Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

FISH-PRESERVES—ROMAN NEWSPAPER 167The seeming naivete of Martial's appeal to a buyer and ofhis recommendation that the book, which describes presents,would be for a man like himself not too flush of coin, an admirablepresent to send at the Saturnalia, incites me to give the whole,ifAshless, passage.The hint of how to get rid of their surplus stock or " remainders" at Christmas may avail our present poetasters inthese days of economy and war taxes. " The whole collectionof Xenia " (distichs describing certain kinds of viands so-called)" in this thin book will cost you four sesterces to buy. Is fourtoo much ? You may get it (in a cheaper form) for two, andeven that will leave a profit to the bookseller. This bookitself, which describes presents, may be sent as a present atthe Saturnalia, if you have not much money to spare, likemyself."Manuscript books at Rome cost even less than printed booksdo now. This seeming inconsistency was effected by a largenumber of slaves writing rapidly at the dictation of one person,and so multiplying copies very cheaply and easily.By such means, no doubt, was published Acta Diurna, the flysheet or daily newspaper of Rome. Composed originally ofthe reports of lawsuits, births, deaths, marriages, and the almostequally numerous divorces, it came to contain in the time ofJulius Caesar the debates and Acta of the Senate, and laterthe news collected and conveyed by constant couriers from allparts of the Empire. 1^ Cf. Suetonius, Augustus, c. 83.