(August 1, 2016 at 5:42 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:(August 1, 2016 at 5:29 pm)abaris Wrote: But what was there to read for an ordinary citizen? Scrolls didn't come cheap. But there's one pointer to a broader base of literacy. The graffitis at Pompeji. Given their overall nature, they obviously weren't written by savants but by ordinary folk. Apart from the ones advertising the qualities of certain whores, my favorite is obviously composed by a shop owner threatening the next person to take a shit at his doorstep to be fucked up the ass.
Scrolls may be expensive, but what about ink on wooden shavings?
Or ostraca!
To expand on the idea, though. Heavy-duty philosophical tracts would have mainly been written in Greek which was the language of the upper classes. It probably depended more on a person's occupation in the cities. Commerce was a big deal in the Roman world and commerce of that scale requires record-keeping. Being able to read an inventory manifest in Latin does not mean you could read Plato in Greek but it would have been enough for the average joe to get by. Even today we have people who are functionally illiterate.
http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/...-even-mean
Considering how much we spend on education this is something of a national scandal.
