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Oracle 12c SQL, ISBN: 9781305251038
Ch. 1 1

Oracle 12c: SQL 3rd Edition Casteel

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Chapter 1 Solutions
Review Questions

1. What is the purpose of an E-R model? To identify the entities about which the database
should store data and the relationships among those entities.

2. What is an entity? An entity is any person, place, or thing having attributes, or

characteristics, of interest to the organization.

3. Give an example of three entities that might exist in a database for a medical office and some
attributes that would be stored in a table for each entity. Doctor: name, address, Social
Security Number, medical ID number; Patient: name, address, Social Security Number,
insurance policy information, medical history; Appointment: date, time, patient, doctor.

4. Define a one-to-many relationship. An occurrence of data in one entity can result in zero,
one, or many occurrences of the data in the other entity. Zero (or no) related records can
occur only in optional relationships.

5. Discuss the problems that can be caused by data redundancy. Can create data anomalies or
inconsistencies in the data, making it unreliable.

6. Explain the role of a primary key. The primary key is used to uniquely identify each row in a
table.

7. Describe how a foreign key is different from a primary key. A foreign key is used to
reference or join data in different tables. In most cases, the foreign key references a primary
key in another table. In a one-to-many relationship, the foreign key is stored in the “many”
entity.

8. List the steps of the normalization process. First, a primary key is identified and any
repeating groups are identified (1NF). Second, any partial dependencies are eliminated
(2NF). Third, any transitive dependencies are eliminated (3NF).
Oracle 12c SQL, ISBN: 9781305251038
Ch. 1 2
9. What type of relationship can’t be stored in a database? Why? A many-to-many relationship
can’t be stored in a database because there would be no way to restructure or rejoin the data
correctly.

10. Identify at least three reasons an organization might analyze historical sales data stored in
its database. Answers will vary. To determine the necessary inventory levels to support sales
fluctuations, to project employee-scheduling requirements, to determine appropriate
marketing campaigns based on historic purchasing patterns, and so forth.

Multiple Choice
1. d
2. b
3. d
4. a
5. c
6. a
7. a
8. d
9. d
10. c
11. b
12. b
13. a
14. b
15. b
16. d
17. c
18. c
19. a
20. c

Hands-On Assignments
1. Which tables and fields would you access to determine which book titles have been
purchased by a customer and when the order shipped? CUSTOMERS: Customer#;
ORDERS: Order#, Shipdate, Customer#; ORDERITEMS: Order#, ISBN; BOOKS: ISBN,
Title

2. How would you determine which orders have not yet been shipped to the customer? Identify
all orders that don’t have an entry for the date shipped.

3. If management needed to determine which book category generated the most sales in April
2009, which tables and fields would they consult to derive this information? ORDERS:
Oracle 12c SQL, ISBN: 9781305251038
Ch. 1 3
Orderdate, Order#; ORDERITEMS: Order#, ISBN, Quantity, Paideach; BOOKS: ISBN,
Category

4. Explain how you would determine how much profit was generated from orders placed in
April 2009. Determine the amount of profit generated by each book on an order item
(Paideach-Cost), multiply the profit for each book by the quantity purchased, and then total
the amount of profit generated by all orders placed in April.

5. If a customer inquired about a book written in 2003 by an author named Thompson, which
access path (tables and fields) would you need to follow to find the list of books meeting the
customer’s request? AUTHOR: Lname, AuthorID; BOOKAUTHOR: AuthorID, ISBN;
BOOKS: ISBN, Pubdate.
6. A college needs to track placement test scores for all incoming students. Each student can
take a variety of tests, including English and math. Some students are required to take
placement tests because of previous coursework.

Students Tests

7. Every employee in a company is assigned to one department. Every department can contain
many employees.

Departments Employees

8. A movie megaplex needs to collect and analyze movie attendance data. The company
maintains 16 theaters in a single location. Each movie offered can be shown in one or more
of the available theaters and is typically scheduled for three to six showings in a day. The
movies are rotated through the theaters to ensure that each is shown in one of the stadium-
seating theaters at least once.

Movies Showings Theaters

Oracle 12c SQL, ISBN: 9781305251038
Ch. 1 4
9. An online retailer of coffee beans maintains a long list of unique coffee flavors. The company
purchases beans from a number of suppliers; however, each specific flavor of coffee is
purchased from only a single supplier. Many of the customers are repeat purchasers and
typically order at least five flavors of beans in each order.

Suppliers Products Order_items Orders Customers

10. Data for an information technology conference needs to be collected. The conference has a
variety of sessions scheduled over a two-day period. All attendees must register for the
sessions they plan to attend. Some speakers are presenting only one session, whereas others
are handling multiple sessions. Each session has only one speaker.

Speakers Sessions Registrations Attendees

Advanced Challenge
Results of the normalization process will vary, depending on the assumptions made by the
student.

Unnormalized:

first name, last name, billing address, quantity, retail price, shipping address, order date, ship
date

1NF:

CUSTOMERS: customer #, first name, last name, billing address

ORDERS: order #, shipping address, quantity, retail price, order date, ship date

2NF:
Oracle 12c SQL, ISBN: 9781305251038
Ch. 1 5
CUSTOMERS: customer #, first name, last name, billing address

ORDERS: order #, shipping address, order date, ship date

ORDERITEMS: order #, item#, quantity, retail price, ISBN

3NF:

CUSTOMERS: customer #, first name, last name, billing address

ORDERS: order #, shipping address, order date, ship date

ORDERITEMS: order #, item#, quantity, ISBN

BOOKS: ISBN, retail price

Case Study: City Jail

The appearance of the E-R model will vary depending on the notations or modeling software
students are using. An example is shown on the next page.

