Ancient World Review

The Library Of St. Catherine's Monastery In Egypt

"Saint Catherine's Monastery ... officially 'Sacred Monastery of the God-Trodden Mount Sinai'  lies on the Sinai Peninsula, at the mouth of a gorge at the foot of Mount Sinai, near the town of Saint Catherine, Egypt. The monastery is named after Catherine of Alexandria" (Wikipedia) "

Note: Catherine of Alexandria probably never existed:

"Donald Attwater (English Catholic author, 1892-1977) dismisses what he calls the 'legend' of Saint Catherine, arguing for a lack of any 'positive evidence that she ever existed outside the mind of some Greek writer who first composed what he intended to be simply an edifying romance.' Harold Davis writes that 'assiduous research has failed to identify Catherine with any historical personage' and has theorized that Catherine was an invention inspired to provide a counterpart to the story of the slightly later pagan philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria (c. 350–370 – 415 CE)." (Wikipedia)

According to the UNESCO World Heritage List, "The [Greek Orthodox] monastery of St Catherine stands at the foot of Mount Horeb where, the Old Testament records, Moses received the Tablets of the Law. The mountain is known and revered by Muslims as Jebel Musa. The entire area is sacred to three world religions: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism." The monastery is controlled by "the autonomous Church of Sinai."

Even though St. Catherine's was named after a (probably) fictitious saint, this is still a remarkable and very old institution:

^"Built between 548 and 565, the monastery is one of the oldest working Christian monasteries in the world. The site contains the world's oldest continually operating library [next video], possessing many unique books including the Syriac Sinaiticus and, until 1859, the Codex Sinaiticus."

The incredible library filmed on a potato.

Note: The manuscript shown in the video above is the Ashtiname of Muhammed, "also known as the Covenant or Testament (Testamentum) of Muhammad (the Islamic Prophet) ... a document which is a charter or writ ratified by the Islamic Prophet Muhammad granting protection and other privileges to the followers of Jesus the Nazarene, given to the Christian monks of Saint Catherine's Monastery. It is sealed with an imprint representing Muhammad's hand."

The manuscript may be inauthentic. According to Wikipedia, "Since the 19th century, several aspects of the Ashtiname, notably the list of witnesses, have been questioned by scholars. There are similarities to other documents granted to other religious communities in the Near East. One example is Muhammad's alleged letter to the Christians of Najran, which first came to light in 878 in a monastery in Iraq and whose text is preserved in the Chronicle of Seert." It doesn't really matter, though, because even if the Ashtiname is a forgery -- something I don't think anyone is claiming -- it's still a priceless artifact from the period.

Recently renovated, the library at St. Catherine's was re-opened in 2017.

The manuscripts and books in the monastery's library go way back:

"When Egeria visited the Sinai in 383-384, she wrote approvingly of the way the monks read to her the scriptural accounts concerning the various events that had taken place there. Thus we can speak of manuscripts at Sinai in the fourth century. It is written of Saint John Climacus that, while living as a hermit, he spent much time in prayer and in the copying of books. This is evidence of manuscript production at Sinai in the sixth century. The library at the Holy Monastery of Sinai is thus the inheritor of texts and of traditions that date to the earliest years of a monastic presence in the Sinai. In earlier times, manuscripts were kept in three different places: in the north wall of the monastery, in the vicinity of the church, and in a central location where the texts were accessible." Source: The Sinai Monastery website.

Research has also revealed that some of the manuscripts in the library contain "hidden manuscripts" which were erased in order to reuse the parchment they were written on.

"The Sinai manuscripts comprise the oldest and most important Christian monastic library collection. Of its 3,300 manuscripts, two-thirds are in Greek. The rest are principally in Arabic, Syriac, Georgian, and Slavonic, through there are other manuscripts in Polish, Hebrew, Ethiopian, Armenian, Latin, and Persian. The New Finds correspond to these languages, and are stored adjacent to the library. The library also contains an important archive, containing letters, account books, charters, and other documents." Source: The Sinai Monastery website.

