In the introduction we attempted to define popular culture, to determine what qualities and characteristics of which it is composed. We ran into considerable trouble. Everyone has a vague notion, if not a determined opinion, of what modern popular culture is. But when approaching history with these definitions of popular culture, based more or less on modern-day conceptions and examples, we run into further difficulties. Modern popular culture is classified as "popular" according to a number of variables: sales records, best-seller lists, awards, written testimonies, and cultural satauration (that is, how frequently the particular artefact appears in places where it is not expected to. Star Wars is a good example. There is, first of all, the film, whose popularity we can determine through ticket sales. Following that there are the numerous articles written in magazines, newspapers, and trade papers. Then there is the enormous marketing: toys, clothes, books, candy and so on, which is a type of controlled, or guided popularity which indirectly reflects the popularity of the film itself.). All of these means of determining the popularity of something are dependant on written records (of which our hyper-literate society keeps copious amounts, and is somewhat overdependent upon). How then do we begin to determine what areas or artefacts of culture are "popular" in societies that are not only far removed in time, but also lacking, for the most part, the kind of evidence needed?

The alphabet was introduced to the ancient Greeks in the eighth century BC, but the oral tradition that had existed up to that point continued beyond not only the introduction of reading and writing, but through the Hellenistic age, through the time of the Roman Empire, and well into the middle ages. The history of orality is far longer than that of literacy, and much to our modern surprise, oral culture was preferred over literate culture. While classical Greece (5th - 4th centuries BC) had a substantial body of written material, government documents, inscriptions, and even some archives, the spoken word still had precedence. Literature was intended for an aural audience, to be declaimed or sung. Poetry was accompanied to music and sung before an audience. Herodotus (485-425BC), known as the father of history, wrote a substantial piece of narrative history called Histories, but rather than have copies made to be distributed, he read aloud to audiences. Politics were conducted orally, evidenced in that the closest Greek word to 'politician' was 'orator' (rhetor). In legal affairs written testimonies were considered inadequate evidence, though oral testimonies were taken as proof on their own until the later half of the fourth century BC. Reading and writing were part of primary education, but emphasis in higher education was given to rhetoric - the art of public speaking. Socrates (469-399BC), who was later executed for his public protestations of government figures, wrote nothing down, and we know of his work only through what his students wrote out. Plato (428-348BC), a student of Socrates, considered the written word "an inadequate means of true education and philosophy", and although he did write, he wrote in dialogue form. It was the wealthy landowners who attended higher education, who were expected to participate in politics, and therefore were expected be proficient in public speaking. That orality was preferred over literacy is underscored by the fact that, from the 3rd century BC, it was slaves who were employed in copying books and making records. It is also known that slaves often were expected to read aloud to their masters. The dirty work was given to the lowest in society.

Presumably the reason that the mode of communication so highly valued today was not immediately accepted into all levels of society was that there was no real need. Orality had and would continue to serve the ancient Greeks just fine. Studies of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, written copies of which date from about the eighth century BC, quite close to the presumed date for the introduction of writing, show that the versions we are familiar with may be the final written culmination of a long tradition of oral performance. There appears to be, in the repitition of a number of phrases, phrase constructions, and occassionally entire verses, a set template that made memorization of the very long epics (several hundred modern-day pages) much easier. The formula was memorized, and passed on through the generations of singing bards, each performer improvising new words and phrases to fit into the pre-set template. It is possible, though still hotly debated, that the celebrated Homer was simply the first in a long line of poet performers to write, or have written, the poems out on papyrus. These studies are important because it helps us to understand how oral culture can be passed on through the generations. The transfer of history, religion, legends, and values were comunicated through memorized verse and song. The spoken word was lively, interactive communication, the written word was dead, immobile.

Literacy rates for any time period before the industrial age (when records were kept somewhat more regularly than previously) are notoriuosly difficult to determine. Often the factor used to determine the rate is the ability to sign one's name. This, of course, is problematic because the ability of someone to memorize a certain configuration of shapes and repeat them does not necessarily indicate that they are able to read or write anything else. There are also numerous levels of literacy: rudimentary to advanced. Furthermore, the ability to read does not necessitate the ability to write. Obviously, however, because of amount of written literature, government records, and other written material, a certain percentage of the ancient population was literate. As we have seen, slaves were taught to read and write, and there is ample graffiti scrawled across the walls of ancient greek ruins, though they are rife with spelling and grammatical errors.

