Part One - THE WORLD OF BELIEF

Summary

In Roman legal affairs and other ceremonial acts with public implications, writing on wooden, wax, or bronze tablets was special and preferred. To Greeks, on the other hand, tablets were not particularly special, and they often chose papyrus for such acts. This was a distinction with a real difference. For the Romans, the form conveyed several fundamental messages. As a necessary part of a ceremonial act, a tablet could come to embody, in a final and authoritative way, the substance of that act, but as part of such an act, it also helped to create the new reality that such an act aimed at establishing. These three related aspects – ceremonial, authoritative, and active – all characterize the traditional Roman understanding of the importance of words written on tablets in manipulating and fixing both visible and unseen realities.

By “ceremonial” (or “ritual”) I mean patterns of behavior that are standardized and repeatable, and that are performed in a far more distinctive and self-conscious way than those that can be deemed habitual. Performing one's “morning ritual,” for example, is merely habit for ninety-nine out of a hundred people.