Skip to main content

Writing an Audience, Part 1: Capitals, Repetition, and Formulas

This blog has already touched on different ways public writing functioned in the Roman world. It could be a vehicle of power, it could contextualize spaces, and it could record and solidify social agreements. However, one question still needs to be addressed: how could inscriptions be so important in a world where most people were not fully 'literate'?

The answer is surprisingly simple. Romans made inscriptions as easy to read as possible. They achieved this by using a number of different approaches which all acted to lessen the gap between the written Latin carved in stone and the spoken Latin the general public could understand. These approaches include:

1) The use of CAPITAL LETTERS. Have you ever noticed how you never see lower case letters in Roman inscriptions? We know Romans had cursive letters from various graffiti and some rare letters, but on monuments constantly use the same font of capital letters. This is because a consistent and clear font made reading easier for those less practices in reading. Just imagine trying to learn to read if the letters all kept changing; it would not be easy. Rather, the public only needed to learn the sounds of the different shapes and then 'sound out' the different inscriptions to hear what they said.
Note the use of large clear capital letters. Entrance sign to the Baths of Marcus Crassus Frugi in the Museo Archiologioco Nazionale di Napoli. Photo by Jack Hase.

2) The repetition of words and abbreviations. If you have ever tried to learn a second language, you know that one of the hardest parts is learning all the different vocabulary. Roman inscriptions tried to make this difficulty as small as possible by using common words and abbreviations whenever possible. This eased the task of reading by making letter combinations into ideograms so that the viewer could know the meaning of the writing without needing to really 'read' the words. For example, the abbreviation D. M., meaning Dis Manibus or 'To the Underworld Spirits', is used widely in funerary inscriptions. By using the same abbreviation at the start of many different texts, even a person with limited literacy can memorize the meaning and understand the intention of the text.

3) The use of formulas to organize the order of inscriptions. This could look different across inscriptions with different purposes: dedications usually put the name to whom the monument was dedicated first, after an individual's name is usually an abbreviation for who their father was, funerary inscriptions often include how old the individual was, and if an individual is a politician numbers are included to indicate how many times they have held different positions. Just as before, an onlooker with limited reading ability needs to do less work to understand a text if the words come in an expected order. Furthermore, some scholars think that the basic formulas used reflected verbal speech patterns better than more literary writings.
Note the use of Dis Manibus, here spelled out in full. Funerary Inscription of Lucius Nonius Martials in the Musei Capitolini. Photo by Jack Hase.

Together, all of these approaches allowed texts to be more accessible to a broader portion of the public. It was writing intended to be read by even the lowest common denominator. However, it is easier to see these methods in action rather than only in theory. Therefore, the following posts on this blog will be dedicated to demonstrating how different texts around the Roman city used these methods to make texts easy to read. Until then, Valete. 

Bibliography:

Corbier, Mirelle. "Writing in Roman Public Space." In Written Space in the Latin West, 200 BC to AD 300, edited by Gareth Sears, Peter Keegan, and Ray Laurence. London: Bloomsbury, 2003.

Woolf, Greg. "Literacy or Literacies in Rome?" In Ancient Literacies: The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome, edited by William A. Johnson and Holt N. Parker. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Writing a Family: The Temple of Isis and Numerius Popidius Celsinus

72 CE: a massive earthquake shakes Pompeii. A temple to an exotic goddess crumbles to its foundations. But from the rubble a new temple is built. It is above the doorway that the name of this benevolent civic patron is written for all to see: Numerius Popidius Celsinus, now the only six-year-old boy given a place in the local senate. Scale model of the rebuilt Temple of Isis in Pompeii in the  Museo Archiologioco Nazionale di Napoli. Photo by Jack Hase. Let's rewind. Under the empire in the 1st century CE the Popidius family was active in local Pompeiian politics. This was a leading family in the community that participated in common aspects of Roman aristocratic life, including the owning and freeing of slaves. One of these freedman slaves was named Numerius Popidius Ampliatus; the fact that he bared the name of his previous master's family was a sign of his freedman status while 'Ampliatus' is related to the Latin word denoting increasing wealth. This name was a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Writing an Audience, Part 3: The Pantheon

I want you to just look at the following picture for a few seconds. This is the Pantheon. What you see was built around 125 CE by the emperor Hadrian after fire destroyed the previous iteration. In its day the building was in the heart of a high traffic area; porticoes, basilicas, baths and other temples surrounded it. While its own function as a atypical temple is up for debate, its grandeur tells us it was an important site. Look up at the inscription. The letters are the same height as the people walking below. These words were meant to be read. The Pantheon in Rome. Photo by Jack Hase. Here, in part 3 of this series, we will look at the the readability of the inscription adorning the front of the Pantheon. As with the previous post, three aspects of this inscription made it easily readable to a broad 'less-literate' audience. The inscription reads: M. AGRIPPA. L. F. COS. TERTIVM. FECIT (Marcus Agrippa, Son of Lucius, Built This in his Third Consulship) [Transl...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pantheon Mini-Post: Inscription In Absentia

This is a mini-post. Not a true post in nature but an excuse to make a short point about the Pantheon that pertains to the themes of this Blog.  Readers will remember that the Pantheon, as we see it today, was built by Hadrian around 125 CE. Nevertheless, it bears the inscription that was placed onto the original structure and that names Agrippa as the builder. This was not the only time Hadrian refused to monumentalize his name either.  The Imperial Lives states: “In Rome, Hadrian rebuilt the Pantheon, the Saepta, the Basilica of Neptune, many temples, the Forum of Augustus, and the Baths of Agrippa. He dedicated all of these buildings in the names of their original builders.” The question presents itself: why would Hadrian not monumentalize his name on these structures as the re-builder ? Surely, since we find inscriptions naming re-builders  all around Rome, this would have been the expectation. Herein lies what I think is the solution to this problem....
Post a Comment
Read more