But even those who were literate do not seem to have been particularly inclined to read. We know that written copies of Greek literature such as the Iliad, were used in schools. The Iliad is an epic poem consisiting of 24 books, or chapters so to speak. Conventionally, each book was copied onto one papyrus roll, so the complete Iliad would consist of 24 papyrus rolls. Of the copies of epic surviving today, there are two times as many fragments of books 1 and 2 as there are of books 3 and 4, and the number of fragments for the rest of the books of the epic steadily diminish thereafter. There are six times more fragments of book 1 than book 24. According to Susan A. Stephens in "Who Read Ancient Novels?", the surviving fragments indicate that following the completion of one's education, which included the reading and perhaps memorization of the first two books of the Iliad, there was no desire to purchase, or have made for themselves, the remaining books of the epic. It was not that Homer's poems were not popular, quite the contrary. They were the source of inspiration for many other poets, who borrowed constructions, even entire verses for their own work. And we know that Homeric bards continued to perform the epics for several centuries after the initial written copy. Additionally, some 600 fragments of individual manuscripts of the Iliad have been discovered in the Egyptian desert alone - a far greater number than fragments of other manuscript found there. Presumably there was no need to read the remaining books because they were readily available through performances, and alluded to in speeches and histories.

More information about Homer's works

The Homeric epics represent only a small portion of all the genres of poetry, not to mention other genres of literature. Poetry is particularly interesting for the discussion of popular culture, however. Unlike modern poets, who usually create "art for art's sake", much ancient poetry had more practical goals. All types of poetry were initially accompanied by music, and each genre was marked by a particular meter formula. Epic poetry, composed in hexameter verse, was used to tell heroic legends of men or gods, such as the tale of the Trojan War in the Iliad. Lyric poetry consisted of two different types of songs: solo and choral, and of these there were many subtypes with varying meters that were composed and performed for particular functions. Lyric subtypes included drinking songs (scolia), wedding songs (hymenaios and epithalamion), hymns that celebrated a worthy person, like a winning athelete (encomium), and songs to particular gods, like Dionysus or Apollo (dithyramb and paean). The Dionysus poems in particular, an example of choral lyric, were perfomed at Dionysus festivals in large competitions that took place in the amphitheatres. Eventually this type of choral lyric evolved into the Chorus (a group of singers who more or less narrated in between dialogue) of ancient Greek tradegies. Elegiac poetry in alternate hexameter and pentameter verse was used for more personal topics: love, laments, and poems to commemorate the dead. Finally iambic and bucolic poetry were for political satire and praise of labourers and herdsmen respectively. This list of poetry types is not meant to be extensive yet it is still clear that poetry was essential in many aspects of Greek culture, being used for entertainment, as well as the perpetuation and reaffirmation of cultural beliefs and values. These are goals in common with much popular culture today. Certainly a mode of communication so pervasive through society would have specialized forms that we might classify as high culture, or as folk culture, but in speaking of poetry in general a good case could be made for its inclusion in a popular culture study.

While the popular aspect of ancient greek literature has been largely overlooked, there is one genre which has received some attention: the ancient romance. The Greeks did not begin writing romance novels (romances, that is, adventurous love stories, were the only type of novels the ancient Greeks wrote as far as we know) until quite late, between the first century BC and the sixth century AD, its peak coming in the second century AD. Of these six centuries of writing only five complete novels and individual manuscript fragments of up to 42 others exist, nonetheless, the novels are believed by a number of scholars to have been a popular genre of literature, an ancient pulp fiction if you will. The reasons behind the belief that the romances were popular reveal the sometimes negative sentiments that are associated with popular culture in general, and susequently the problems that arise from these sentiments. There are basically two reasons given for assuming a popular audience for these novels: they were inferior pieces of literature, and there was no ancient Greek word for the genre - where the novels were referred to at all, they were summarily dismissed. Therefore inferior culture equals popular culture, and the educated ancient Greeks must have had the same disdain for popular culture that modern elitists do. The problems with this should be immediately obvious. The novels may well have been popular, but modern ideas of inferiority are insufficient evidence to base this assumption on.

The five extant novels, and from what can be discerned of the fragments of others, seem to follow a formulaic plot. The plot for all of them, with considerable individual variation in details, consists of two incredibly beautiful young people who fall passionately in love, but are separated before they are either able to marry or to consummate their marriage; the separation then begins a series of exciting and dangerous adventures all over the Mediterranean world, spiced with kidnappings, pirates, thieves, unsolicited attacks on their fidelity, and rumours about the other lover's death, but invariably, the stories all end happily with the couple reunited. They often include a bit of debauchery, some bawdy language, and freakish animals. Likewise, most of the novels are set at some time in the distant past, and are usually based on a local legends, or actual historical figures. The repitition of the same type of storyline has lead some to conclude that it must have been a successful format initially and this success explains its continuation for the next couple of centuries. But it is unknown what the authors intentions were when they wrote a romance. There is much discussion on how exactly the Greeks viewed the continuum of truth and fiction, as it appears that their historical writing contains much that is creative, while the novels are based on real historical figures, though not necessarily facts. What is more, no one is quite sure why the ancient novel came into being in the first place, nor whether it evolved out of another genre entirely; there are characteristics (if not entire word for word quotations from) other genres and well known ancient literature. In short the writers may not have been aware that they were creating a new genre of literature, especially as there was no new word for what they were doing.

