Page 17 - Manual of Roman Everyday Writing Volume 2: Writing Equipment

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Different kinds of writing are often associated with different social
status. The kind of writing most readers of this manual will have
encountered first and most extensively are literary texts and thus
writing in the sense of composing. This kind of writing represents
only a small portion of writing in the Roman period and, in most
cases, it happened in a specific, well-educated and high-status
environment. Children of the upper social strata, boys and girls
alike, were commonly educated to read and write with proficiency
but for the majority of the population the availability of such
education varied greatly across the empire and was dependent on
opportunity and financial means.

Writing documents involved a second person who was writing down
what was dictated, often a slave or a freedman. Scribae in public
administration and teachers were often of similar social status.
The apparent contradiction of low status and a skill considered
to be empowering has drawn much attention to the role of the
scribae, the great potential for upward social mobility it entailed
and the influential individuals it created (see e.g. Hartmann 2020).
Similarly, in the military, literacy offered a clear advantage with
regard to career prospects (e.g. Haynes 2013, 323–328).

Fig. 6: Funerary relief from Rome (Italy) showing a butcher’s wife,
Fig. 5: Roman tombstone of a boy that shows him holding writing presumably engaged in bookkeeping, 140/150 CE.
equipment, Metz (France). Carte archéologique de la Gaule Skulpturensammlung Dresden, inv. Hm 418. © Skulpturensammlung,
57.2: Metz, 2005, 185. Musée de la Cour d’Or, inv. 75.38.53. © Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, photo by H.-P. Klut / E. Estel.
Laurianne Kieffer, Musée de La Cour d’Or, Metz Métropole.