"...The most famous manuscript is the fourth century Codex Sinaiticus, of which the monastery retains twelve pages and some twenty-four fragments."

Comment: I'm not a Christian, but St. Catherine's and its library are priceless historical treasures which must be protected at all costs. The monastery has already been the target of at least one attempted terrorist attack back in 2015 and as far as I can tell the Islamic State vermin are still waging a sporadic insurgency in the Sinai. I hate to say it, but if the situation deteriorates the Church of Sinai (which controls the monastery) should consider moving the library to a safer location, preferably somewhere out of the country.

Related: St. Catherine's Monastery, its Library and its Palimpsests.

Bart Ehrman: Christian Forgery & Counter-Forgery

"'Arguably the most distinctive feature of the early Christian literature,' writes Bart Ehrman, 'is the degree to which it was forged.' The Homilies and Recognitions of Clement; Paul's letters to and from Seneca; Gospels by Peter, Thomas, and Philip; Jesus' correspondence with Abgar, letters by Peter and Paul in the New Testament--all forgeries. To cite just a few examples." Source: Oxford University Press (OUP).

Comment: I haven't read the particular book reviewed in this OUP article, but I did read Forged, another book by Ehrman which covers a lot of the same ground, and it's excellent. Highly recommended. My only problem with Ehrman is his common assertion that Jesus existed despite the fact that almost everything else about the New Testament is unreliable -- as shown by his own research. I have to admit, however, that I haven't read his book on the subject -- Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth -- so I don't really know why he's so convinced that there was a real historical figure behind the myths.

The amount of forgery that took place in the early history of Christianity is really mind-boggling. Another excellent history of the subject is Forgery in Christianity: A Documented Record of the Foundations of the Christian Religion, by Joseph Wheless, who did a huge amount of research into what he calls "The Christian Forgery Mill." If you study this history together with the proliferation of Christian "heresies" at the time as well as the methods that were used to suppress them, you'll get a good idea of how the new religion actually evolved in the real world.

Related: Jesus Never Existed (Ken Humphreys)

Did Jesus Exist? (Bart Ehrman interview)

Is Everything We Know About Roman History Fake?

"This is the first of a series of three articles challenging the conventional historical framework of the Mediterranean world from the Roman Empire to the Crusades. It is a collective contribution to an old debate that has gained new momentum in recent decades in the fringe of the academic world, mostly in Germany, Russia, and France. Some working hypotheses will be made along the way, and the final article will suggest a global solution in the form of a paradigm shift based on hard archeological evidence." Source: UNZ Review.

Comment: This long, detailed article argues that much of what we know about Roman history is fake. According to the author, the works of Tacitus and other Roman writers such as Cicero, Lucretius, Vitruvius, and Quintilian may be forgeries written by a Renaissance scholar named Poggio Bracciolini. An early humanist who worked for several Popes, Bracciolini "was responsible for rediscovering and recovering many classical Latin manuscripts, mostly decaying and forgotten in German, Swiss, and French monastic libraries." (Wikipedia)

According to this argument, Bracciolini didn't rediscover these ancient manuscripts; he wrote them himself and then passed them off as authentic in order to cash in on the lucrative antiquities market (some popes, for instance, were offering large sums for Classical manuscripts).

If this is true, then almost everything we know about Roman history is fiction written during the Renaissance when, according to conventional history, the Classical authors were rediscovered. The letters of Pliny the Younger may have been forged. The Satyricon may be a fake. The source material that Gibbon used for The Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire may have been a forgery. The histories of Julius Caesar may be forgeries as well. In fact, Caesar himself may never have existed:

"The mystery surrounding Julius Caesar is of course of great consequence, since on him rests the historiography of Imperial Rome. If Julius Caesar is a fiction, then so is much of Imperial Rome. Note that, on the coins attributed to his era, the first emperor is simply named Augustus Caesar, which is not a name, but a title that could be applied to any emperor."