Formula is a key component in much popular culture, and I would hazard the assumption that writers, of books, radio shows, television programs, and films, are aware when they are using formula, and use consciously. In order to fulfill their contract with their audience they have to follow the conventions of the established genre (or subvert them as in Clint Eastwood's deconstructed Western film Unforgiven (1992)). In the case of the ancient Greek romances the fact that they were formulaic was more of a coincidence, rather than the author's intent. This said, the fact that they were formulaic is usually a reason to consider them as inferior pieces of literature, along with their sentimental mood, their emphasis on emotion over reason, their often two-dimensional characters, and their frequently contrived plots.

A quick summary of the first few chapters of Callirhoe, the earliest of the five complete novels, written by a Chariton of Aphrodisias possibily in the first century AD, will illustrate the descriptions given above well. The novel starts with the heroine and hero, Callirhoe and Chaereas, both renowned throughout Sicily for their beauty, falling, instantaneously, passionately in love after, literally, bumping into one another on the street. While the heroine, Callirhoe remains respectably mute about her burning infatuation, Chaereas, the hero, falls ill, and drops out of his regular activities. He is so well-loved and missed by his fellow citizens (because he is a two-dimensional character) that they convince their ruler, who is also Callirhoe's father, that a marriage between the two must take place to save this fine specimen of a man. Of course, Callirhoe's beauty, likened throughout the novel to the goddess Aphrodite, had brought powerful suitors from many miles around, all of whom were greatly hard-done by this impromtu wedding. They contrive to ruin the marriage by making Chaereas jealous, and succeed. In a fit of uncharacteristic rage, Chaereas violently kicks Callirhoe, who falls dead to the ground. Or so it would appear. She has stopped breathing, is presumed dead, so her family goes through with all the funeral preparations, and finally seals her in the family crypt. Some hours later, after it is night and all the mourners departed, Callirhoe suddenly begins breathing again, "when lack of food had led to some loosening of her blocked respiration" (a perfect example of outright plot manipulation). Here the adventures begin in earnest. Tomb robbers save her from slow starvation, but take her and her funeral treasures to sell for a great price somewhere across the Mediterranean. Despite her arresting beauty, the thieves do not lay a hand on her and she is sold to a Dionysus, another well-loved ruler, who falls in love with her at first glimpse, even though his wife has just died, whom he had loved so dearly that he wished for death as well. After he falls in love with Callirhoe, he tries to starve himself to death because she will not at first have him. She changes her mind when she discovers that she is pregnant (not only did not suffer any brain damage due to hours without oxygen, but she also managed to not miscarry after being kicked in the stomach), and decides to marry him to give her child a name. The story continues through the marriage, pirates, searching, and public trials until eventually Callirhoe and Chaereas are reunited, destined to live happily ever after.

The summary makes clear the plot manipulation, the two-dimensional characters, and the emphasis on emotion rather than reason. While these are often the characteristics of bad literature today,and while these characteristics may make it difficult for some modern readers to enjoy the ancient Greek romances as pieces of good literature, it does not mean that the same critetria were used in ancient Greece. The ancient novels and their development has often been compared to the rise of the novel in the eighteenth century, a dangerous comparison to make for we know how well the genre of novels has turned out. It is also a dangerous comparison because the eighteenth century and ancient Greece under Roman rule were two completely different times with widely divergent cultures from one another.

Despite what we now consider to be faults, the novels in context may have, in fact, answered to a number of the needs of Greek society. It has been argued that the plot manipulation so evident in the novels mirrored the Greek belief that human life was manipulated by the gods. Indeed, throughout Callirhoe, it is frequently explained that Eros, or Fortune, or Aphrodite were making plans for, and taking action on the two heroes, as well as most of the other characters. The prevailing feeling of helplessness has been read as an indirect indication of how the once mighty Greeks were feeling under Roman rule. Further allusions to the empire have been interpreted out of the apparent emphasis in the novels on travelling, foreign places, and strange creatures and people in that the vast empire for the first time brought a large, diverse area with numerous cultures under one rule, thereby increasing mutual awareness and curiosity. That the novels answered to the present needs of the ancient Greeks could be used as a justification for their popularity, but does not prove that they were.

