The Scribes of Rome

A Cultural and Social History of the Scribae

Benjamin Hartmann

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781108493963
• eBook ISBN: 9781108659130
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

In a society in which only a fraction of the population was literate and numerate, being one of the few specialists in reading, writing and reckoning meant the possession of an invaluable asset. The fact that the Roman state heavily relied on these professional scribes in financial and legal administration led to their holding a unique position and status. By gathering and analysing the available source material on the Roman scribae, Benjamin Hartmann traces the history of Rome's public scribes from the early Republic to the Later Roman Empire. He tells the story of men of low social origin, who, by means of their specialised knowledge, found themselves at the heart of the Roman polity, in close proximity to the powerful and responsible for the written arcana of the state – a story of knowledge and power, corruption and contested social mobility.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Epigraph
• 1 Imagining the Roman Scriba
• 2 The Human Archive
• 3 The Attendant
• 4 The Profiteer
• 5 The Parvenu
• 6 The Roman Scriba Reimagined
• Appendix The Roman Scribae
• Bibliography
• Index Locorum
• General Index