Constantine the Great may not have existed, either, in which case everything we know about the founding and nature of the Byzantine Empire is wrong.

This argument doesn't just involve literary forgeries, however. The authenticity of the Roman art and statuary on display in modern museums is called into question. So are the Roman ruins found all over the Mediterranean world. Basically the entire Roman world we're so familiar with is a literary and artistic creation invented during a much later period:

"With those whose curiosity surpasses their skepticism, we shall now argue that Imperial Rome is actually, for a large part, a fictitious mirror image of Constantinople, a fantasy that started emerging in the eleventh century in the context of the cultural war waged by the papacy against the Byzantine empire, and solidified in the fifteenth century, in the context of the plunder of Byzantine culture that is known as the Renaissance. This, of course, will raise many objections, some of which will be addressed here, others in further articles."

Conclusion: This is an interesting article, well worth reading if you're into fringe ideas, but it's probably safe to assume that it's a load of rubbish. The details could be right or wrong -- who knows? I don't have the specialized knowledge required to say definitively that any particular ancient manuscript or statue is authentic. History is full of examples of forged documents and artwork, so the basic argument isn't completely outlandish, at least in theory; but it's hard to believe that everything we know about ancient Rome is fiction. To say the least. I mean, if that's true -- if Imperial Rome is just a medieval fantasy -- then we might as well just give up on the idea of "History" altogether.

Great Library Of Alexandria Destroyed By Budget Cuts, Not Fire?

This brief piece from the History Channel (2013) blames Julius Caesar for the destruction of the Library of Alexandria as if this is a proven fact.

Whatever the case, it's true that Caesar was widely blamed at the time:

"The prime suspect in destruction of the Library of Alexandria is Julius Caesar. It is alleged that during Caesar's occupation of the city of Alexandria in 48 BCE, he found himself in the Royal Palace, hemmed in by the Egyptian fleet in the harbour. For his own safety he had his men set fire to the Egyptian ships, but the fire got out of control and spread to the parts of the city nearest the shore, which included warehouses, depots and some arsenals." Source: Ancient History Encyclopedia.

That's the story, anyway, but it probably isn't true:

"In his book The Vanished Library, Luciano Canfora interprets the evidence from ancient writers to indicate the destruction of manuscripts stored in warehouses near the port waiting for export, rather than the great Library itself." Furthermore, "[t]he great scholar and stoic philosopher Strabo, was working in Alexandria in 20 BC and from his writings it is obvious that the Library was not at that time the world-renowned centre for learning it had been in previous centuries." (Ancient History Encyclopedia)

In other words, Caesar may have inadvertently burned some manuscripts stored in warehouses, but he couldn't have destroyed the library itself if Strabo was working there more than 20 years later. Strabo's writing does show that the library had gone through some kind of decline over the years.

Clip from Cosmos (1980). Note the standard assumption that the library was deliberately destroyed.

The Christians have been blamed for destroying the library as well, but it doesn't look like they did it, either:

"The second possible culprit would be the Christians of the 4 ^th century AD. In 391 AD, the Emperor Theodosius issued a decree that officially outlawed pagan practices. Thus, the Serapeum or Temple of Serapis in Alexandria was destroyed. However, this was not the Library of Alexandria, or for that matter, a library of any sort. Furthermore, no ancient sources mention the destruction of any library at this time at all. Hence, there is no evidence that the Christians of the 4 ^th century destroyed the Library of Alexandria." Source: Ancient Origins.

So if Caesar wasn't responsible and the Christians seem to have been exonerated, then who destroyed the library and its priceless collection of ancient texts? Strangely enough, considering how widespread the traditional story is, there's a possibility that the library wasn't destroyed by a fire in the first place. The truth may be radically different and a lot less dramatic.