But it is the supposed inferiority of the novels on which the decision of a popular audience hangs. This attitude harkens back to the beginning of our introduction, where we met the Leavises, who had no tolerance for any culture that was popular because they believed it lowered cultural standards. Interestingly, from the opinion that all popular culture is inferior culture has come the reverse judgement: that any cultural artefact of questionable quality must needs be popular culture. This has been exactly the case with the Greek romances. That the audience for the romances was a popular one has been supported with the lack of contemporary literary discussion of the novels, as well as the fact that there was no ancient Greek equivalent to describe the genre. At first thought, a lack of contemporary discussion would lead one to believe that not only were the novels not popular but they had rarely even been heard of. However, the few known instances where the romances are referred to are actually quite negative, which leads one to believe that they were well enough known about that at least one or two people felt the need to express their dislike.

For example, the sophist Philostratus, who lived in Rome around 200 AD, wrote an open, epigrammic letter to the then dead Chariton.

"To Chariton. Do you really suppose that the Greeks are going to remember your stories when you are gone? Those who are nobodies when they are living, what will they be when they are dead?"

If Chariton truly had been a nobody, then Philostratus would have had no need to point it out. Apparently, Philostratus was something of a jealous individual, because he wrote similar chiding letters to a certain Epictetus. The second century sophists, in a revival of Greek rhetorical practices in the Roman Empire, were in the habit of writing letters to dead philosophers, writers, poets, but presumably they were not in the habit of wasting their time on complete unknowns. The concluding line in Persius' first satire, which reads His mane edictum, post prandia Callirhoen do, and refers to the heroine of Callirhoe by Chariton, is a contemporary negative reaction. Also one Macrobius mentions the novels of Petronius and Apuleius, and he states that they belong in the nursery (nutricum cunae), and that they are examples of argumenta fictis casibus amatorum referta, or 'narratives replete with imaginary doings of lovers', or mere ear flattery. Finally, a fifth century AD physician, Theodorus Priscianus, was known to recommend the work of one of the romance writers, Iamblichus, to men with sexual problems, but beyond that seemed to have no opinion of the work or genre. There are perhaps three or four other instances where the novels are referred to, but generally the comments are opinionless and their reference serves some other pupose.

It is possible, though just as difficult to tell with only three negative references, that the novels were considered inferior literature by intellectuals in their own time. But even a contemporary opinion of inferiority does not equate popularity. Notice that there are no references, found thus far, that refer to the audience of the novels, or how well known they were, except perhaps very indirectly in Philostratus' letter. It is more reasonable to suggest therefore, that the absence of an ancient Greek term for the genre (no word for novel, and no word for romance) and the lack of contemporary discussion is an indication to the newness of the genre, and the fact that there were not enough examples of the genre at any one time to form opinions on.

That the novels were considered popular was not through direct evidence as it should have been, rather it came through an association with modern popular culture. B. E. Perry says just as much in "The Ancient Romances" (1967):

 "...for there is nothing else in ancient literature so much like our present-day movies with their glamorous heroines and heroes, the rapid succession of breathtaking adventures, nearly always ending happily ever after with a wedding, and their highly conventionalized morals, gestures, and techniques, as these Greek romances. "

This would be an interesting and perfectly acceptable comparison (albeit anachronistic) if it first could be demonstrated that the novels had in fact been popular. From more recent studies of ancient literacy, papyrus finds, and the content of the texts themselves the notion of the ancient romances' popularity has begun to be refuted in ernest. "Popular" is most often associated with the non-upper class, that is, the non-aristocrats, the uneducated, and the unwealthy. That the novels were enjoyed primarily by this group has been justified with a downward spread of literacy at this time, as well as a developing bourgeois class, who were able to purchase or have made for them copies of the novels. These statements, however, are still being hotly contested because of the immense difficulty in determining literacy rates, discerning what type of education might have been available to the non-upper class, and whether members of the developing bourgeois class who were able to read constituted a substantial enough group to be termed a popular audience.

