capitals have always had a natural attraction for literary genius, as it
is in them alone that it can hope to be appreciated. And if this be the
case at the present day, how much more must it have been so before the
invention of printing, at a time when it was more usual to listen to
books read aloud than to read them oneself? Plutarch journeyed to Rome
just as Herodotus went to Athens, or as he is said to have gone to the
Olympian festival, in search of an intelligent audience of educated men.
Whether his object was merely praise, or whether he was influenced by
ideas of gain, we cannot say. No doubt his lectures were not delivered
gratis, and that they were well attended seems evident from Plutarch's
own notices of them, and from the names which have been preserved of the
eminent men who used to frequent them. Moreover, strange though it may
appear to us, the demand for books seems to have been very brisk even
though they were entirely written by hand.

The epigrams of Martial inform us of the existence of a class of slaves
whose occupation was copying books, and innumerable allusions in Horace,
Martial, &c., to the Sosii and others prove that the trade of a
bookseller at Rome was both extensive and profitable. Towards the end of
the Republic it became the fashion for Roman nobles to encourage
literature by forming a library, and this taste was given immense
encouragement by Augustus, who established a public library in the
Temple of Apollo on the Mount Palatine, in imitation of that previously
founded by Asinius Pollio. There were other libraries besides these, the
most famous of which was the Ulpian library, founded by Trajan, who
called it so from his own name, Ulpius. Now Trajan was a contemporary of
our author, and this act of his clearly proves that there must have been
during Plutarch's lifetime a considerable reading public, and consequent
demand for books at Rome.