testified their piety to the gods, their devotion to their princes, their gratitude to their benefactors; that, finally, magistrates and private persons spread abroad in public all they wished to communicate to it. That is why the inscriptions were then so frequent, and explains how they survive to us in so great a number, though so many must have perished; the Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum already comprises more then two hundred thousand and is not yet completed. Sainte-Beueve was quite right in saying: 'The true Moniteur of the Romans must be sought in the innumerable pages of marble and bronze on which they graved their laws and their victories.'
II
Literary publicity. Of what means the Roman writers availed themselves for the advertisement of their works. Readings during repasts. At the Forum. In the halls of the baths. In the grammar schools. Institution of public readings. The announcements of booksellers. How books were circulated in the provinces.
But placards
