F. A. Paley

“ But Thucydides, with the exception of a single reference by name to the “Attic History” of Hellanicus, and Herodotus, who quotes only the statements of Hecataeus in three or four passages (and both writers in evident disparagement of their authorities) , are unable to appeal to any current written literature. Thucydides is evidently glancing at Hellanicus when he alludes (i. 21) to “writers of stories who compose rather to please the ear than with a view to truth.” He does not seem to have known Herodotus at all; his appeal is only to hearsay and memory. ”

“ The astonishing number of still-extant Greek vases going back many centuries before the Christian era, and containing a whole mythology in their designs, is sufficient to prove the proposition, that painting rather than writing was the vehicle of ideas to the ancient Greeks. ”

“ There is certainly no proof at all that Herodotus refers to Hecataeus as a writer. It is perfectly possible, and on the whole highly probable, that the stories, the histories, or the philosophic teachings of the earlier Greeks were a purely oral literature. ”

“ The sole exception to the absence of ancient writing other than that on stone, seems to be certain papyri found in Egyptian tombs, which are said to claim a very high antiquity.
But because the Egyptians had the papyrus and wrote upon it, it must not be assumed, as it too often is, contrary to all evidence, that the early Greeks used it too, and wrote copies of Homer upon it even in the time of Solon. A stone-cutter with his chisel is a widely different person from a student with his pen. ”

“ Thus in Homer we find Nestor and Ulysses famed for their eloquence, though no hint of writing or of reading is anywhere to be found in the Homeric poems. It is even probable that the high development of oratory and of sculpture at Athens in the time of Pericles was mainly due to the want of a current or circulated literature, which deficiency was supplied by a corresponding proficiency in the sister arts. Human intellect is sure to find its expression in one way if it cannot in another. ”

“ But a few generations ago men got on pretty well in our own country without steam-engines, railways, or the penny post, all which we have come to regard as social necessities. And when anything has become, in the present state of affairs, a necessity, we are apt to forget the difference of circumstances, in great measure, perhaps, created by it, under which we have learnt to view it as such. ”

“ A great deal has been said by many learned men on the early use of writing for the purposes of inscriptions and dedicatory offerings, but no one as yet has sufficiently discriminated the use of letters for public or state purposes, and the use of them for book-writing. No doubt, there are notices of writing in several passages of Herodotus; but they are all notices of quite a different sort from that of copying volumes of prose or poetry. There are many, very many, specimens of early handwriting on extant Greek vases ”

“ We have early mention also of inscriptions on bronze plates; [4] but the word for “book” (which is our word “ Bible “) does not occur at all till near the time of Plato, or shortly before b.c. 400. The first mention of it, I think, is in the “Birds” of Aristophanes [5] (b.c. 415) , and here it only means a collection of written oracles, which, perhaps, were among the first records that began to be written down. [6] Speaking generally, it is quite extraordinary how very scanty are the notices of writing, or of any of its kindred operations or materials, throughout the earlier Greek literature. ”

“ The only meaning we can fairly attach to his phrase, “become evanescent by time,” is this,—that he can fix them in writing, and so make them permanent. But if others had done so, and if Hecataeus “the story-maker” had left a written work, to which Herodotus had access, how very much out of place the declaration on his part would have been! ”

“ Hence he is called by Herodotus, in common with Hecataeus of Miletus, λογοποός, “a story-maker.” Dr. Hayman is not justified in saying [24] that “prose-writer is undoubtedly the sense in which Herodotus applies λογοποός to Hecataeus.” We read in the “Phaedrus” [25] that Lysias was taunted with being a “speech-writer,” λογογάράφος, the alleged reason being that “the more influential men in the states feel scruple at writing their essays or speeches, and so leaving records of themselves in writing, lest posterity should stigmatize them as Sophists.” ”

“ They were put into writing eventually from the dictation of their pupils and followers; and thus it happens that in after times the writings of Heraclitus, Anaximander, Thales, and the early philosophers generally as well as those of the historians preceding Herodotus, are referred to. [26] There is not the slightest ground for believing, while there are many grounds for doubting, that there was any written Iliad and Odyssey till the age of “books,” which is that of Plato. ”

“ Everybody reads now because there are penny papers and an abundance of cheap periodicals; and so again, it is the supply which has given such an immense impulse to the desire to avail ourselves of it. In other words, supply and demand always mutually act and react upon each other. ”

“ For, even if Homer and Hesiod and the rhapsodists who represented them, made no written copies (which, in itself, they either may or may not have done) , it cannot be doubted that the plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles were written down from the first; and being so written, they must have been preserved (and all the more carefully because they were unique autograph copies) either in temples or treasuries, or among the State archives, till the times of the Alexandrine school of learning, when for the first time the use of papyrus and the practice of transcription became common ”

“ Such books were not meant in the first instance for transcription. It may be greatly doubted, for example, if it would have been possible to procure, for money, a copy of Herodotus or Thucydides in the lifetime of the authors. The autograph copies were used only for “readings;” and when we are told that Herodotus read his history at the Olympian games, and that Thucydides, when a boy, heard it, and burst into tears, [7] there is nothing in the anecdotes beyond what is extremely probable. ”

“ Our ideas of the most necessary elements of education are combined in the convenient monosyllables read and write; and we joke about “the three R’s” when we add a small modicum of knowledge in figures. Without such rudiments, a person now becomes a boor and a churl. ”

“ Mr. Grote [19] writes as follows: “The interval between Archilochus and Solon (660–880 [20] ) seems, as has been remarked in my former volume, to be the period in which writing first came to be applied to Greek poems,—to the Homeric poems among the number; and shortly after the end of that period, commences the era of compositions without metre or prose. The philosopher Pherecydes of Syros, about 550 b.c., is called by some the earliest prose-writer. ”

“ We can hardly comprehend how, some thirty years ago, all the despatches and all the passenger traffic between London and Edinburgh were carried in half-a-dozen coaches a day, going ten miles an hour. That is because the present enormous traffic itself has been created by the improved facilities for it. ”

“ Iph. Aul. 37. The prepared wax was called μάλθη or μάλθα (Jul. Pollux, Onom. x. 58) . See Herod. vii. 239.↑ Aristoph. Nub. 772,—a passage very remarkable for the early mention of a glass lens and its use for drawing the sun’s rays into a focus.↑ I observe that the supposed date of this stone, B.C. 896, is now seriously questioned, and the date placed as late as B.C. 260 (Athenæum, Dec. 6, 1879) .↑ Frag. 385, Dind.↑ Athenaeus, who quotes this in Book x., gives other examples of similar descriptive accounts given by those who could not read.↑ V. 1113.↑ Hist. of Greece, Part ii., chap. ”