Additional entities and/or attributes: Answers will vary greatly. A Jails entity is an example of a
possible additional entity. Image items, such as a criminal photo and fingerprints, are examples
of additional attributes that might be required.
 Oracle 12c SQL, ISBN: 9781305251038
Ch. 1 6
City Jail Database E-R
Model

Aliases Appeals
Alias_ID
Criminal_ID Appeal_ID
Alias Crime_ID
Filing_date
Crimes Hearing_date
Status
Crime_ID
Criminals Criminal_ID
Criminal_ID Classification
Last Date_charged Officers
First Status
Street Officer_ID
Hearing_date
City Last
Appeal_cut_date
State First
Zip Precinct
Phone Badge
V_status Phone
P_status Status
Crime_officers
Sentences
Crime_ID
Sentence_ID Officer_ID
Criminal_ID
Type
Prob_ID
Start_date Crime_charges
End_date
Violations Charge_ID
Crime_ID
Crime_code
Charge_status
Fine_amount
Prob_Officers Court_fee
Amount_paid
Prob_ID Pay_due_date
Last
First
Street
City
Crime_codes
State
Zip
Crime_code
Phone
Code_description
Email
Status
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
books, not from any scholarly interest, but simply because it became
the fashion to do so. Seneca speaks of great collections of books in
the hands of men who had never so much as read their titles.[255]
Such purchases must nevertheless have been important for the
encouragement of literary work in Rome. Many of the public baths
were furnished with libraries[255]; a country house could not be
complete without a library, says Cicero[256]; each one of the villas of
Italicus, according to Pliny, had its library[257]; Trimalchio, says
Petronius,[258] possessed no less than three. A statue of Hermes,
found in Rome, bears an epigram which speaks of βύβλοι in the
grove of the Muses, and which undoubtedly had been intended to be
placed in the library of some country villa.[259]
Among some of the larger private collections referred to are those
of the grammarian Epaphroditus, who possessed 30,000 volumes,
[260] and of Serenus Sammoaicus, who is credited with over 60,000

volumes.[261]
The impecunious Martial, on the other hand, tells us that his own
collection comprised less than 120 rolls.[262]
We have already referred to the practical interest taken by Martial
in the details of bookselling. We find him quoting the authority of the
booksellers against certain critics, who were not willing to rank
Lucian as a poet of repute, and showing that after thirty years or
more there was still a steady demand for Lucian’s poetical works.
Martial takes the ground that continued popular appreciation is
sufficient evidence of literary repute, whatever the critics may say to
the contrary.[263]
The same satirist refers more than once to many amiable and
deserving authors, who, despite their talents, succeeded in reaching
no public at all other than the unhappy guests who learned from
experience to dread the admirable dinners which had to be paid for
by listening to literary productions. The practice of recitations on the
part of the host must have been quite general, if when no such
performance was intended it was considered desirable to mention
the fact in the invitations. Martial quotes himself as promising to
Stella in inviting him to dinner, that under no provocation will he be
tempted to recite anything, not even though Stella should recite his
own poem on the “Wars of the Giants.”[264]
Martial explains the inferiority of the literary production of the reign
of Domitian by the fact that there was no Mæcenas to give
encouragement to authors. All the great poets of the Augustan age
had, as he recalls, been placed in easy circumstances (as far as they
were not so already) either through the direct bounty of Mæcenas or
as a result of his influence over the Court. According to the view of
Martial, literature possessing any lasting value is impossible without
the leisure and freedom from care which comes from an assured
income. Mæcenas, and the fashion of subsidizing literature initiated
by him, appear in a crude way, in presenting encouragement for
literary work, to have supplied the place of a copyright law.
There may, of course, often have been question as to what
constituted a “proper compensation” for a poetical effort. Tacitus
speaks of a certain Roman knight, C. Lutorius Priscus, who had won
some repute from a poem on the death of Germanicus. He
thereupon composed another poem on the death of Drusus (son of
Tiberius), who was at the time seriously ill, but who was perverse
enough to recover. Priscus had, however, already read his poem
aloud, after which he was promptly put to death under a vote of the
Senate, whether on account of the badness of the poem, or because
he had prophesied the death of the Prince, Tacitus does not state.
[265]

Juvenal joins with Martial in characterizing the writing of poetry as

an unsatisfactory profession, and hints more strongly than Martial
that the profession was spoiled by amateurs. He suggests as a
further ground for the absence of first-rate poetry, that all the
subjects had been exhausted, meaning, of course, all the
mythological subjects. He arrives at the conclusion that poetry and
literature in general are dying, and considers this is not to be
wondered at, since even if a man of letters makes a sacrifice which
ought not to be required of him, and turns schoolmaster, he will be
grossly underpaid, and often not able to recover the beggarly
pittance which will be due him.[266]
This inadequacy of the legitimate returns for literary work was
doubtless considered by Martial as a sufficient justification for
utilizing his unquestioned literary cleverness in ways not always
legitimate, for, as has been pointed out by Cruttwell, Simcox, and
others, not a few of the epigrams look like demands for blackmail.
“Somebody”—the poet declines to know who the somebody is—“has
given offence”; if the poet should discuss who, so much the worse
for somebody. He is full of veiled personalities of the most damaging
kind. He deprecates guessing at the persons indicated, but they
must have recognized themselves, and have seen the need of
propitiating a poet who was at once politic and vindictive. He insists
repeatedly upon his successful avoidance of all personal attacks,
while he had been lavish of personal compliments. He tells us
himself that these were not given gratis, and when somebody whom
he has praised ignores the obligation he receives, the fact is
published as a general warning. We cannot doubt that when Martial
wrote that “there were no baths in the world like the baths of
Etruscus,” and that “whoever missed bathing in them would die
without bathing,” he expected to be paid in some form or other for
the valuable advertisement he was giving to Etruscus.[267] In like
manner, when he answers numerous requests for a copy of his
poems with a reference to his bookseller, adding a jocose assurance
that the poems are not really worth the money, it is fair to assume
that the bookseller had paid something for the manuscript or that
the author had some continued interest in the sales.[268]
In being obliged by the narrowness of his means to watch thus
closely the sales of his booksellers, and in believing himself
compelled to pick up sesterces by writing complimentary epigrams
or threatening abusive ones, Martial may well have envied the
assured position of his contemporary Quintilian, who received from
the imperial treasury as a rhetorician a salary, which, with his other
emoluments, gave him an income of 100,000 sesterces (about
$4000). Quintilian appears to have been the first rhetorician to
whom an imperial salary was given.
It is evident that at this time the art of the rhetorician or reciter
was still one of importance. The great books of the Claudian period
were evidently written to be recited or to please a taste formed by
the habit of recitation.[269] After the reign of Claudius the
noteworthy works, with the exception perhaps of the Thebaïd of
Statius, were certainly written to be read. How many readers they
found is a more difficult thing to determine. There was certainly, on
the part of some writers at least, no lack of persistency. Labeo, the
jurist (who died 13 a.d.), is credited, for instance (or should we say
debited?), with the production of no less than four hundred works.
[270]