We have already learned that not only the elite educated class were able to read and write, and it has been shown that literacy did increase, if only slightly, in the first three centuries AD. From graffiti studies it is also known that the lower classes were somewhat familiar with classic literature, such as Ovid, Propertius, and Lucretius, because they were often quoted, though not always accurately (though this is not so surprising given, once again, the oral nature of the culture. In the second century AD, during the so called Second Sophistic, it was more than common for rhetors, or sophists, to stand before large public audiences and hold a debate, or declaim on a particular topic, making all their training quite familiar to those who attended with some regularity). Thus it is possible that if the lower classes had been so inclined they might have read the romances. The romances may have been more complicated than first thought however. First of all, the romances are much longer than most other ancient Greek literature, taking up several rolls of papyrus, and, because written words were intended generally to read aloud, there were no breaks between the words on the page, nor was there any punctuation. So while the plot and characters may have been simplistic, the actual mechanics of reading the texts may have been quite difficult. Secondly, in an effort to redeem the literary value of the novels from inferiority, closer evaluation of the texts has shown that the authors made use of a range of literary traditions including epic, drama, rhetoric, myth and even medical books, and were therefore full of allusions that some argue, may have made it difficult for the average reader to understand. Furthermore, and more importantly, it indicates that the authors were well-educated and aimed their novels at an equally well-educated audience.

In the first few centuries AD, Egypt maintained a monopoly on papyrus, both in its production as well as its trade, therefore paper was quite an expensive material in Greece. Through much of antiquity, a papyrus roll could cost up to five or six days wages for a labourer. And again, even those who were able to afford them, may not have had any interest in purchasing books, whether they were romances, poetry or history. The number of surviving copies also points to this conclusion. Of Chariton's Callirhoe, the earliest of the five extant novels, there have been four copies found thus far, of Achilles Tatius, another of the five extant novelists, there are six, but there are more than 600 copies of the Iliad. Of course it must be remembered that Homer was first written down in the eighth century BC, so the six hundred copies are the result 1400 years of book copying, yet the four copies of Chariton are the end result of six centuries of copying. It appears from the copies surviving that the Christians, a minority for the few hundred years after Christ, constituted a larger group than those the audience for the novels, for there are 12 copies of the book of Genesis, as well as 12 copies of the Gospel of John (2-4 only) from the same time period (1st century AD to the sixth).

But, again, ancient Greek culture was predominantly oral. While it is known that other pieces of literature were performed on a regular basis, by the authors themselves or actors, there is no known evidence that tells of public readings of the novels. There is mention, however, of some of the novels' main characters being mimed or danced by performers, and there is also a floor mosaic at the Orontes (circa 200 AD) in Antioch which show scenes from two of the romances. But these two instances do not a popular audience make. The romances may well have been popular because they were performed often, but there is no evidence so far that this was the case either.

In their defense, most of the scholars who have studied the ancient romances and who assume that the novels were popular, were not actually studying their popularity. Perry, for instance, was studying the potential origins of the ancient novel genre. But the assumption of a popular audience has lead to other premature, if not erroneous, conclusions. If a popular audience is assumed then the next step is to discover who that audience was, and because the few ancient intellectuals who mentioned the novels had negative opinions, and based on the supposed inferiority of the novels themselves, it has been assumed that the audience for the ancient novels consisted of, variously, women, adolescents, "the poor in spirit" , and people who were "rootless, at a loss, restlessly searching" , as well as the newly literate, and the rising bourgeois class. The first two were assumed on the basis of the main characters in the novels: there is a considerable focus on the heroines, and the protagonists are usually young. The second two descriptions were presumably concluded from the mood of the romances and who that mood might appeal to. And the last last two audience types were arrived at from the attempt to justify a non-intellectual audience (as the intellectuals of ancient Greek society traditionally came from the upper class, where both education and money are expected). Identical difficulties arise in determining the quality of the audience as there did with assuming a popular audience.

The assumption of a female audience is almost offensive, especially when we consider that these assumptions were made by the same people who were assuming a popular audience based on the inferiority of the novels. That the romances' popular audience was made up of women, is an opinion that has likely been around since the nineteenth century, spawned by the all too common association of women with sentimental and emotional things, which is exactly how the novels were described. The opinion was carried on into this century by not only that association (which continues in the minds of some even today) but also with the association of the audience for the modern romance: primarily women. Clearly this assumption says less about women in antiquity than it does about nineteenth and twentieth century thought. And when the hypothesis of a popular female audience is tested for the ancient romances, it is left with wobbly legs on which to stand. We know that there were some women who possessed a higher education, which was based on a knowledge of literature rather than rhetoric, but these women were more often the exception than the rule, and could hardly have constituted a popular, ie. large, reading audience. True, the heroines in the romances are often strong characters, with which women may wished to have identified, but it has also been argued that these female characters were a male construct, based on the author's perceptions, or fantasies about women. Most recently, the situation has almost reversed itself, in that the novels may have been too complex for a female audience because of the newly discovered intertextual references. Granted, it is never said that women were unable to understand the novels, but rather that their limited education, imposed on them by societal standards, did not allow them (or anyone without a higher education for that matter) access to the many allusions contained within the texts.