Literacy in the Roman world. Additional authors: Tim Cornell, James L. Franklin, Jr., Ann Hanson, Keith Hopkins, Nicholas Horsfall.

From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - Overall very good and clean. - TABLE OF CONTENTS: 1. Tim Cornell: The tyranny of the evidence: a discussion of the possible uses of literacy in Etruria and Latium in the archaic age -- 2. Mary Beard: Ancient literacy and the function of the written word in Roman religion -- 3. Nicholas Horsfall: Statistics or states of mind? -- 4. James L. Franklin, Jr.: Literacy and the parietal inscriptions of Pompeii -- 5. Mireille Corbier: L'�iture en qu� de lecteurs -- 6. Alan K. Bowman: Literacy in the Roman empire: mass and mode -- 7. Keith Hopkins: Conquest by book -- 8. Ann Ellis Hanson: Ancient illiteracy. - Preface: William Harris' Ancient literacy (Harvard University Press, 1989) is an important and thorough survey of a great deal of material relating to this important subject. Its publication has prompted scholars to reevaluate and reformulate their views. Because the topic of literacy is multifarious and wide-ranging, it seemed appropriate to provide more space than is normally given to a review in a scholarly journal. Several scholars, each with their own long-standing and rather different interests in the subject of literacy in the Roman world, were therefore invited to adopt Harris' book as the starting-point for their own discussions of literacy in the Roman world. Eight scholars kindly responded in good time, and it is worth noting that the contributors have hardly challenged Harris' basic point, that levels of literacy in Graeco-Roman antiquity were never high. The contributors were given complete latitude regarding the aspects of the book and of the topic on which they wished to focus, except only that the emphasis was to be Roman rather than Greek or Hellenistic. No effort has been made to impose any kind of consensus upon the discussions, except that the focus was to be upon the Roman world � Roman in the geographical as well as the chronological sense. Included therefore is the earliest material from Etruria and archaic Latium, the Greek East in the Roman period, as well as late antiquity. Archaic and Classical Greece, which constitute an important part of Harris' book, were not intended to be covered. Each contributor speaks for him- or herself.