Before the Internet in the Ancient World
“Hellenistic culture was of necessity a culture
of the book . . . : the age of the reader had
arrived, and a poet was often a man speaking
to a man, not to men.”
~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 13
……………
The audience grew smaller in the room.
Where once were men, now only just one man
Unrolled a book in sunlight. In a gloom
Of loneliness, a candle held the span
Of the largest minds and universes. Pen,
Papyrus and some ink set forth a mind
In the afternoons and nights. Now thinking men
Could sit in peristyles alone and find
The cosmos of the poets, ink distilled
Philosophy and ivory knowledge peeled,
A torch-lit space with soul-like letters filled
With treasures that the reader now unsealed.
A man from distant pasts or distant lands
Spoke silently. He spoke in new-found hands.