ABSTRACT
We know very little about scribes who copied books in antiquity. Copying was regarded as a menial task performed by slaves or freedmen. Cicero had his ‘own people’ to produce copies of his works,1 but occasionally asked Atticus (his business agent and adviser as well as his friend) to arrange for his scribes (librarios tuos) to produce special copies,2
sometimes on the largest size of papyrus sheets (macrocolla) for presenting to important persons.3 Anyone who wanted a copy of a text could borrow one from somebody else for his own slaves or freedmen to transcribe. Cicero wrote to inform Quintus Cornificius (then governor of a distant province) about his own most recent work, Orator ad Brutum, offering to tell Cornificius’s people at home to make a copy and send it to him, were he interested.4 In this way Cicero released Cornificius from the obligation of returning a favour, and left him free to express his own judgment in assessing and recommending the work.5 The practice of obtaining a book for oneself by having it copied from available exemplars persisted into later centuries. In the first half of the third century AD Cyprian ensured that corrected copies of his letters were available for copying.6 In the fourth century Jerome’s friends and supporters, Chromatius of Aquileia and Heliodorus of Altino sent funds to defray the costs of copying the texts they wanted, and the wealthy Lucinius sent his own copyist to Bethlehem so that Jerome could supervise the production of the copies required.7 Augustine deposited corrected copies of his early works with his friend Romanianus, a copy of the De Trinitate with Aurelius, bishop of Carthage, and a copy of the De civitate Dei with Firmus, so that the texts would be available for copying.8