"Though it seems fitting that the destruction of so mythic an institution as the Great Library of Alexandria must have required some cataclysmic event ... – and while [riots, fires and other disasters] certainly took their toll on the Library - in reality, the fortunes of the Great Library waxed and waned with those of Alexandria itself. Much of [the library's] downfall was gradual, often bureaucratic, and by comparison to our cultural imaginings, somewhat petty." Source: "The Great Library Of Alexandria?" by Heather Philips (PDF).

This article appeared in 2010, I think. If Heather Philips is right, her version of events would radically change the traditional history of the destruction of the Great Library, but that would be a good thing for those of us who want to know the true story. The traditional history has always been highly speculative since no one really knows what happened.

If Philips is right, we'd lose some dramatic stories, though. For example, her revisionist view would demolish the historical accuracy (such as it is) of the excellent 2009 movie, Agora, which tells the heavily romanticized story of Hypatia of Alexandria  and blames the destruction of the library on a rioting Christian mob.

Agora is a good flick, highly recommended, but it's undeniably a work of anti-Christian propaganda. That doesn't bother me particularly, but some people get all worked up about it. For instance, here's a harsh attack on the movie (2010) by David Bentley Hart who admits he never saw the film but argues that its premise is completely ahistorical, which seems to be the case. Considering their record of destroying pagan shrines and writings, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the Christians destroyed the library, but it looks like they weren't involved.

Various other individuals and groups have been blamed for the destruction of the Great Library --the emperor Aurelian, the Arabs, Pope Theophilus of Alexandria -- but if Heather Philips is right, the library may never have been "destroyed" at all, only damaged over the years in various wars and riots before it went out of business due to budget cuts. That doesn't make for a good movie, however, so if that's what really happened, I doubt if the story will ever make it to the Big Screen.

Herculaneum: The Ancient Library Of Papyri

"For centuries scholars have been hunting for the lost works of ancient Greek and Latin literature. In the Renaissance, books were found in monastic libraries. In the late 19th Century papyrus scrolls were found in the sands of Egypt. But only in Herculaneum in southern Italy has an entire library from the ancient Mediterranean been discovered in situ." Source: BBC News (2013) Herculaneum was destroyed along with Pompeii during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD.

"In Herculaneum, Piso [Roman consul 58 BC and Julius Caesar's father-in-law] built a seaside villa on a palatial scale - the width of its beach frontage alone exceeds 220m (721ft). When it was excavated in the middle of the 18th Century, it was found to hold more than 80 bronze and marble statues of the highest quality, including one of Pan having sex with a goat."

Comment: Piso's library was an incredible find. It sounds like Caesar's father-in-law was really into Epicureanism, an advanced philosophy which combined an atomistic materialism with a rational hedonistic ethics that emphasized moderation  and the cultivation of friendships. The discovery of the Herculaneum papyri provides yet another example of the Greek influence on the Romans.

The video above is an excerpt from "Pompeii: Daily Life in an Ancient Roman City," an offering from The Great Courses. They offer all kinds of fantastic, professionally-produced courses on ancient and medieval history, along with many other subjects. Highly recommended if you can afford them.

Related: Battle for the Books of Herculaneum (2005).

Is The Real Mount Sinai In Saudi Arabia?

"'Yahweh came from Sinai' (Deuteronomy 33:2; Psalms 68:18). It is in Sinai that Moses first encounters Yahweh; it is back to Sinai that Moses leads Yahweh’s people from Egypt; and it is from Sinai that, two years later, on Yahweh’s order again, Moses sets off with them to conquer a piece of the Fertile Crescent.

"But where is Sinai, with its Mount Horeb [the mountain where God gave Moses the 10 commandments]? Exodus unequivocally places it in the land of Midian ...