The average editions of works addressed to the general public are

estimated by Birt to have comprised not less than five hundred
copies, and in many cases a thousand copies.[271] Pliny, writing
about 60 a.d., makes reference to a volume by M. Aquilus Regulus (a
memoir of his deceased son), of which the author caused to be
made one thousand copies for distribution throughout Italy and the
provinces. Pliny thinks it rather absurd that for a volume like this, of
limited and purely personal interest, the piety and the vanity of the
author should have caused an edition to be prepared larger than
that usually issued of readable works.[272] Birt is of opinion that
there is sufficient evidence in the references of Horace, Propertius,
Ovid, Martial, and others, to show the existence of a well organized
system for the distribution and sale of books, not only in Italy, but
throughout the distant provinces of Gaul, Britain, Germany, and
Scythia. Such a distribution, even if restricted to the larger cities,
would have been impracticable with editions of much less than one
thousand copies.[273] In support of this view regarding a widespread
distribution of books, Birt quotes a passage from Pliny concerning
the service to literature rendered by Varro.
 “Varro was unwilling that the fame of great men should
perish, or that the lapse of years should cause the
memory of their deeds to be lost. He took pains,
therefore, in the almost countless volumes of his writings,
to preserve for posterity sketches or studies of more than
seven hundred men who had won renown. Such a device
might well have aroused the envy of the Gods, for these
portraitures were not only thus ensured a permanent
existence, but they were distributed to the farthest
corners of the earth, so that the names of these heroes of
the past would, like those of the Gods themselves, be
known in all lands.”[274][275]
Varro, who was a contemporary of Cicero, appears to have
interested himself not only in biography, but in almost every
department of research. He is credited with forty-one books on
antiquities, seventy-six books of edifying dialogues, fifteen books of
parallel lives of illustrious Greeks and Romans, twenty-five books on
the Latin language, nine books on the “seven liberal arts,” fifteen
books on civil law, thirty political memoirs, twenty-two books of
speeches, one hundred and fifty satires, and a number of minor
works.[276] Such industry and versatility have few parallels in the
history of literature, although it is to be borne in mind that the
author was favored with length of days, and was able to be active in
literary work as late as his eighty-second year. It is evident, however,
that there must have been some measure of appreciation on the
part of the public and the publisher to have encouraged him to such
long-continued production.
Possibly the earliest instance of any practical interest taken by the
imperial government in furthering the distribution of literature for the
higher education of the public, is presented by an edict of the
Emperor Tacitus (275 a.d.), ordering that every public library
throughout the Empire should possess not less than ten sets of the
writings of his ancestor, Tacitus, the historian. His reign of two
hundred days was, however, too brief to enable him to ensure the
execution of his decree. It seems probable that if the aged Emperor
(he was in his seventy-fifth year when he came to the throne) had
been able to carry out his plan, posterity would not have had
occasion to mourn the disappearance of so large a portion of the
writings of the great historian.
Tacitus, the historian, was born about 60 a.d., in a small town of
Umbria. His father was of equestrian rank and a man of importance,
and it is interesting to note that the son, instead of being sent to
Athens for his education, as was so frequently done with well born
youths of the preceding generation, received his university training
at Massilia (the modern Marseilles), which by the close of the first
century had become an important centre of literature and education.
The supremacy of Athens in influencing the higher education of Italy
had come to a close, and the centre of intellectual life was moving
westward. Tacitus was evidently a man of no little versatility of
power. Before achieving lasting fame through his histories and
essays, he had won distinction as a lawyer and as an orator, and had
served with dignity and success as prætor and consul. He is spoken
of as a graceful poet, and was believed also to have been the author
of a clever volume of Facetiæ.
His History was published some time during the reign of Trajan, in
some thirty books, of which less than five have been preserved. His
second historical work was published a few years later, in sixteen
books, under the title of Annals, and of this about nine books have
been preserved. The frequent references to these two works and to
the well known essay on the Germans, in the writings of the
contemporaries and successors of Tacitus, show how important a
position they occupied in the literature of the Empire, and show also
that copies of them were distributed widely throughout the known
world. We have unfortunately no details whatever concerning the
method of their publication, and no references to the publishers to
whose charge they were confided.
If Tacitus had only, like Martial, been an impecunious writer, we
should probably have found in his correspondence with his friend
Pliny, or in other of his writings, some mention of his publishing
arrangements and of the receipts secured through the sale of his
works. It is evident, however, that his official emoluments were
sufficient to free him from any necessity of making close calculations
concerning earnings by his pen, and it is even possible that he
permitted the fortunate publishers, whoever they were to reserve to
themselves the profits, which ought to have been considerable,
arising from the sales of these important and popular works.
Notwithstanding the gradual decline of Athens towards the close of
the second century as a centre of higher education, Greek continued
to be throughout the Empire the language not only for many
philosophical and scholarly undertakings, but for not a few works
planned for popular reading. I mentioned that Massilia (Marseilles)
had been selected as the place where the young Tacitus could
secure to best advantage a refined education, but Massilia, although
a thousand miles from Greece, was a Greek city. It is probably not
too much to say that throughout the Roman world, wherever a town
came into distinction in any way as a place of intellectual activity and
of literary life, it would be found to have possessed a large Greek
element. The Greek brains must have served as yeast for the
intellectual substance of the Roman world.
Suetonius, writing, about 150 a.d., his work Ludicra, comprising
treatises on the sports and public games of the Greeks and Romans,
gave the work to the public in both Greek and Latin. The Meditations
of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, written about 170 were issued only in
Greek. Simcox says:
“From the reign of Hadrian onwards until the translation
of the Empire to the East, the intellectual needs of the
capital, such as they were, were supplied by the eastern
half of the Empire; all the upper classes learned Greek in
the nursery, and it was the language of fashionable
conversation ... all people who professed to be serious
entertained a Greek philosopher. Their only reason for
keeping up Latin literature at all was that the cleverest
 people who had received a literary education wished to be
poets or historians or orators, an ambition which was
sustained by the competitions endowed by Domitian and
by the professorships which were founded by his
predecessors and successors.”
I have already referred to the influence of the French language in
Germany during the first half of the eighteenth century as presenting
a somewhat similar case; but the influence upon German thought
and German literature of the French language and literature,
rendered fashionable under the Court of Frederick the Great, was of
course slight and superficial as compared with the part played in the
Roman world by the language and the thought of the Greeks.
Towards the end of the second century Carthage became of literary
as well as commercial importance. Latin was the language of
administration, and the literary culture of Carthage took upon itself,
