The Attitude of Ancient Greeks to Writing: A Mystery’s Secret

The article is devoted to the problem of transition from oral to written culture in Ancient Greece. Most foreign and Russian researchers associate the duration and instability of this transition, firstly, with some features of power organization in the city-states, in which Greek citizens had to exercise their rights themselves — narrow specialization was condemned; and, secondly, with the anthropomorphic specificity of Greek culture. The article analyzes the use of oral and written communications in the major works of a number of ancient Greek writers: Homer (“Iliad”, “Odyssey”), Hesiod (“Theogony”), Aeschylus (“The Suppliants”), Aristophanes (“The Birds”), as well as in the philosophical works of Plato (“Phaedrus”).

The article specifies that ancient Greek authors, despite the possession of writing, rely in their works on oral communications and on such forms of ensuring trust in oral communication as personal testimony, religious oath, reinforcing all this with a belief in potential religious punishment. As a result, the ancient Greek authors (in the absence of specially created institutional forms of trust) either ignore written communications or depict them as secondary. Therefore, this article aims to explain the distrustful attitude of the Greeks to writing at an early stage. The author proposes an original hypothesis, within the context of which this phenomenon is explained by inability of the institutional forms of trust, created for oral communication, to perform their function during the transition to written communications, which “hindered” the transition process. The author’s hypothesis is based on the theory of documentary information. The article concludes that the final transition to written communications was completed only after the creation of institutional forms of ensuring trust in written communications, in the form of archives and libraries.

1. Vidal-Naquet P. Chernyi okhotnik. Formy myshleniya i formy obshchestva v grecheskom mire [The Black Hunter: Forms of Thought and Forms of Society in the Greek World]. Moscow, Ladomir Publ., 2001, 419 p.

2. Steiner D. The Tyrant’s Writ: Myths and Images of Writing in Ancient Greece. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1994, 294 p.

3. Powell B.B. Why Was the Greek Alphabet Invented? The Epigraphical Evidence, Classical Antiquity, 1989, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 321—350.

4. Thomas R. Literacy and Orality Ancient Greece. Cambridge, 1992, 201 p.

5. Sickinger J. Literacy, Documents, and Archives in the Ancient Athenian Democracy, The American Archivist, 1994, vol. 62, no. 2, pp. 229—246.

6. Surikov I.E. The Archaic Period in Greece as a Historical Epoch: A Modern View. The First Half (9th—8th Centuries B.C.), Mnemon: issledovaniya i publikatsii po istorii antichnogo mira [Mnemon: Investigations and Publications on the History of Ancient World], 2014, no. 14, pp. 27—50 (in Russ.).

7. Karpyuk S.G. The Scribes of Athenian Democracy, Vestnik drevnei istorii [Journal of Ancient History], 2009, no. 1, pp. 161—166 (in Russ.).

8. Strogetsky V.M. The Role of Information and the Problem of Communicative Relations in a Classical Polis, Mnemon: issledovaniya i publikatsii po istorii antichnogo mira [Mnemon: Investigations and Publications on the History of Ancient World], 2003, no. 2, pp. 135—152 (in Russ.).

9. Semenovker B.A. Evolyutsiya informatsionnoi deyatel’nosti [Evolution of Information Activities]. Moscow, Pashkov Dom Publ., 2009—2013.

10. Averintsev S.S. Typology of the Attitude to Books in the Cultures of the Ancient East, Antiquity and Early Middle Ages, Antichnost’ i antichnye traditsii v kul’ture i iskusstve narodov Sovetskogo Vostoka: sb. st. [Antiquity and Ancient Traditions in the Culture and Art of the Peoples of the Soviet East: collected articles]. Moscow, Nauka Publ., 1978, pp. 6—27 (in Russ.).

11. Surikov I.E. Athenian Citizens of the Archaic and Classical Era as Scribes, Vestnik RGGU. Ser. Istoriya. Filologiya. Kul’turologiya. Vostokovedenie [Bulletin of the Russian State University for the Humanities. Series “History. Philology. Cultural Studies. Oriental Studies”], 2013, no. 17, pp. 181—204 (in Russ.).

12. Andreev Yu.V. Gomerovskoe obshchestvo. Osnovnye tendentsii sotsial’no-ekonomicheskogo i politicheskogo razvitiya Gretsii XI—VIII vv. do n. e. [The Homeric Society: The Basic Tendencies of the Social-Economical and Political Development of Greece in the 11th—8th Centuries BC]. St. Petersburg, Nestor-Istoriya Publ., 2004, 494 p.

13. Karpyuk S.G. Secretaries-Magistrates and/or Professional Scribes in Ancient Greece, Vestnik RGGU. Ser. Istoriya. Filologiya. Kul’turologiya. Vostokovedenie [Bulletin of the Russian State University for the Humanities. Series “History. Philology. Cultural Studies. Oriental Studies”], 2013, no. 17, pp. 171—180 (in Russ.).

14. Homer. Iliad. Moscow, Leningrad, Goslitizdat Publ., 1949, 551 p. (in Russ.).

15. Homer. Iliad. Leningrad, Nauka Publ., 1990, 576 p. (in Russ.).

16. Homer. Odyssey. Moscow, Nauka Publ., 2000, 544 p. (in Russ.).

17. Hesiod. Theogony, Gesiod. Polnoe sobranie tekstov [Hesiod. Complete Texts]. Moscow, Labirint Publ., 2001, pp. 20—50 (in Russ.).

18. Dovatur A.I. Plato on Aristotle, Voprosy antichnoi literatury i klassicheskoi filologii [Studies of Ancient Literature and Classical Philology]. Moscow, Nauka Publ., 1966, pp. 137—145 (in Russ.).

19. Aeschylus. The Suppliants, Eskhil. Tragedii [Aeschylus. Tragedies]. Moscow, Iskusstvo Publ., 1978, pp. 5—46 (in Russ.).

20. Plato. Phaedrus, Platon. Fedon, Pir, Fedr, Parmenid [Plato. Phaedo. Symposium. Phaedrus. Parmenides]. Moscow, Mysl’, 1999, pp. 135—191 (in Russ.).

21. Manguel A. Istoriya chteniya [A History of Reading]. Yekaterinburg, U-Faktoriya Publ., 2008, 381 p.

22. Klimov O.Yu. The Scientific School in Hellenistic Pergamon, Mnemon: issledovaniya i publikatsii po istorii antichnogo mira [Mnemon: Investigations and Publications on the History of Ancient World], 2009, no. 8, pp. 175—198 (in Russ.).

23. Pauly A. Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. Suppl. III. Aachen bis ad Iuglandem, 1918. P. 158.

24. Pleshkevich E.A. Documentality as an Attribute Property of a Document, Nauchno-tekhnicheskaya informatsiya. Seriya 1: Organizatsiya i metodika informatsionnoi raboty [Scientific and Technical Information. Series 1: Organization and Methodology of Information Work], 2013, no. 9, pp. 1—7 (in Russ.).

25. Pleshkevich E.A. Documents and Documentality in the Space of Culture, Observatoriya kul’tury [Observatory of Culture], 2014, no. 2, pp. 118—123 (in Russ.).

26.