have to be regarded as literate. They must be able to read and write a “short simple statement” on their everyday life. However, how was it decided that this was the level of competency required to be classed as literate? In addition, who decides what it means to be literate? These are questions that are important to bear in mind. We must also be careful not to project our modern perceptions onto the past. In society today, we tend to privilege writing over reading and speech. Yet, we need to realise that Roman society was not necessarily the same.

According to Harris, the Latin term “illiteratus” could mean either “uncultured” or lacking the ability to read and write. He claims that, by Cicero’s time, “litteratus” commonly meant

“cultivated” (Harris 1989, 6). If we accept Harris’ view, then literacy meant something completely different than it does today. In Roman times, aside from meaning “cultured”, literacy may have varied from being able to read an inscription, signing your name, or writing a letter. There is no ancient source which provides a definition of what the term “literacy” meant in Roman times. Therefore, how do we go about examining the archaeological evidence for the spread of literacy when the term is complex? For the purposes of this essay, it is perhaps best to regard literacy as the ability to read and write. However, Bowman raises a point worth considering which is that, rather than attempting to quantify and measure literacy in Roman times, we should focus on assessing the degree to which the lives and activities of people who could write, regardless of their competence, were controlled by the written word.

Preservation

Fortunately, there is a vast quantity of archaeological evidence for literacy that has survived. There is a wide variety of writing materials including tablets, ostraca (graffiti on pottery sherds), styli, pens, inkwells, and seal-boxes. However, it must be stated from the outset that there are, unfortunately, several issues concerning preservation. Writing surfaces and implements were mostly made of perishable materials such as wood and reeds. The wax on stylus tablets rarely survives, therefore it is almost always impossible to read what was written. Occasionally, we are fortunate in that the stylus has incised through to the wood, allowing us to see what was written. Due to the organic nature of the materials, certain conditions are required for their preservation. For example, wood requires waterlogged, anaerobic conditions. In some cases, even soil type can influence preservation. For instance, regarding bronze writing materials such as seal-boxes and tablets, acidic soils will corrode the metal (Derks and Roymans 2002, 99). Often, the material which was written on has only survived in a fragmentary state, so we cannot always tell what the topic of writing was. We must also consider the find context. We do not always find the material in its original context; for instance, at Vindolanda, some tablets were found in rubbish deposits and some were found on the street. In addition, regarding letters, we may find them in the recipient’s context, but we may not know where they were sent from. Lastly, it is necessary to consider the archaeo-political climate in different countries. In the Netherlands, for example, we are fortunate in that many metal detectorists are willing to report their finds to official institutions

or show them to specialists (Derks and Roymans 2002, 99) but this is not the case everywhere.

Nature of the evidence

There were several types of writing in the Roman empire. The one which we have the most evidence for is inscriptions: approximately 300,000 inscriptions survive from the Roman Empire, most of which date to the first three centuries of the Empire (Beltran Lloris 2014, 2). Inscriptions can be found on a myriad of surfaces including, but by no means exclusive to, stone monuments, walls, metal, and wood. Some scholars have chosen to create two categories of inscription: public and private. Public inscriptions include funerary, honorific, laws, decrees, dedications, and milestones. Some examples of private inscriptions are graffiti, writing tablets and curse tablets (Beltran Lloris 2014, 1). Regarding the western empire, the areas with the most surviving inscriptions include the Hispanic provinces, Gallia Narbonensis, Dalmatia, as well as certain regions in the Rhine-Danube area, such as the Germanies. The further away from Rome one goes, the lower the epigraphic density becomes. Approximately two-thirds of all Latin public inscriptions are from the Italian peninsula, Dalmatia, Gallia Narbonensis, Tarraconensis, Numidia and Africa Proconsularis (Beltran Lloris 2014, 2). Even though there are more surviving inscriptions in areas closer to Rome, we should not take this to signify a higher level of literacy in the centre of the Empire.

Graffiti is another widespread form of writing that we have evidence for. That this was a popular type of writing is indicated by an inscription on the amphitheatre at Pompeii which reads: “I’m amazed that you, wall, have not collapsed, since you have to support the tedious products of so many writers” (CIL IV 2487). However, graffiti was not confined to walls; people commonly wrote on pottery sherds (these are known as ostraca).

Arguably the most important type of writing that we have evidence for are letters. Letters are a particularly important source of evidence for the spread of literacy as they illustrate that two different people, often from different provinces of the Empire, could read and/or write. Letters were usually written on leaf tablets. Whilst the main body of the letter was written by a clerk or scribe in many cases, the concluding lines were often written in the sender’s own hand; at the very least, the sender would sign their name.

There is also prolific evidence for various types of documents, perhaps the most common being military documents. These include diplomas (of which over a thousand have been

found in frontier regions), strength reports of military units, requests for leave, instructions, and so forth (Beltran Lloris 2014, 11). Military documents are usually written either on tablets or inscribed in bronze.