"And where is Midian? Greek authors unanimously place it in northwestern Arabia, on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Aqaba [see map]. Even Paul the Apostle, who spent three years in Arabia, knew that 'Sinai is a mountain in Arabia' (Galatians 4:25). It was not before the 4^th century that the biblical Sinai was misplaced in the Egyptian peninsula, probably for geopolitical reasons (Egypt was within the control of the Roman Empire, unlike Arabia, under Persian influence). But placing the biblical Sinai west of the Gulf of Aqaba didn’t make any sense, since that region had always belonged to Egypt (archeology has confirmed it). Why would the Israelites have settled there when chased by the Egyptian army?" Source: "The Arabian Cradle of Zion," by French historian Laurent Guyenot, The Unz Review. Image from World Atlas.

Comment: Whether you agree with Laurent Guyenot in general, he's right about one thing, at least. The idea that the biblical Mount Sinai / Mount Horeb is located on the Sinai peninsula doesn't make any sense at all. If the Jews were fleeing Egypt, why would they settle on Egyptian territory? Assuming this is actual history we're talking about here -- a very big assumption -- they would have left Egypt altogether and crossing the Gulf of Aqaba into Arabia would have been a good way to put some distance between them and the pharaoh. If that's what actually happened -- if the real Mount Sinai is in Arabia and not on the Sinai peninsula -- it would overturn centuries of accepted religious doctrine:

"The biblical Mount Sinai is one of the most important sacred places in the Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions. The summit [in Egypt] has a mosque that is still used by Muslims, and a Greek Orthodox chapel, constructed in 1934 on the ruins of a 16th-century church, that is not open to the public. The chapel encloses the rock which is considered to be the source for the biblical Tablets of Stone. At the summit also is 'Moses' cave', where Moses was said to have waited to receive the Ten Commandments." (Wikipedia)

The supposed Mount Sinai in Egypt. Is this just a pile of rocks in the middle of the desert?

I'm not sure how many Christians, Jews and Muslims still accept the idea that Mount Sinai is in Egypt. Some Christians, at least, have come around to the belief that the mountain is in Saudi Arabia and the idea seems to be gaining in popularity.  The UNZ Review article quoted above points out the effect this is having on Middle Eastern politics:

"The growing popularization of the Arabian Sinai cannot be unrelated to the NEOM project announced in October 2017 by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman: a high-tech, ultra-connected, transnational mega city and economic zone, covering 10,230 square-miles (about the size of Massachusetts), which happens to correspond roughly to ancient Midian."

There's a lot that could be said about the Saudis, the NEOM project and the war in Yemen, among other things, but never mind all that. The UNZ Review article is as much about the current politics of the region as it is about the actual location of the mountain where YHWH gave Moses the ten commandments, but I'm just interested in the ancient history here. I'm not going to comment one way or another about the political stuff, but I will say that there is something deeply sinister about the NEOM project.

Getting back to where Mount Sinai is actually located, it would be interesting to know if the conventional wisdom has been wrong all these years, but I'm not sure how anybody could prove that this or that pile of granite in the desert is the biblical mountain. You would need an ancient map or some kind of non-biblical documentary evidence to do that and nothing of the sort has been discovered as far as I know. But even if the question could be settled conclusively, what difference would it make?

Scholarly interest aside, the importance of all this depends on whether you believe that the Old Testament stories are true. Call me a skeptic, but I don't believe that YHWH appeared on a mountaintop in the form of a burning bush and gave Moses a list of commandments. I don't believe that YHWH exists in the first place and Moses himself is probably a mythological character:

"The modern scholarly consensus is that the figure of Moses is a mythical figure, and while, as William G. Dever writes, 'a Moses-like figure may have existed somewhere in the southern Transjordan in the mid-late 13th century B.C.', archaeology cannot confirm his existence. Certainly no Egyptian sources mention Moses or the events of Exodus–Deuteronomy, nor has any archaeological evidence been discovered in Egypt or the Sinai wilderness to support the story in which he is the central figure." (Wikipedia)

The Exodus itself, the founding myth of the Israelites, probably never happened as well:

