The Circulation of Literary Texts in the Roman World

It is often assumed that we know very little about how literary texts circulated in the Roman world because we know very little about the Roman book trade. In fact, we know a great deal about book circulation, even though we know little about the book trade. Romans circulated texts in a series of widening concentric circles determined primarily by friendship, which might, of course, be influenced by literary interests, and.by the forces of social status that regulated friendship. Bookstores and ‘public’ libraries, which made a text available to individuals personally unknown to the author and his friends, were comparatively late developments. To trace the circulation of a Roman literary work, we shall use a schematic model to follow a literary text from its initial conception through the widening circles through which it moved.