gave him too small a share. Of the merits of this
old disagreement between the author and publisher
we have not enough of facts to justify an opinion.
We learn that some publishers, like Tryphon and
the brothers Sosii, acquired wealth, but there are
many indications that publishing was then, as it is
now, one of the most speculative kinds of business.
One writer chuckles over the unkind fate that sent
so many of the unsold books of rival authors from
the warehouses of the publisher, to the shops of
grocers and bakers, where they were used to wrap
up pastry and spices; another writer says that the
unsold stock of a bookseller was sometimes bought
by butchers and trunk makers.

"The Romans not only had plenty of books but
they had a manuscript daily newspaper, the Acta
Diurna, which seems to have been a record of the
proceedings of the senate. We do not know how
it was written, nor how it was published, but it
was frequently mentioned by contemporary writers
as the regular official medium for transmitting
intelligence. It was sent to subscribers in distant
cities, and was, sometimes, read to an assembled
army. Cicero mentions the Acta as a sheet in
which he expected to find the city news and gossip
about marriages and divorces.

"With the decline of power in the Roman empire
came the decline of literature throughout the