"The consensus of modern scholars is that the Bible does not give an accurate account of the origins of Israel, which formed as an entity in the southern Transjordan region by the 13th century BCE from the indigenous Canaanite culture. There is no evidence that the Israelites were ever enslaved in ancient Egypt or even lived there and scholars broadly agree that the Exodus has no historical basis. There is a widespread agreement that the composition of the Torah or Pentateuch, the biblical books which contain the Exodus narrative, took place in the Middle Persian Period (5th century BCE), although the traditions behind it are older and can be found in the writings of the 8th-century BCE prophets." (Wikipedia)

In light of all this, the question of where Mount Sinai was located seems pretty much irrelevant.

Two "Warrior Women" From Ancient Mongolia May Have Helped Inspire The Ballad Of Mulan

"Archaeologists in Mongolia have found the remains of two ancient women warriors [? - see below], whose skeletal remains indicate that they were well practiced in archery and horseback riding." Source: Live Science.

"These two women lived during the Xianbei period (A.D. 147 to 552), a period of political fragmentation and unrest that gave rise to the Ballad of Mulan, the researchers said."

This is an interesting (though highly speculative) study despite the typical woke BS about "gender equality" and "bad-ass" women fighters, etc. that always seems to creep into stories like this.

Hua Mulan is a completely legendary / fictional figure, but it's possible that she was partly inspired by real-life female warriors of the time. Unfortunately for this theory, the researchers themselves admit that there's no hard evidence that these "ancient women warriors" were actually warriors:

"Of the two warrior women, one was older than 50 and the other was about 20 years old. It's possible they practiced archery and rode horses because these skills were needed during the political instability that following the collapse of the Han Dynasty in China in A.D. 220 ...

"Neither woman had signs of war trauma. This could be because both women were found in elite graves, and elite people may not have fought in battles ..."

Typically, that caveat is buried in the last paragraph of the article.

Parchment In The Ancient World

"Books existed in Egypt long before they came into use in Greece," according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised). "Systems of writing had been invented and developed for administrative purposes in both Egypt and Mesopotamia by c. 3000 BC."

Vellum is a type of parchment made from animal skins. From what I can tell, the widespread use of parchment was a relatively late development. Most early books were written on papyrus. According to the OCD, "parchment played only a minor role compared with papyrus, which remained the dominant writing material throughout Greek and Roman antiquity," but "leather was also used in Egypt to produce rolls for literary texts." According to Herodotus, "the Ionians also used leather rolls at a time when papyrus was scarce."

Note: If, like me, you can't understand half of what this girl is saying, closed captions are available.

Vellum was considered to be the "best quality of prepared animal skin," according to Wikipedia, so it was generally reserved for important literary works, religious texts, and the like. At the Library of Alexandria, papyrus rolls were sometimes kept "in a vellum cover with a colored label," according to the OCD, and "parchment codices had come into use for classical literature by the 1st cent. AD." Papyrus and parchment sheets were sometimes mixed together, perhaps to save money. 

Parchment gradually replaced papyrus as the centuries went by. "For codices, the advantages of parchment over papyrus are obvious: less fragile folds, greater durability, greater capacity, and they are easier to use. Constantine ordered 50 parchment copies of the Scriptures for the churches in Constantinople, and Jerome records that the papyrus manuscripts in the library of Caesarea, having become worn by use, were replaced by parchment codices." (OCD)

For important books, at least, it sounds like parchment replaced papyrus in the same way that DVDs replaced videocassettes. This is a classic example of technological innovation in the ancient world.

The Manufacture & Use Of Papyrus In Egypt

"Papyrus was first manufactured in Egypt as far back as the fourth millennium BCE. The earliest archaeological evidence of papyrus was excavated in 2012 and 2013 at Wadi al-Jarf, an ancient Egyptian harbor located on the Red Sea coast. These documents date from c. 2560–2550 BCE (end of the reign of Khufu). The papyrus rolls describe the last years of building the Great Pyramid of Giza. In the first centuries BCE and CE, papyrus scrolls gained a rival as a writing surface in the form of parchment, which was prepared from animal skins." Source: Wikipedia.

