Reading Against the Grain

Abstract

Abstract This chapter collects evidence for the forging of valuable books in Ancient Rome, and argues for the distinctiveness of forged books as a separate category from forged art objects or forged texts. It begins by examining the culture of antiquarianism and book collecting among educated elites in the second century ce, as described by Aulus Gellius. The chapter then turns to other accounts from the Roman imperial period of the notorious forgers’ techniques of artificial aging and weathering. It suggests that these techniques were developed in the households and libraries of Roman elites by enslaved and formerly enslaved book workers, and argues for understanding Roman book forgery as an acute locus of class conflict between Rome’s enslaving class and its enslaved class. The chapter concludes by returning to oblique accounts in Gellius of possibly forged books, suggesting that although he and his peers willfully lacked the technical book knowledge needed to detect forgers, he was alive to the possibility of book forgery and its literary implications.