ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom ...

, the ''scriba'' (

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

, plural ''scribae'') was a public notary or

clerk A clerk is a white-collar worker who conducts general office tasks, or a worker who performs similar sales-related tasks in a retail environment. The responsibilities of clerical workers commonly include record keeping, filing, staffing service ...

(see also

scrivener A scrivener (or scribe) was a person who could read and write or who wrote letters to court and legal documents. Scriveners were people who made their living by writing or copying written material. This usually indicated secretarial and ad ...

). The public scribes were the highest in rank of the four prestigious occupational grades (''decuriae'') among the ''

apparitor In ancient Rome, an ''apparitor'' (also spelled apparator in English, or shortened to paritor) was a civil servant whose salary was paid from the public treasury. The ''apparitores'' assisted the magistrates. There were four occupational gra ...

es'', the attendants of the

magistrates The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judic ...

who were paid from the state treasury. The word ''scriba'' might also refer to a man who was a private secretary, but should be distinguished from a copyist (who might be called a "scribe" in English) or bookseller (''librarius''). In Rome the ''scribae'' worked out of the ''

aerarium Aerarium, from ''aes'' (“bronze, money”) + -''ārium'' (“place for”), was the name given in Ancient Rome to the public treasury, and in a secondary sense to the public finances. ''Aerarium populi Romani'' The main ''aerarium'', that ...

'', the state treasury and government archive. They received a good salary, but could earn additional commissions for collecting and recording state revenues, and making official copies of government documents and decrees. The Roman posting was such a lucrative assignment that the ''scribae'' worked in rotations, serving one year in Rome and two in the

provinces A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

. Those who became scribes might be freedmen (''libertini'') and their sons; literary or educated men who advanced to the job through

patronage Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings, popes, and the wealthy have provided to artists su ...

; or even men of the

equestrian order The ''equites'' (; literally "horse-" or "cavalrymen", though sometimes referred to as "knights" in English) constituted the second of the property-based classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the senatorial class. A member of the equestrian ...

. Among the scribe's duties was the recording of sworn oaths on public tablets. As a magistrate's attendant, he might also assist in religious rituals; for instance, since the exact wording of a prescribed prayer was considered vital to its success, a scribe might prompt the presiding magistrate by reading it out as recorded on official tablets. By the end of the 4th century BC, the office evidently afforded several advantages, including a knowledge of

Roman law Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the '' Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor J ...

that was traditionally the privilege of the elite, and the ability to trade favors that could be translated into political capital. In 305 BC, the public scribe Gnaeus Flavius, the son of a freedman, shocked the Roman upperclasses by winning election as

curule aedile ''Aedile'' ( ; la, aedīlis , from , "temple edifice") was an elected office of the Roman Republic. Based in Rome, the aediles were responsible for maintenance of public buildings () and regulation of public festivals. They also had powers to enf ...

for the following year. Though not the first plebeian to hold the office, his victory, made possible by the growing number of freedmen and those of libertine descent among the urban population, prompted the

censors Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...

of 304 BC to adopt

voter registration In electoral systems, voter registration (or enrollment) is the requirement that a person otherwise eligible to vote must register (or enroll) on an electoral roll, which is usually a prerequisite for being entitled or permitted to vote. The r ...

policies that curtailed the political power of the lower orders. Gaius Cicereius, a former ''scriba'' of

Scipio Africanus Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (, , ; 236/235–183 BC) was a Roman general and statesman, most notable as one of the main architects of Rome's victory against Carthage in the Second Punic War. Often regarded as one of the best military co ...

, was elected

praetor Praetor ( , ), also pretor, was the title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to a man acting in one of two official capacities: (i) the commander of an army, and (ii) as an elected '' magistratus'' (magistrate), assigned to discharge vari ...

in 173 BC, and enjoyed greater popularity than Scipio's own son. Certainly by the late Republic, the ''scribae'' had become a well-organized group who had achieved or were near to equestrian status. The ''scriba''

Sextus Cloelius Sextus is an ancient Roman ''praenomen'' or "first name". Its standard abbreviation is Sex., and the feminine form would be Sexta. It is one of the numeral ''praenomina'', like Quintus ("fifth") and Decimus ("tenth"), and means "sixth". Although i ...

kept a high profile as an agent of the popularist

Clodius Pulcher Publius Clodius Pulcher (93–52 BC) was a populist Roman politician and street agitator during the time of the First Triumvirate. One of the most colourful personalities of his era, Clodius was descended from the aristocratic Claudia gens, one ...

. At the beginning of Clodius's year in office as

tribune of the plebs Tribune of the plebs, tribune of the people or plebeian tribune ( la, tribunus plebis) was the first office of the Roman state that was open to the plebeians, and was, throughout the history of the Republic, the most important check on the power o ...

in 58 BC, Cloelius organized '' ludi compitalicii'', neighborhood new-year festivities that had been banned as promoting unrest and political subversion. Cloelius also led the people in riots when Clodius was murdered a few years later, taking his body to the senate house and turning it into the popular leader's funeral pyre. The Augustan poet

Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...

introduced himself in his first published book as the son of a freedman and as a civil servant, specifically a ''scriba quaestorius'', or clerk to the

quaestor A ( , , ; "investigator") was a public official in Ancient Rome. There were various types of quaestors, with the title used to describe greatly different offices at different times. In the Roman Republic, quaestors were elected officials who ...

s who were in charge of the public treasury.

Emily Gowers Emily Joanna Gowers, ( Thomas; born 27 September 1963) is a British classical scholar. She is Professor of Latin Literature at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. She is an expert on Horace, Augustan l ...

, "The Restless Companion: Horace, ''Satires'' 1 and 2," in ''The Cambridge Companion to Roman Satire'' (Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 48.

References

{{Reflist Ancient Roman government Notary

Further reading

References