"Papyrus could be used in the manufacture of a variety of objects. Skiffs made by binding the long stalks together were used from the Predynastic era on for local transport and hunting," according to the Metropolitan Museum. "...Perhaps the most important use for the papyrus plant was as a writing surface, created from strips of the pith found inside the stalk laid down in layers and dried under pressure. This was formed into rolls that could be left intact or cut into sheets; later, codices were also used. Thanks to the preservative qualities afforded by the dry climate of Egypt’s deserts, the remains of many documents on papyrus have been recovered from the Egyptian sands."

The Turin Erotic Papyrus.

The Acta Diurna & Acta Senatus

"For practical purposes, the history of written journalism can be said to have begun in Rome, with two remarkable productions - the 'acta senatus,' transactions of the senate, and the 'acta diurna,' a daily summary of current events, including law reports and human interest stories. These were handwritten news-sheets, published daily (over a period of nearly 300 years) by being posted up in public places. Copies of them, which could be bought from scribes, were widely read both in Rome itself and throughout the Roman empire." Source: New York Times (1988). (Article now behind a paywall, unfortunately).

The Acta weren't originally written by hand. According to Ancient Origins, "the Acta Diurna is said to have first appeared around 131/130 BC during the Roman Republic. At this point of time, the Acta Diurna , which were known also as the Acta Popidi or Acta Publica , was carved on stone or metal ... By the time of the 1st century BC, the Acta Diurna ... was handwritten, most likely on sheets of papyri."

The Acta Diurna was originally a kind of government gazette. Posted in public places like the forum, markets, baths, etc., it just covered things like trial results, new laws and so on, but "as time went by, the range of topics reported by the Acta Diurna increased as well. The contents of the Roman notices began to include public announcements, such as military victories, and the price of grain. Apart from these, the Acta Diurna also included other pieces of noteworthy information, such as notable births, marriages, and deaths, as well as news about gladiatorial combats and other games that were being held in the city. The Acta Diurna even included a gossip column, which often contained the latest amorous adventures of Rome’s rich and famous." (Ancient Origins)

The Acta Diurna sounds like a combination of newspaper and gossip rag with its own sports, finance and society sections, and the Roman government probably used it to spread official propaganda as well. This wasn't like a modern newspaper, though. Its contents must have been condensed to fit onto one sheet (probably a large one) of papyrus, but we don't really know what this ancient "newsletter" looked like. I'm not sure if any of the early stone or metal publications have been discovered, but the less durable papyrus versions apparently rotted away long ago. According to Wikipedia, "there are no genuine fragments extant," so I guess we only know about them because they were mentioned by various Roman writers in other works. What a loss. Think about what a complete or even just a partial set of the Acta Diurna would tell us about Roman culture.

The Acta senatus "contained an account of the various matters brought before the senate, the opinions of the chief speakers, and the decisions of the house," (Lacus Curtius). They contained the "minutes of the discussions and decisions of the Roman senate," according to the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. These records had a restricted audience until Julius Caesar introduced a form of early government transparency which didn't outlive him:

"Before the first consulship of Julius Caesar (59 B.C.), minutes of the proceedings of the senate were written and occasionally published, but unofficially; Caesar, desiring to tear away the veil of mystery which gave an unreal importance to the senate’s deliberations, first ordered them to be recorded and issued authoritatively. The keeping of them was continued by Augustus, but their publication was forbidden (Suetonius, Augustus, 36). A young senator (ab actis senatus) was chosen to draw up these Acta, which were kept in the imperial archives and public libraries (Tacitus, Ann. v. 4). Special permission from the city praefect was necessary in order to examine them." (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911)

Note: Caesar's decision to publish the Acta Senatus is an interesting example of Roman politics in action. Caesar was a popularis, a "supporter of the people" against the optimates or leading aristocrats who had once been the dominant force in the senate. By making the Acta public, Caesar was apparently trying to undermine the atmosphere of mystery and sanctity that surrounded the senate's proceedings, thus undermining its authority to a certain extent by exposing it to public scrutiny. Caesar was hardly what we would call a populist, though. Like the other members of the senate he was a patrician and I really doubt if he had anything but scorn for what we would call democratic principles. That's my theory, anyway.