Let us now turn to a detailed examination of the writing materials, of which there are several. Writing tablets come in two forms: leaf and stylus. Leaf tablets are extremely thin, only one to three millimetres thick. They are approximately the size of a modern postcard and were used to write notes and letters in ink. Based on evidence from Vindolanda, we can conclude that leaf tablets were made from local wood such as birch and oak. The fact that they were made from a local material which was easily accessible and cheap seems to suggest that literacy may not necessarily have been confined to the elites. The second type of tablet is the stylus tablet. These have a hollow centre filled with wax which was incised with a metal stylus. The ones from Vindolanda were made of non-native wood such as spruce. Scholars have therefore suggested that these were imported as manufactured objects (Bowman 1998, 16). However, why were there two types of tablet? Pearce has suggested that leaf tablets were used for more “ephemeral” types of writing such as letters, notes, and temporary records. On the other hand, stylus tablets were used for more formal documents including contracts, receipts, tax, and custom records. However, there are examples of stylus tablets which were used for letters too (Pearce 2004, 44). Considering that the materials for these tablets (the wax, metal styli and imported wood) would have been more expensive and harder to obtain than those for the leaf tablets, it would make sense that they were frequently reserved for documents of a more official nature.

Regarding the distribution of writing tablets in the frontier regions, the greatest quantity has been preserved in Roman Britain. Within this province, the most significant quantities come from Vindolanda, Bloomberg (London), and Carlisle (Pearce 2004, 44). Unsurprisingly, Londinium, as the capital of Roman Britain, provides us with a large quantity of stylus tablets- approximately four hundred. Based on the type of wood (silver fir) and study of the fragments, it has been suggested that these were made of wood from barrels (Eckardt 2018, 23). The reuse of material is also indicated by evidence of an earlier text scratched into the

underlying wood. This reuse suggests that writing material was in demand, thus implying that there was a significant level of literacy here. This site is of particular importance as it provides us with the earliest hand- written document known from Britain: a financial document dating to the 8th of January 57 AD. In addition, there is a tablet from the site which has been archaeologically dated to between 43 and 53 AD. Given that the Roman conquest of Britain took place in 43 AD, this indicates that literacy would have begun to spread not long after the arrival of the Romans. (www.mola.org.uk).

There is a third type of tablet for which most of our evidence again comes from Roman Britain: curse tablets (defixiones). These comprise thin sheets of lead inscribed with curses, asking a deity or deities to intervene on the behalf of the purported victim (Hanson and Connolly 2002, 153). Approximately three hundred have been uncovered in Roman Britain, the majority of which have been recovered from two sites: Bath and Uley, both of which are in south-east England, approximately forty kilometres apart. More specifically, they are associated with temple sites. In Bath, the tablets have been found in the locality of a temple dedicated to Sulis Minerva, whilst in Uley, they were found in association with a temple to Mercury. Tomlin has compared the curse tablets to letters as the people are writing to the gods, just without the standard greeting and conclusion (Tomlin 2002, 168). Based on the style of writing (Old Roman Cursive), the tablets from both sites have been dated broadly to the 2nd and 3rd century AD (Tomlin 2002, 166).What is perhaps most interesting regarding these curse tablets is that the ones from Uley are from a rural shrine, around twenty kilometres from the nearest town (Tomlin 2002, 170). This illustrates that we should not assume that people living in a rural setting were illiterate.

Seal-boxes were used as containers for wax imprints used to seal a range of items, particularly private, written documents. Most seal-boxes that survive are made of copper alloy (Derks and Roymans 2002, 91). They were popular from the 1st century BC to the 3rd century AD and were commonly used by the military. This is demonstrated in the high concentration of seal-boxes found at military sites along the limes, such as Vechten, Nijmegen, Hunerberg and Zugmantel. Scholars have therefore suggested that the army was responsible for introducing this implement in the north-west provinces. (Derks and Roymans 2002, 91). However, seal-boxes are not confined to military sites; they have also been found in civitas capitals (e.g., Nijmegen), rural centres and sanctuaries such as Empel (Netherlands). Like the curse tablets, it is again interesting to note that the find contexts of seal-boxes indicate that there was a degree of literacy in rural contexts. Yet, we must acknowledge that the find distribution of seal-boxes, at least in Northern Gaul and the Batavian area, is much higher in military contexts- 61% of all seal-boxes from Northern Gaul come from a military context (Derks and Roymans 2002, 97).

Inkwells were made of a variety of materials including ceramic, glass, and metal. Glass inkwells occur in the north-western provinces from the mid-first century AD until the early 2nd century AD whilst a ceramic inkwell from the cremation burial of an adult a Colchester has been dated to between 50 and 60 AD (Eckardt 2018, 54-6). Like the tablets from Bloomberg, this illustrates the presence of literate members of society in Britain not long after Roman conquest. Study of the spatial distribution of metal (copper-alloy) inkwells in the north-west of the empire has shown that the sites with the highest quantity (i.e., more than ten per site) include Cologne, Vindonissa, Augst (Switzerland), Magdalensberg (Austria), London, Nijmegen, and Pompeii (Eckardt 2018, 115). This spatial distribution indicates that literacy was widespread in the north-west provinces. Metal inkwells are commonly found in a burial context- of a corpus of 440 metal inkwells, 131 are from individual burials or are stray finds from cemeteries (Eckardt 2018, 132). Regarding the type of sites that metal inkwells were found, the majority are from military and urban sites (Eckardt 2018, 119).

