Seneca: The Fate of an Unused Bookroll

There has been a lot of talk in recent years on the length of time an ancient book, or even "autograph" may have been in use. I briefly addressed this topic in "Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism," Chapter two "Myths About Autographs." In that chapter I cite a comment from the second century physician Galen where he mentions that some of the bookrolls were in an unusable state of decay (even while being stored in a Roman library).

"These (books), then, did not cause me a small pain when copying them. As it is, the papyri are completely useless, not even able to be un-rolled because they have been glued together by decomposition, since the region is both marshy and low-lying, and, during the summer, is stifling." (De indolentia 19).

This passaing comment by Galen is remarkably similar to Seneca the Younger's comments over one hundred years previously (ca. 60s CE). When writing to his friend Lucilius, Seneca attempted to answer a previous question and his response is telling.

"The subject concerning which you question me was once clear to my mind, and required no thought, so thoroughly had I mastered it. But I have not tested my memory of it for some time, and therefore it does not readily come back to me. I feel that I have suffered the fate of a book whose rolls have stuck together by disuse; my mind needs to be unrolled, and whatever has been stored away there ought to be examined from time to time, so that it may be ready for use when occasion demands." (Seneca, Ep. 72).

Though made in passing, Seneca's comments reveal that more is at stake for a book to be usable than merely lasting for many years. Even if a book remains on a shelf in a library, it can become unusable or, at best, very difficult to use because the roll will stick together from lack of use. It would be important then for those who cared for books in collections to exercise these rolls periodically in order to help prevent them from sticking together and decaying as both Seneca and Galen mention.

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Clare K. Rothschild and Trevor W. Thompson, "Galen:'On the Avoidance of Grief,'" EC 2.1 (2011): 110-129.

Seneca. Epistles, Volume II: Epistles 66-92. Translated by Richard M. Gummere. Loeb Classical Library 76. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1920.

Seneca the Younger on Quality Texts

Brian J. Wright has published an excellent book that covers, quite exhaustively, communal reading events in the first century; Communal Reading in the Time of Jesus: A Window into Early Christian Reading Practices (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017). The work is a gold mine of references to little known primary source materials relating to communal reading. One particular nugget that Wright mentions is in reference to Seneca the Younger (4 BCE - 65 CE: p. 99-100). In his famous work, "On Anger" (De Ira), Seneca analyses circumstances that can lead to anger. In one such passage he discusses a poorly copied book.

"We are angry, either with those who can, or with those who cannot do us an injury. To the latter class belong some inanimate things, such as a book, which we often throw away when it is written in letters too small for us to read, or tear up when it is full of mistakes, or clothes which we destroy because we do not like them. How foolish to be angry with such things as these, which neither deserve nor feel our anger! "But of course it is their makers who really affront us." I answer that, in the first place, we often become angry before making this distinction clear in our minds, and secondly, perhaps even the makers might put forward some reasonable excuses: one of them, it may be, could not make them any better than he did, and it is not through any disrespect to you that he was unskilled in his trade: another may have done his work so without any intention of insulting you: and, finally, what can be more crazy than to discharge upon things the ill-feeling which one has accumulated against persons?" (Ira 2.26)

As many know, in the trash mounds of ancient Oxyrhynchus were found many discarded books, Christian and non-Christian works. Many of them appear to have been torn-up before they were cast into the garbage dump (see Anne Marie Luijendijk on this phenomena). Of course we can never know for certain, yet Seneca's comments may apply to some of the fragments of books discovered in places like Oxyrhynchus. Perhaps their owners were disgusted with the perceived poor quality of the text or the style of writing employed. Considering the cost of making a book at this time, Seneca's comments reflect the vain anger of a member of Rome's wealthy elite who can afford to throw something as costly as a book away simply because they do not like it.

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Anne Marie Luijendijk, “Sacred Scriptures as Trash: Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus.” Vigiliae Christianae 64:3 (2010): 217-54.

Aubrey Stewart, trans. L. Annaeus Seneca, Minor Dialogs Together with the Dialog "On Clemency" (Bohn's Classical Library Edition; London, George Bell and Sons, 1900)

Seneca the Younger on the Codex

Roman fresco from Herculaneum depicting from left to right,

 ink well and reed pen, bookroll, wax tablet codex, and wooden tablet.

Recently I was reading through Seneca the Younger's (tutor to Emperor Nero) thought provoking treatise, "On the Shortness of Life." Besides providing insight into stoic thinking, Seneca dropped an interesting reference to the codex. The comment is buried in a discussion on useless knowledge of history. Seneca wrote,

"We may also excuse investigators who ask who first  persuaded the Romans to deploy a naval force (it was Claudius, who was called Caudex for this reason, because the ancients termed the composite structure of several planks a caudex hence the public records are called codices, and the barges which carry provisions up the Tiber are still called codicariae in accordance with ancient practice)." ("On the Shortness of Life," 13.4)

Seneca reveals that some of the records kept in Roman archives consisted of wooden tablets attached together. Hence the reference to "the composite structure of several planks." The content of these codices suggests that, at the time of Seneca's writing (ca. 49 CE), codices were used for sub-literary and utilitarian texts rather than for literature proper.

A similar use for the codex can be seen a century later in one of the physician Galen's writings, "On the Avoidance of Grief." 

"What then, you will say, is even greater than all the things mentioned that might be able to cause distress? Well, I will tell you this: I was entrusted with the possession of the most remarkable medical recipes, such as no one else in the entire Roman world (possessed)--fortune, in part, contributing to this and I myself, in part, contributing equally. In fact, two-fold fortune granted me each (of the recipe collections) along the way. The first of which is as follows: A certain rich man of those around me hastened to find knowledge concerning effective medications, with the result that he purchased some recipes in the amount of more than one hundred gold coins. He set about this task in such a way as to purchase not only all recipes that were held in esteem by (physicians) today in Asia, but also by those (physicians) of the past. These medical recipes were preserved, with upmost care, in two parchment codices that a certain one of the heirs--himself most dear to me--gave to me of his own accord without being asked." ("On the Avoidance of Grief," 31-33)

Of course, Galen is referring to the parchment codex, not a wooden codex as was Seneca. Yet, the two book formats appear to be connected in that the wooden codex developed into the parchment codex. Galen uses his parchment codices for storing utilitarian texts, recipes, and reference material. The Roman archival material would have been used in a similar manner as recipes, as reference sources only and not books to be read from beginning to end.

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References

Seneca, "On the Shortness of Life." Translated by Gareth D. Williams.
(https://archive.org/details/SenecaOnTheShortnessOfLife)

Rothschild, Clare K. , and Trevor W. Thompson, "Galen: "On the Avoidance of Grief"," Early Christianity 2 (2011): 110-129.