When the Acta Senatus was made public under Caesar, it must have been severely condensed. As a practical matter it's hard to believe that the senate's proceedings (the full text of speeches, debates, etc) were ever released in their entirety. This would have been incredibly difficult to do in a handwritten gazette, not to mention expensive. A concise summary of new laws and senatorial decisions was probably announced, but the sources don't go into much detail about how much information was given to the plebs.

It's also hard to tell how much information was actually preserved in the first place. Were the senate's proceedings recorded in transcript form like proceedings in modern courts? It seems doubtful. Was the Acta Senatus distributed separately under Caesar or did the government just include selections in the Acta Diurna? And how widely were these news-sheets distributed? The sources I've found are kind of sketchy and confusing.

According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised), "[t]he Acta diurna were a gazette, whose publication dates before 59 BC ... from the late republic onwards it recorded not only official events and ceremonies, but lawsuits and public speeches, and was read both in Rome and in the provinces ... the Acta senatus constituted the official records of the proceedings of the senate, first published in 59 BC." According to the OCD, "the proceedings [Acta senatus] were available to senators but Augustus forbade their wider publication." [Emphasis added]

Augustus reversed Caesar's decision to make the senatorial records public, so this early experiment in government transparency -- if you can call it that -- didn't last very long. I find it hard to believe that the full records ever had a wide distribution, though. For all practical purposes, they were internal government documents, a kind of classified archive available only to senators. The historian Tacitus "used, or depended upon, authorities who used both the Acta senatus and the Acta diurna," according to the OCD, but Tacitus was a senator himself, a member of the ruling class. I'd be amazed if the plebs on the street ever saw anything but announcements of new laws passed by their masters and a summary of decisions made by the courts.

According to Lacus Curtius, the senatorial proceedings were actually recorded by "various clerks (actuarii, servi publici, scribae, censuales), who were present in the senate to take notes of its proceedings, and who were only excluded when the senate passed a senatusconsultum tacitum, that is, when they deliberated on a subject of the greatest importance, respecting which secrecy was necessary or advisable." These notes were then compiled by a "distinguished senator" -- the ab actis senatus -- who was selected by the emperor himself. It would be interesting to know if these clerks actually recorded the full texts of speeches. If so, I feel sorry for them. It would have been torture to record Cicero's incredibly long-winded and tedious speeches, for instance, but I suppose he just provided them with a copy of the written text. 

Recording the Acta Senatus sounds like it was a complicated business, but producing the Acta diurna -- the daily gazette for the masses -- must have been an even more demanding operation requiring a fair number of scribes to make all the required copies every day as well as "reporters" to gather the information and a manager to run the whole operation. I'm just speculating about all of this, but the mechanics involved in the publication of the Acta diurna offers a glimpse into an obscure corner of Roman society. This is pure fantasy, but I like to imagine a Roman version of Carl Kolchak digging up material for the Acta diurna and uncovering all sorts of monsters and juicy sex scandals.

Another question that comes to mind is "how many Romans could actually read the Acta diurna which was posted up in public places? The whole issue of literacy in the Roman world is a bottomless pit, but common sense would dictate that a reasonable number of ordinary Romans must've been able to read or the Acta diurna would never have been circulated in the first place. I wonder how many of them bothered to read it, though, and if they did how much of it did they actually believe? These days, the public's trust in the media is almost as low as their trust in congress, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Roman public felt the same way about the Acta Diurna and the senate. Like today, the sports news and sex gossip were probably the main attraction.