What did people write about?

Concerning the topics of writing, case studies of the tablets from Vindolanda and Bloomberg will be examined. Vindolanda was a Roman auxiliary fort in northern England. It was occupied from approximately 85 AD to 130 AD, with most tablets dating to between 92 and 102 AD (Bowman 1998, 14). Letters and documents from the site were of both a personal and administrative nature. Perhaps one of the most important letters from the site is that of Sulpicia Lepidina (Tab.Vindol. 291). The letter is written by a woman (Claudia Severa) to a woman (Sulpicia Lepidina, wife of Flavius Cerialis who was the prefect of the 9th cohort of Batavians at Vindolanda). In the letter, Severa invites Lepidina to her birthday celebrations and extends her greetings to Lepidina and her husband from her own family. Bowman points out that the body of the text was written by a scribe but acknowledges that the last three lines were written by Severa (Bowman 1998, 88). This is significant, as it demonstrates that some women on the frontier had the ability to write and presumably, therefore, to read. The significance of this letter also lies in the fact that it is the earliest example so far of writing in Latin by a woman (romaninscriptionsofbritain.org). Based on this, we cannot assume that people living on the frontier were less literate than those in Rome.

However, letters are not always of a personal nature. For instance, a letter from the decurion Masculus to the prefect Flavius Cerialis requests instructions as to what the soldiers are to do the next day (Tab.Vindol. 628). He also informs Cerialis that they have no beer left and

requests for some to be sent (romaninscriptionsofbritain.org). This letter could be categorised as military or administrative or both.

There are many examples of documents which are solely of a military nature. One of these is the strength report of the First cohort of Tungrians (Tab. Vindol.154). It is written on an ink writing tablet which was found in a ditch. The heading contains the date, name of the unit and commanding officer and the total strength of the unit. It records the number of absentees; how many are sick and how many are fit for active service (romaninscriptionsofbritain.org). Other military documents at the site include soldiers’ requests for leave (Tab. Vindol.175).

Administration is also a common topic of writing found at Vindolanda. For example, one tablet relates to the domestic administration of the praetorium (Tab.Vindol.191). Written in ink, it consists of a list of various food items including spices, roe-deer, pig, ham, wheat, venison, etc.

Interestingly, there is evidence of knowledge of literature at Vindolanda. In the praetorium, someone took a tablet (Tab.Vindol. 854) on which a private letter had been started and wrote a line from the Aeneid by Virgil on the back of it (Bowman 1998,91). It is possible that this person was practising their writing, as lines of Virgil are used for writing practice in Latin papyri from Egypt (romaninscriptionsofbritain.org).

We can also find examples of people practising their writing at the site of Bloomberg. This was an urban site in the capital of Roman Britain: Londinium. Whilst the tablets from Vindolanda cover the period from circa 80AD to 110 AD, the Bloomberg tablets date from between 50 and 80 AD. This implies that literacy spread outwards from the provincial capital over time. That the people living here were attempting to improve their literacy is illustrated by a tablet on which are inscribed lines of two alphabets (WT 79). Another tablet is scored with a grid of parallel horizontal lines consisting of numerical symbols written in two columns (WT 78). Tomlin suggests that this is also a writing exercise, but confined to numbers (Tomlin 2016, 56).

The most common topic of writing found on these tablets is commerce, especially financial matters. The most important of these is WT 44. Dated the 8th of January 57 AD, this is the earliest dated handwritten document known from Britain. It is a formal written acknowledgement from one businessman to another that he owes him 105 denarii for “merchandise which has been sold and delivered.” (Tomlin 2016, 54). Many tablets relate to

loans, for instance WT 30 in which one businessman writes to another that his enemies are “boasting through the whole market that you have lent them money” (Tomlin 2016, 54).

Other topics include transport of goods and legal matters. One tablet dated to the 21st of October 62 AD (WT 45) records a contract between Gaius Valerius Proculus and Marcus Rennius Venustus for the transport of “20 loads of provisions” from Verulamium (St. Albans) to London by November 13th (Tomlin 2016, 55). The tablet WT 51 records the preamble to a preliminary judgement by the judge appointed to hear the case (Tomlin 2016, 56). From the large number of tablets relating to financial matters, we can see that commerce was an integral part of life in Londinium. In order to conduct a successful business here, it was necessary to be literate.

Based on the find contexts of writing materials, we can see that there were literate people in military, urban and rural settings. Topics of writing included personal matters, administration, matters related to the military (e.g., strength reports and requests for leave), and commerce. If we recall Bowman’s suggestion that we should focus on the degree to which people’s lives were controlled by the written word to determine literacy, the range of find contexts and topics of writing indicate that literacy was an integral part of society in the frontier regions.

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