therefore, a Latin rather than a Greek form.[277] Among the authors
who gave form, each in his own very distinctive manner, to the
literary school of Carthage were Fronto and Apuleius, and a
generation later the Father of the African Church, the theologian
Tertullian.
Fronto’s books appear to have been made in Carthage, but were
certainly on sale with Roman dealers, and the same was doubtless
the case with the witty and popular Fables and Metamorphoses of
Apuleius, but the evidence in regard to a publishing trade in
Carthage is purely inferential. Aulus Gellius, writing about 170,
speaks of picking up in a second-hand book-shop in Brundisium a
volume from which he quotes a pretty story. The incident was
probably imaginary, for, as Simcox points out, the story was taken
from the elder Pliny; but the reference shows that the business of
the bookseller was, at the date specified, already sufficiently
systematized to support, even in the smaller towns, second-hand
book dealers.
It was evident that by the close of the first century the machinery
for the making and the distribution of books was sufficiently well
organized to secure for authors the opportunity of a world-wide
influence. It seems probable, however, that the works which at this
date obtained for themselves the widest circulation and influence
were not those of living writers, but were still the classics which
Greece had originated, but which were so largely given to the world
through Rome.
In the fourth century a certain Firmicus Maternus published an
astrological work entitled Mathesis. The work was dedicated to the
proconsul Mavertius Lollianus, who had suggested its preparation,
and to him also the author appears to have assigned the control of
the publication, with the curious instruction that the two final books
(out of the eight of which the work was composed) must by no
means be permitted to come into the hands of the general public
(vulgum profanum), but that the reading of these should be
restricted to those who had led holy and priestly lives.[278]
Birt, who is my authority for the incident, does not make clear what
means were available for the proconsul by which to enforce this
special and difficult discrimination among readers. Birt cites the
case, however, as an evidence of the control that could be exercised,
and that from time to time was exercised, by the government over
the circulation of literature. It is certain, he says, that even the very
considerable increase in the facilities for the reproduction of books
did not prevent the authorities from undertaking to stop the sale of,
and to confiscate, works which, for one reason or another, might
work detriment to the State, or which conflicted with the personal
interest of the ruler. The earliest example on record of a confiscation
dates back to the time when the Athenian Republic was at its height.
In the year 411 b.c., as mentioned in the chapter on Greece, the
writings of the philosopher Protagoras were burned on the Agora,
while the philosopher himself was held to trial for heresy.[279]
The emperors of Rome possessed, of course, a much more
unquestioned authority and a more effective machinery for the
suppression of doctrines and for the confiscation of books than
belonged to the shifting authorities of Athens, and there are
examples of a number of imperial decrees for literary confiscation,
some of which were based on the real or apparent interests of the
State, while not a few can be credited to personal motives.
The first instance of the kind was the order of Augustus for the
burning of 2000 copies of certain pseudo-Sibylline books. Those
charged with the task were directed not only to take all the stock
that could be found in the book-shops, but to make thorough search
also for all copies existing in private collections.[280] Caligula
attempted a more difficult task, when, according to Suetonius, he
undertook to suppress the writings of Homer—cogitavit de Homeri
carminibus abolendis.[281] He also gave orders, says the historian,
which were fortunately only partly carried out, to have destroyed all
the writings and all the busts of Virgil and of Livy contained in the
libraries. Tiberius ordered that the writings of a certain historian of
the time of Augustus should be abolished, abolita scripta, by which
we may properly understand simply that the copies were to be taken
out of all public libraries.[282]
The rigorous measures adopted by Domitian to discourage the sale
of the history of Hermogenes of Tarsus, by crucifying the publisher
and all the booksellers who had copies in stock, have already been
referred to.[283] This history was found objection to on the score of
certain designs contained in it, propter quasdam figuras. Two other
works which failed to secure the approval of this Emperor were the
Laudations by Junius Rusticus and Herennius Senecio of Paetus
Thrasea and Helvidius Priscus. The two books, that is, all the copies
of them that could be secured, were burned in the Forum after
having been solemnly condemned under a senatus consultum.
Senecio was nevertheless able to preserve his own copy.[284]
Not a few of the edicts of confiscation were, however, evidently
carried out by a house to house visitation, extending at least to all
domiciles known to contain collections of books. Diocletian caused to
be collected and destroyed all the ancient manuscripts in Egypt,
“which had to do with the chemistry of quicksilver and gold,” περὶ
χημείας ἀργυροῦ καὶ χρυσοῦ, i. e., with the subject of alchemy.[285]
The teachers in Africa of the doctrines of the Manichæans were also
ordered to burn their books. The edict of Diocletian, issued 303 a.d.,
directing the persecution of the Christians, also provided for the
destruction of the Christian Scriptures. According to Burckhardt,
many Christians came forward with the acknowledgment that they
possessed copies of the Scriptures, and, refusing to deliver the
same, suffered the martyrdom for which they sought.[286]
Constantine permitted Arius to live unmolested, but his writings
were, whenever found, committed to the flames, and any one
concealing copies was liable to death. In 448, the Emperor
Theodosius issued an edict for the destruction of all works the
influence of which was opposed to the Christian faith, an instruction
which, if it had been faithfully executed, would have annihilated a
large portion of the world’s literature. Among other writers the loss
of whose works, excepting only a few fragments, was probably due
to the edict, was Porphyry of Tyre, who died about 300 a.d., and who
was the ablest of the later scholarly opponents of the Christian
doctrines.
St. Jerome relates that a certain Pammachius attempted to recall
and to cancel almost immediately after publication the edition of
Jerome’s controversial letters against the monk Jovinian, but that his
efforts were unsuccessful, for copies of the book had already been
distributed in every province.
The legislation of imperial Rome, which, as we have seen, made no
specific provision for the protection of the rights of authors, also
omitted to institute any measures for the public supervision of
books. It was under the general provisions of the criminal law that
the publication of writings on certain special subjects was prevented
or was punished, and that the authors, publishers, and sometimes
even the possessors of the works regarded as injurious to individuals
or as likely to cause detriment to the State, became subject to
penalties the severity of which varied with the times.[287] Several of
the imperial edicts characterized libellous publications as acts of
lese-majesté or treason.[288]
It would not be in order to bring to a close this sketch of the history
of literary property under the rule of the Romans, without reference
to the contribution made by Roman jurists to the analysis of its
origin and nature, although such contribution was but slight. The
theories and conclusions of these jurists are of interest not on the
ground of their having had any effect on the status of literary
production throughout the Empire, but on account of the far-
reaching influence of Roman jurisprudence upon the conceptions
and the legislation of the mediæval and of the modern world.
As Klostermann points out, the Roman jurists interested themselves
in the subject of property in an intellectual or immaterial creation
rather as a matter of theoretical speculation than as one calling for
