In his chapter on "Memory", Pliny the Elder (Historia Naturalis 7.24) tells us about Charmidas, the mnemonist.
"There was in Greece a man named Charmidas, who, when a person asked him for any book in a library, could repeat it by heart, just as though he were reading."
"There was in Greece a man named Charmidas, who, when a person asked him for any book in a library, could repeat it by heart, just as though he were reading."
Red-figure Kylix detail showing a teacher holding an open scroll by Douris painter, c. 480 BC
at Antikensammlung, Berlin.
The scroll reads: "Muse to me...I begin to sing of wide-flowing Scamander". The line has been associated with Stesichorus, "Hymn to Hermes" [1]
at Antikensammlung, Berlin.
The scroll reads: "Muse to me...I begin to sing of wide-flowing Scamander". The line has been associated with Stesichorus, "Hymn to Hermes" [1]
Here you can read the wonderful chapter on "Memory" by Pliny the Elder in his Historia Naturalis 7.24 where he mentions historical figures with remarkable memories & also the fear of losing one's memory.
P.S. Pliny also attributes to the lyric poet Simonides as the inventor of the art of mnemonics, later perfected by Metrodorus of Scepsis, "so as to enable persons to repeat word for word exactly what they have heard." [1]
Like many ancients, Pliny was acutely aware of his mortality, thus his prodigious accumulation of human knowledge in his 'Historia Naturalis' was driven by a race against his allotted time in this world. He turned his 37 books into an ode to the memory of man defying oblivion.
The Roman 'capsa' was a cylindrical leather scroll-case for holding scrolls. The scroll-case & scrolls shown in this photo were used as TV props for the HBO show 'Rome' [1]
Pliny the Elder was the embodiment of 'carpe diem', he was notorious for exhausting each minute of day & night in devotion to research & writing even at the cost of sleep. Predictably he followed his own dictum: Vita vigilia est, "To be alive is to be awake"
