Di Renzo (GriffinGate)
Di Renzo, Anthony. "His Master's Voice: Tiro and the Rise of the Roman Secretarial Class." Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 30.2 (2000) 155-168.
Read the full article via GriffinGate (under "Handouts").
As you read this article, note the stakeholders -- who benefits from the new writing technology that Tiro devises? Who stands to lose? This story takes place long after the Roman Empire was well on the path towards a manuscript culture, but we still see the interplay between Cicero's reputation as an orator, and his servant's skill as a writer (which, historians tell us, was largely responsible for Cicero's reputation, just as Socrates' reputation largely comes to us thanks to the fact that his student Plato used Socrates as a character in his written dialogs.)
Read the full article via GriffinGate (under "Handouts").
Abstract: The foundation for Rome's imperial bureaucracy was laid during the first century B.C., when functional and administrative writing played an increasingly dominant role in the Late Republic. During the First and Second Triumvirates, Roman society, once primarily oral, relied more and more on documentation to get its official business done. By the reign of Augustus, the orator had ceded power to the secretary, usually a slave trained as a scribe or librarian. This cultural and political transformation can be traced in the career of Marcus Tullius Tiro (94 B.C. to 4 A.D.), Cicero's confidant and amanuensis. A freedman credited with the invention of Latin shorthand (the notae Tironianae), Tiro transcribed and edited Cicero's speeches, composed, collected, and eventually published his voluminous correspondence, and organized and managed his archives and library. As his former master s fortune sank with the dying Republic, Tiro's began to rise. After Cicero's assassination, he became the orator's literary executor and biographer. His talents were always in demand under the new bureaucratic regime, and he prospered by producing popular grammars and secretarial manuals. He died a wealthy centenarian and a full Roman citizen.The phrase "His Master's Voice" would be well-known to the boomer generation as the slogan for RCA Victor records. It was part of a long-running advertising campaign that was at the time as iconic as the dancing iPod silhouettes. See ("Nipper Hears 'His Master's Voice'").
As you read this article, note the stakeholders -- who benefits from the new writing technology that Tiro devises? Who stands to lose? This story takes place long after the Roman Empire was well on the path towards a manuscript culture, but we still see the interplay between Cicero's reputation as an orator, and his servant's skill as a writer (which, historians tell us, was largely responsible for Cicero's reputation, just as Socrates' reputation largely comes to us thanks to the fact that his student Plato used Socrates as a character in his written dialogs.)
The pen is said to allow thoughts to "flow" to your hand. Read this and let it flow to your brain.
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/TiffanyGilbert/2010/02/can-the-progression-of-writing.html
Ancient Romans, Illiteracy, and the Internet--What could these three words have in common? Read this and find out.
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/EricaGearhart/2010/02/romans_iliteracy_and_the_inter.html
Has shorthand evolved from it's humble beginnings in Ancient Rome? Maybe, maybe not.
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MadelynGillespie/2010/02/scribbling_furiously_for_maste.html
We've come a long way since the days of Cicero and Tiro, but more importantly, should Shorthand be revived? And how was shorthand a precursor for modern technology?
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JessicaKrehlik/2010/02/revive_shorthand.html
I just thought abbreviations were a 21st century kind of thing.
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MeganSeigh/2010/02/the_written_word_was_only.html