legislation; and, as we have already seen, there is no record of any
such legislation, imperial or municipal, having been instituted during
the existence of the Roman State. Some of the earlier discussions as
to the nature of property in formulated ideas appear to have turned
upon the question as to whether such property should take
precedence over that in the material which happened to be made
use of for the expression of the ideas.
The disciples of Proculus (a lawyer living at about 50 a.d.)
maintained that the occupation of alien material, so as to make of it
a new thing, gave a property right to him who had reworked or
reshaped it; while the school of Sabinus (who was himself a
contemporary of Proculus) insisted that the ownership of the
material must carry with it the title to whatever was produced upon
the material. Justinian, or rather, I understand, Tribonianus, writing
in the name of the Emperor (about 520 a.d.), took a middle ground,
following the opinion of Gaius. Tribonianus concluded, namely, that
the decision must be influenced by the possibility of restoring the
material to its original form, and more particularly by the question as
to whether the material or that which had been produced upon it
were the more essential. The original opinion of Gaius appears to
have had reference to the ownership of a certain table upon which a
picture had been painted, and the decision was in favor of the artist.
This decision (dating from about 160 a.d.) contains an unmistakable
recognition of immaterial property, not, to be sure, in the sense of a
right to exclusive reproduction, but in the particular application, that,
while material property depends upon the substance, immaterial
property, that is to say property in the presentation of ideas,
depends upon the form.[289]
The opinion, as given in the Institutes of Justinian, is as follows:
Si quis in aliena tabula pinxerit, quidam putant tabulam picturæ
cedere, aliis videtur picturam, qualiscunque sit, tabulæ cedere; sed
nobis videtur melius esse, tabulam picturæ cedere. Ridiculum est
enim picturam Apellis vel Parrhasii in accessionem vilissimæ tabulæ
cedere.[290]
It is certainly curious that a question of this kind, first presented for
consideration in the middle of the first century, should have been still
under discussion nearly five centuries later.
An application of this same principle is presented in legal usage to-
day, under which authors and artists are empowered to take
possession of reproductions of their works even against innocent
third parties or against the owners of the material on which such
reproductions have been made.
The fact that papyrus rather than parchment was the material
adopted by authors during the fruitful period of Latin literature, had
of course an important bearing in the continued existence of their
works, for papyrus was an extremely perishable substance. Damp,
worms, moths, mice, were all deadly enemies of papyrus rolls, but
even if, through persistent watchfulness, these were guarded
against, the mere handling of the rolls, even by the most careful
readers, brought them rapidly to destruction. We find, therefore,
that a constant renewal of the rolls was required in all public
libraries, just as to-day our librarians find it necessary to replace
their supply of copies of books of popular authors which have
become worn out by handling. The ancient librarian had, however, a
more arduous and a more expensive task with his renewals. A
reference of Pliny gives us an impression of the average age that
could be looked for for a papyrus book.
“Ita sint longinqua monumenta; Tiberi Gaique Gracchorum manus.
Apud Pomponium Secundum vatem civemque clarissimum vidi annos
fere post ducentos; jam vero Ciceronis ac divi Augusti Vergilique
sæpe numero videmus.”[291]
We understand, therefore, that (with certain precautions) a book
could last for one hundred years, but that a volume two centuries
old was for Pliny something so exceptional as to be almost
incredible.
The papyrus rolls were of course exposed to the most serious
friction at the opening portions which were in immediate contact
with one of the rollers where two rollers were employed, and which
in any case were exposed to the most frequent handling. As a
consequence, it was the initial page of books which first came to
destruction, and of not a few works which were otherwise in
readable condition these initial pages were lacking. A quotation from
Eusebius, cited by Birt, shows that it was even a matter of surprise
when a copy of the works of such a writer as Clement was found
complete, with title and preface.[292]
In many of the libraries, it was also not uncommon to find that the
different rolls of a particular work had been wrongly numbered in
one of the transcribings, and had consequently been mixed up as to
their arrangement. It was not infrequent even to find the rolls of the
works of different authors jumbled together, in such a manner that
no little scholarly skill was requisite for their proper understanding
and correct rearrangement.[293]
The papyrus manuscripts from the Athenian, Alexandrian, and
Roman workshops, as far as they have escaped destruction through
imperial edicts, civil wars, and invasions, were permitted to fall into
decay, and were not replaced. By the close of the fourth century, the
great collections of papyrus rolls, in which were contained the
classics of Greek and Roman literature, had practically disappeared.
For later book-making, parchment replaced papyrus, a change
which, if it had occurred two centuries, or even one century earlier,
would, in spite of edicts of destruction, have preserved for future
generations not a few of the lost “classics.” A small proportion of the
Greek and Roman writings, in copies dating from the later literary
period, had been placed on parchment, and some few of these have
been handed down to us through the intervention of Christian
monks, who had taken possession of the parchment for church
documents or codices, but who in their own inscribing had not
destroyed, or had only partially destroyed, the original writing. I
have already made reference to this practice of making one piece of
parchment do a double service, and to the name of palimpsest, by
which such a doubly inscribed parchment was known.
In the early part of the fourth century several factors came into
operation which checked the development and finally undermined
the existence of the publishing and bookselling trade of Rome. First
among these factors I should name the growing power and influence
of the Christian Church.
In the centuries which elapsed between the downfall of the Roman
Empire and the invention of printing, the centres of intellectual
activities and of scholarly interests were undoubtedly the churches
and the monasteries, and it is probable that if it had not been for the
educational work done by the priests and monks, and for the
interest taken by them (however inadequately and ignorantly) in the
literature of the past, the fragments of this literature which have
been preserved for to-day would have been much less considerable
and more fragmentary than they are. As I understand the history,
the literary interests of the world owe very much to the fostering
care given to them by the Church, or by certain portions of the
Church, during the troublous centuries of the early Middle Ages.
During these centuries the Church not only supplied a standard of
morality, but kept in existence whatever intellectual life there was.
 At the time, however, when the Christian Church was rapidly
extending its influence throughout the Roman Empire, and during
the century after it had succeeded in winning over to the faith the
emperors themselves, and had become the official Church of the
Empire, the evidence goes to show that its influence was decidedly
detrimental to the literary productiveness of the age and also
inimical to the preservation of the literary masterpieces of previous
ages.
As the range of membership of the Church increased, so that it
came to include a larger proportion of men of cultivation and
scholarship, there came into existence a considerable body of
theological and controversial writings, the production of which has
gone on steadily increasing until very recent times. But the reading
of the works of “pagan” writers was discouraged, and the
manuscripts themselves were first neglected, and later suffered to
