Whenever my secretary Antonio pesters me for another collection of satires, I reply: “Beware, my son. Of the making of books there is no end.” If this seems jaded, it is only because I have witnessed so much ballyhoo and chicanery. Forget about Maecenas and Horace’s Sabine farm. Literature in Rome has been a racket for twenty-one centuries.
Until the end of the Republic, authors made copies of their works in their own or a patron’s home and circulated the manuscript among friends. Then, at Julius Caesar’s behest, the banker Atticus converted his private studio into a public factory to grind out copies of Cicero’s speeches for the State Library. Caesar, in return, provided Atticus with rich clients: parvenus who curried favor and sought respectability by appearing well-read.
Book shops soon multiplied on the Vicus Tuscus, a commercial street running southwest out of the Forum between the Basilica Julia and the Temple of Castor and Pollux. This busy strip also included incense and perfume dealers, which may explain why Rome’s early publishing houses cultivated the sweet smell of success. The most profitable, located near the statue of Vertumnus, the Etruscan god of changing seasons and financial exchange, belonged to the Sosius brothers, two wily freedmen whose list of authors included Horace. The Sosii, Horace joked, pumiced his manuscripts until they were smooth as a rent boy’s ass.
These book merchants (librarii), who assembled and trained teams of expert slaves, sold their wares at the highest prices. However, although literature was a status symbol, an author’s original work was dreck. Unknown writers paid through the nose for copyists to fill their orders, but even the most famous writers could not sell their manuscripts to firms that condescended to reproduce and distribute them.
Worse, book merchants were exempt from paying authors. No copyright existed. According to Roman law, writing fell under the rule of superficies solo cedit.A tree belonging to one person, if planted in the ground of another person, belonged to the owner of the property as soon as it took root. Likewise, if someone wrote on another’s papyrus or parchment, the material was considered property, so the writing belonged to the owner of the papyrus or parchment.
This loophole allowed publishers to grow fat while writers starved. “My book,” Martial declared, “is thumbed amid Getic frosts, near martial standards, by the stern centurion; and even Britain sings my verses. But what advantage is it to me? My purse benefits nothing by my reputation.”
To escape the demands of the librarii or to force their hand, authors gave readings, but venues often were bad. Juvenal was stuck with “a peeling dump of a hall in the suburbs, its front door barred like the gates of a sieged town.” His patron leased a claque but was too cheap to provide chairs for the platform. In contrast, the rich and the powerful staged lavish recitals and created glittering prizes. For their glory, not Apollo’s. This practice continues today.
Consider the annual ceremony for the Strega Prize, a cross between Sotheby’s and the Indie 500, held on the first Thursday of July in the floodlit nymphaeum at Villa Giulia. While guests lean over the balustrade of the marble staircase, the jurors—four hundred publishing insiders called the Amici della Domenica, the Sunday Friends—pack the courtyard. The air buzzes with gossip and intrigue. Paparazzi snap photos and steal canapés from the buffet. Escorts look stiffer than the caryatids supporting the loggia. Critics in rented tuxes bicker and place bets. A chalkboard lists votes for five short-listed authors.
Founded in 1947 by Guido Alberti, owner of the Strega liquor company, together with the historical novelist Maria Bellonci and her husband Goffredo, the Strega Prize reunited Rome’s intellectuals after the war and promoted its salon culture. But as prosperity replaced austerity, the Strega came to symbolize everything wrong with the Establishment. Tabloids claimed the prize was fixed, a closed deal among publishers. Protests disrupted the ceremony. Pier Paolo Pasolini, who accused the Strega Foundation of being “completely and irreparably in the hands of an arbitrary neo-capitalism,” instigated an embargo. After this explosion, the prize was nicknamed La Polveriera, the Powder Keg.
The rules for nomination and voting have changed, but the Strega remains controversial. The big houses, Adelphi, Feltrinelli, Mondadori, and Rizzoli, still play dirty, still lobby the Amici for the necessary votes to make their nominated book a best seller. The prize itself, picayune compared to the Nobel, the Booker, or the Pulitzer, is window dressing. The real story is behind the scenes, where publishers hustle for the winning book’s almost guaranteed sales of fifty thousand copies. Let Mount Parnassus honor the Muses. The Seven Hills worship only money.
And still Antonio goads me to finish another book, despite the fact that older Romans prefer the sports pages and younger Romans barely read. A small independent press, he claims, wants to publish my work. Very flattering, and how many copies will it sell? Such practical questions never bother Antonio, forever tilting at windmills.
“Publish or perish!” he cries. But when the average book has the shelf life of milk and most Strega finalists are pulped within four years, I’m perfectly capable of doing both.
Pasquino’s secretary is Anthony Di Renzo, professor of writing at Ithaca College. You may reach him at direnzo@ithaca.edu.
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