fall into decay. Such writing as was done by the Christian scribes was
in the main limited to the transcribing of the books then accepted as
scriptures and to the copying of prayers and hymns. The mental
activities of both writers and readers were turned in other directions.
Scholars gave their scholarship and trained copyists their clerical skill
to the service of the Church. It was not merely that the Church took
possession for its own work of so large a proportion of the best
minds of the time. It directly discouraged then, as it did for many
centuries thereafter, the study of any literature other than
ecclesiastical. The writers of Greece and Rome were, for Christian
believers, if not heretical, at least frivolous and time-wasting. Life
was short and Christian duties left no free hours for Homer or Virgil,
Plato or Epictetus. By the time of the accession of Constantine (306
a.d.) the book-shops on the Argiletum had lessened in number and in
importance, the connections of the Roman publishers with the great
towns of the provinces were for the most part broken off, and, most
important of the signs of the times, there are no new books and no
writers at work. Literary productiveness has for the time ceased.
The second cause which contributed to the destruction of the book-
trade of Rome was the decision of Constantine to remove the capital
of the Empire to Byzantium. The transfer was completed in the year
328, and for a number of years after that date there was no imperial
Court in Rome. The “world of fashion” had migrated to the
Bosphorus, and with the Court officials, the judges, the advocates,
and the military leaders, had gone a large proportion of the active-
minded men of the old capital, the men of intellectual interests.
There remained the Bishop of Rome (soon to become Primate of the
Latin Church) and his increasing staff of ecclesiastics, but to them,
as pointed out, the literature of the classical period was either a
matter of indifference or an abomination. The direction of the
education of the young Romans must soon have come into the
hands of the priests, and this would have increased their power to
crush out the interest in, and the remembrance of, the literary
productions of paganism.
A third factor which hastened the decline of Latin literature and the
extinction of the book-trade of Rome, was the revival of the use of
Greek, which, after the establishment of the capital at
Constantinople, speedily became the official language of the Empire
and the speech of the Court and of polite society generally.
I do not forget that there shortly came into existence an Empire of
the West, under which Rome resumed (although with sadly reduced
splendor) its position as an imperial capital. But the western
emperors appear on the whole to have been a feeble lot, and they
certainly did not succeed in gathering about them any number of
men of “light and learning,” nor is there evidence of any substantial
revival of the social or intellectual activities of Rome. The times
continued troublous. The State had to fight almost continuously for
its existence, and the fighting was not infrequently near at home,
the city itself being from time to time menaced. The “peace of the
Empire” existed no longer. It was not a time for the development of
literature, and literature, excepting a small body of doctrinal and
controversial publications of the Church, practically disappeared.
After the expansion, in 379, of the prerogatives of the Roman See,
the literary activities of the ecclesiastics increased, but it does not
appear that any bookselling machinery was required or employed for
the sale or distribution of the works of devotion, of doctrine, or of
controversy. This distribution was doubtless managed directly by the
priests themselves. The capture of Rome by the Goths under Alaric,
in 410, brought destruction upon the accumulated wealth and trade
of the city, but it is not probable that the tradespeople whose shops
were despoiled included any considerable number of booksellers, as,
according to my understanding, the trade in books had in great part
disappeared some years before. The Goths doubtless had, however,
not a little to do with the destruction of as many of the classic
manuscripts as still existed in the public libraries or in private
collections. It is certain that they would have had no appreciation for
and no use for any manuscripts that fell into their hands. The more
recent and still inconsiderable collections of Church manuscripts
shared, of course, in the general destruction, but these (apart from a
few relics) could easily be replaced.
The Goths disappeared like the rolling back of a flood after its work
of devastation has been completed; and the insignificant series of
Emperors of the West resumed their sway over the ruins of the
imperial city.
The city was restored to a semblance of its old self; but we find no
further traces of the production or of the sale of books. It is
probable that when, in 476, Odoacer, chief of the Herulians, gave
the final blow to the Empire of the West, and took possession of its
capital, he found there, outside of the few treatises and books of
worship of the Church, practically nothing in the shape of literature.
The rule of the Herulian was short; in less than twenty years he
was overthrown by the Goth, and Theodoric came into possession of
Rome and undertook the task of organizing a kingdom out of the
much harried territory of Italy.
In the later portion of his reign, after the city had been favored
with a few years of peace and of freedom from the dread of
invasion, there was some revival of intellectual and literary interests.
Cassiodorus, prætor, prefect, quæstor, and later “master of the
offices,” won fame as court orator and official letter-writer. He wrote
a Gothic history in twelve books (which has disappeared), and a
collection of letters and state-papers entitled Variæ, also in twelve
books. Of greater permanent importance was the work of the
philosopher Boëthius. Hodgkin says of him:
“Boëthius was the skilful mechanic who constructed the
water-clock and sun-dial for the King of the Burgundians
... a man of great and varied accomplishments—
philosopher, theologian, musician, and mathematician. He
had translated thirty books of Aristotle into Latin for the
benefit of his countrymen; his treatise on music was for
many centuries the authoritative exposition of the science
of harmony.”[294]
His greatest work was The Consolation of Philosophy, which was
composed while the philosopher was in prison awaiting sentence of
death. This was rendered into English by King Alfred and by Geoffrey
Chaucer; translations were made into every European tongue, and
copies were to be found in every mediæval convent library. The
Consolation is written partly in prose and partly in verse. Hodgkin is
of opinion that its writer was at the time a Christian.
The production of this work is the only literary event which marks
the rule of Rome by the Goths, and in fact, unless we include the
“master of the offices,” Cassiodorus, with his court orations and
courtly letters, there appeared during the time no other writer of
whose work record has remained. We can infer that some means
existed in connection either with the Court or with the convents for
the production of copies of the Consolation and of the translation of
Aristotle. The latter work, having been prepared, as its translator
says, “for the benefit of his countrymen,” was evidently planned for
some general circulation.
As there is no evidence of the existence at the time of any
bookselling machinery, it is probable that for the multiplication and
distribution of his volumes, Boëthius depended upon the scribes of
the Church and upon the connections with each other of the
convents throughout Europe. It is undoubtedly through the libraries
of the convents (the only places in Europe which were to any extent
protected against ravages of war) that the Consolation was
preserved.
After the death of Theodoric, Italy became the camping ground and
the fighting place for successive hordes of Lombards, Saracens, and
Franks. Social organization must have almost disappeared. Of
scholarly or literary production there is again for some centuries
hardly a trace. Inter arma silent styli. What intellectual life, outside
of the monasteries, was still active in Europe must be looked for at
the Court of the Greek Emperors of Constantinople.
 CHAPTER VI.
Constantinople.

W HEN Constantine, in the year 328, removed to Byzantium the

capital of the Empire, he doubtless took with him from Rome,
or was followed by, a large proportion of the leaders of the social
and intellectual life of the city. It is said also that Greek scholars
from Magna Græcia, and from other parts of the Empire, foreseeing
the probable revival of interest in Greek learning, speedily gathered
themselves at Constantinople, and through their presence hastened
the replacing of the Latin tongue by their own vernacular.
For a century or more, however, after the establishment of
Constantinople, literary production appears to have been slight and
unimportant. There is some evidence of collections being made of
copies of the great classics, collections which later, unfortunately, in
large part perished at the hands first of Crusaders and afterwards of
Turks, and it is probable that a certain number of scribes were kept
employed in the production of such copies. Of new works or of new
editions of importance there is no record, while there is also no
evidence as to the existence of any bookselling machinery for
keeping the public supplied with the old classics.
The first revival of literary productiveness appears to have come
from the Court. About 440 a.d. the Empress Eudocia published a
poetical paraphrase of the first eight books of the Old Testament and
of the prophecies of Daniel and Zechariah. This was followed by a
cento of the verses of Homer, applied to the life of Christ; by a
version of the legend of St. Cyprian; and by a panegyric on the
Persian victories of her husband Theodosius.
An imperial author needed, of course, no bookselling machinery to
bring her writings to the attention of the public. The members of the
Court circles doubtless made for their presentation copies a full
return in the shape of loyal appreciation, while politic priests could
be depended upon to interest themselves in the reproduction and
distribution of books devoted to such sacred subjects, and
emanating from so high an authority.
After this literary outburst from the Court, there is a long period
during which there is no record of any original work of importance
being produced in Constantinople. I must not omit, however, to
make reference to the great undertaking carried out by Ulfilas (sixty
years or more before the time of Eudocia’s labors) in the translation
of the Bible into Gothic.
Ulfilas was a Goth by birth, but had been educated (as a hostage)
in Constantinople. He was made Bishop of Gothia, and the work of
his translation was probably completed in Dacia. For the preparation,
however, of the transcripts of his text he was apparently obliged to
resort to the scribes of the capital, and the “publication” of the work
may, therefore, be credited to Constantinople. A magnificent
manuscript of this Gothic version of the Gospels, a manuscript
known, on account of its beautiful silver text, as the codex
argenteus, and which dates from the sixth century, is now preserved
in the library of the University of Upsala in Sweden, one of the
earliest homes of the Gothic peoples. The wide circulation of these
Gothic Scriptures had a great influence in bringing the Gothic tribes
into the Christian fold, and exercised, therefore, an important effect
on the history of Europe.
The greatest of the earlier authors of the Eastern Empire was the
historian Procopius. His History of My Own Times, which was
published about 560 a.d., during the reign of Justinian, is devoted
more particularly to an account of the wars carried on by the
Empire. Procopius had held various offices, and, during 562, was
Prefect of Constantinople. After this post had been taken from him,
he wrote a volume called Anecdota, or “secret history,” in which
Justinian and his empress, Theodora, are very severely handled. A
third and earlier production is a description of the edifices erected by
Justinian throughout the Empire.
By the beginning of the seventh century, says Oman, the use of the
Latin language in Constantinople had practically ceased. Oman
speaks of the seventh and eighth centuries as being the “dark age in
Byzantine literary history,” but, as far as we can judge from the
records, the “luminous” or productive periods must have been very
fitful and fragmentary.
After the extinction of the schools of Alexandria and Athens, “the
studies of the Greeks” (says Gibbon) “retired to the monasteries,
and above all to the royal college of Constantinople, which was
burned in the reign of Leo the Isaurian, about 750 a.d.” The head of
the foundation was named “the sun of science,” and the twelve
professors, the twelve signs of the zodiac. The library comprised
over 36,000 volumes. It included the famous Homeric manuscript,
before referred to, written on a parchment roll 120 feet long.
Between 886 and 963 a.d. Constantinople was ruled by the group of
so-called “literary emperors,” during whose reigns literature became
the fashion of the Court. The chief achievements of Leo the Wise
and of his son and successor Constantine Porphyrogenitus were their
books. The writings of Leo consist of a manuscript on the Art of War,
some theological treatises, and a book of prophecies. The former,
says Oman, contains some exceedingly valuable information, while
the prophecies have been the puzzle of commentators.[295] The
works of Constantine comprise a treatise on the administration of
the Themes or provincial districts, a biography of his grandfather,
and a comprehensive manual of the etiquette and ceremonies of the
Court. Towards the close of the eighth century or at the beginning of
the ninth appeared the commonplace books of Stobæus, one series
entitled An Anthology of Extracts, Sentences, and Precepts, one
grouped together under the name of Physical, Dialectic, and Moral
Selections, and a third entitled simply Discourses. The extracts are
drawn from more than five hundred authors, whose works have in
great measure perished. They include, says Heeren (who, in 1792,
published an edition of Stobæus), passages from many of the
ancient comic writers. The exact date of the life or of the work of
Stobæus is not known. Photius says that his commonplace books
were prepared as an educational guide for his son Septimius.
By the ninth century there are indications of the existence of a
literary class, and there is evidence of the work of a few first-class
writers such as the patriarch Photius, 857-69, whose library
catalogue is the envy of modern scholars.[296] This catalogue,
composed while its author was an exile in Bagdad, comprises a
review or analysis of the works of two hundred and eight writers.
Gibbon points out, in connection with this catalogue of Photius, that
the students and writers of that period enjoyed the use of many
works of Greek literature which have since perished in whole or in
part. He cites, among other authors, Theopompus, Menander,
Alcæus, Hyperides, and Sappho.
In 867, under the direction of Basil II., were written the Basilics, or
code of laws. The Emperor himself was the author of a
comprehensive history of Greece and Rome, of which but fragments
have been preserved.
Early in the tenth century, the exact date is uncertain, Suidas
compiled his famous lexicon. According to Gibbon, Suidas was also
the author of some fifty plays, some of which were based upon
Aristophanes. In the latter part of the eleventh century Eudocia (wife
of Romanus and the second literary empress of the name), having
been imprisoned in a convent by her son, wrote, while in
confinement, a treatise on the genealogies of the gods and heroes.
During the first years of the twelfth century Anna Comnena,
daughter of Alexius Comnenus I., wrote, in fifteen books, under the
title of Alexias, a life of her father. Gibbon speaks of the style of the
history as being turgid and inflated, but says that it contains some
interesting accounts of the first Crusaders.
In the twelfth century, a name of distinction is that of Eustathius I.,
Archbishop of Thessalonica, who published, about 1150,
commentaries on Homer and on Dionysius the Geographer. Gibbon
says that in the former he refers to no less than four hundred
authors. At about the same time appeared the Chiliads of Tsetzes.
Oman is of opinion that the most interesting development of
Byzantine literature were the Epics or Romances of Chivalry, written
at the close of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh centuries.
He names as one of the best representatives of these romances, the
epic of Diogenes Akritas, a mighty hunter, a slayer of dragons, and a
persistent and successful lover.
I have referred to the work of but a few of the more representative
of the Byzantine writers. It would be foreign to the purposes of this
sketch to undertake to present any comprehensive bibliography of
Byzantine literature, even if I had available the material for such a
bibliography. Of many of the authors whose names have been
preserved, very little except their names is known, while of the
entire literature of the Byzantine period it may, I judge, fairly be said
that it possesses but slight interest or value for later generations.
The fact that literary undertakings of importance at the time and of
interest for the readers of the day continued from generation to
generation to be presented to the public, undertakings which in not
a few cases must have involved the labor of many years, gives us
the right to conclude that some means or machinery must have
existed for reaching this public. As far, however, as my present
information goes, there are absolutely no data concerning the
existence in Constantinople of any publishing or bookselling trade,
and we have no means of knowing by what means the books of
Byzantium were manifolded and distributed.
It is to be noted that a very large number of the writers named
belonged to the Court, or held high official station. The fact that so
many books were the work of the emperors themselves and of the
members of the imperial families, is exceptional both in the history
of literature and in the history of royalty. It is probable that for the
transcribing of these books and for the books of officials generally,
the services of official scribes were utilized. Authors outside of
official circles may have gone to the convent, or may also have
employed private scribes. It is fair to assume, notwithstanding the
absence of any specific mention of such establishments, that some
organization of scribes, or of work-rooms for the manifolding of
books, existed in the city.
In closing this chapter, I venture to recall to my readers the well-
known summary by Gibbon of the literature of the Byzantine Empire.
“The Empire of the Cæsars undoubtedly checked the
activity and the progress of the human mind. Its
magnitude might indeed allow some scope for domestic
competition; but when it was gradually reduced, at first to
the East, and at last to Greece and Constantinople, the
Byzantine subjects were degraded to an abject and
languid temper, the natural effect of their solitary and
insulated state. Alone in the universe, the self-satisfied
pride of the Greeks was not disturbed by the comparison
of foreign merit.... Their prose is soaring to the vicious
affectation of poetry; their poetry is sinking below the
flatness and insipidity of prose. The tragic, epic, and lyric
muses were silent and inglorious. The bards of
Constantinople seldom rose above a riddle or an epigram,
a panegyric or a tale. They forgot even the rules of
prosody, and with the melody of Homer still ringing in
their ears, they confound all measures of feet and
syllables in the impotent strains which have received the
name of ‘political’ or city verses.”
The change first comes when there is a break in the insulation.
Gibbon continues: “The nations of Europe and Asia were mingled by
the expeditions to the Holy Land, and it is under the Comnenian
dynasty that a faint emulation of knowledge and of military virtue
was rekindled in the Byzantine Empire.”
The opinion of Lecky is still more emphatic. He says: “The universal
verdict of history is that the Byzantine State constituted the most
base and despicable form that civilization ever assumed, and there
has been no other enduring civilization so absolutely destitute of all
the forms of true greatness, none to which the epithet mean may so
emphatically be applied.”[297] Is it surprising that in a State thus
demoralized there is no record of the existence of a publisher?
It is only proper to add that the historian Oman, a much sounder
authority on the subject than Mr. Lecky, and writing with information
before him that was not available for Gibbon, contends that the talk
about the exceptional demoralization of the Byzantines is largely
rubbish, and points out that if the State were really as corrupt as it is
painted by Gibbon and by Lecky, it would have fallen to pieces of its
own rottenness within two or three generations, instead of enduring
as the bulwark of Europe for over a thousand years.
The fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the introduction into Europe
of the Turks, was unquestionably a great injury to Europe and to
civilization, and the destruction of the collections of manuscripts
existing in the capital itself and in monasteries and libraries in other
cities of the Empire, was an irreparable loss for literature. For the
educational interests and the literary development of Europe there
were, however, considerations to offset this serious disaster. Great as
was the destruction of manuscripts, a number were preserved by
individual scholars and in the hidden recesses of certain convents
and monasteries. Many of these were at once taken to Italy,
Germany, and France by the scholars flying from the barbarous
conquerors of their land, and the works were thus brought to the
knowledge and made available for the use of European students.
Other manuscripts were secured from their hiding-places years after
the capture of the city, by Greek scholars sent back for the purpose
on behalf of the publishers of Italy and France, or of the universities
of Bologna, Padua, and Paris, while some few valuable parchments
were hidden so safely that they have been forgotten for centuries
and are only to-day being brought to light from the vaults and attics
of old monasteries, so as again to be included in literature accessible
for the world.
 In addition to the service done to the literary development of
Europe by the distribution westward of the texts of the almost
forgotten classics of the great Greek writers, there was the further
important gain for the scholarship of the continent in securing, for
university chairs, for tutorial positions, and for editorial work, the
services of hundreds of Greek scholars whose homes had been
destroyed, or who were unwilling to live under the rule of the hated
Turk. Men of the highest rank in scholarly accomplishments and
possessing a thorough knowledge of the literature of their race,
either on the ground of impecuniosity or in some instances
apparently from an unselfish devotion to the cause of scholarship,
found their way to chairs in Bologna, Padua, Paris, Oxford, and other
educational centres, and to the Court circles of the more intellectual
of the princes and nobles of Italy, and spread in hundreds of
channels a knowledge of the Greek language and an enthusiasm for
the Greek literature. Mohammed II., the conqueror of
Constantinople, had therefore played a part by no means
unimportant in furthering one phase at least of the Renaissance of
the intellectual life of Europe.
It was fortunate for the continued vitality and progress of the
movement that the Greek literature thus reintroduced into Europe
found already perfected the new art of printing, by means of which
the manuscripts that the refugees from the Bosphorus had brought
with them could be made generally available for students. It was
fortunate also that, within a few years after the teaching of Greek
had been entered upon in the principal educational centres, public-
spirited and scholarly publishers were found prepared to take upon
themselves the very serious business risk involved in the casting of
Greek fonts of type and in the printing of editions of the Greek texts.
The first and most important of these publishers, the man who, on
the ground of high ideals and of great things accomplished, is
properly to be honored as facile princeps in the long list of the great
publishers of Europe, was Aldus Manutius of Venice, a worthy
successor to Atticus, the friend of Cicero, who, 1550 years earlier,