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From Alan Bowman and David Thomas, Vindolanda: the Latin writing
tablets London: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies,
1983, pp. 71-72
The five texts described below clearly belong together and seem
to be written in a combination of letters and symbols. Rather than
regarding them as normal script written extremely cursively, we
feel confident that they are in fact examples of Latin written in
shorthand.
The evidence
for the knowledge of shorthand in the late Republic and early Empire is surveyed
in detail by Boge (1973), 47-68. Boge accepts the traditional theory that
shorthand was a discovery of Cicero's freedman Tiro. Others have been less
inclined to accept this at its face value (e.g. Coles (1966)). In the most
recent study of the subject, Teitler (1985), 28-9 and 172-3, s.v. TIRO, leaves
the question open. What is important is that there is general agreement that
shorthand was known and used in the Roman world by at least the middle of the
first century AD (the evidence of Seneca, Apoc.
9.2, would appear to be decisive). Since our tablets have been found in a
military context it is relevant to note that Vegetius 2.19, in discussing
litterati milites, remarks that in some cases when
recruiting troops, in addition to examining their physical condition,
notarum peritia, calculandi computandique usus eligitur
(although Teitler (1985), 210-11 thinks that notae
might simply mean the "letters of the alphabet"). Further evidence for the use
of shorthand in military circles is provided by Digest
29.1.40 (Paulus). In general on the litterati milites
see Teitler (1985), 44-9, who regards the presence of shorthand writers in the
army as certain by the third century.
The history of
shorthand in the classical and early medieval periods is summarised in Bischoff
(1986), 110-2 and (1990), 80-2 (where the numbering of the footnotes is
incorrect). He gives a good bibliography in (1986), 316-317 (see also (1990),
244). Add now P.F.Ganz (ed. 1990), a collection of articles of which the most
relevant for our purposes is that by D.Ganz, pp. 35-51.
So-called
Tironian notes are preserved in a number of Latin manuscripts of the Carolingian
period, see Schmitz (1893). A recent collection of the various signs is to be
found in Costamagna, Baroni and Zagni (1983). In what is still the most thorough
treatment of the subject, Mentz (1944), three different systems are analysed:
System A = the so-called Tironian notes. These are to be seen in use in
Merovingian and Carolingian charters from the seventh century onwards and in
manuscripts of the ninth and tenth centuries. System B and System C are only
attested in papyri from Ravenna, the earliest evidence being from the sixth
century; they both use a syllabic system, different from the system employed for
true Tironian notes. On them see Tj?der (1954-82), I 128-9, and II 260 (note 29
to P.30, 91). Earlier than the above is the use of shorthand symbols at the
head of an inscription which records a constitutio
of AD 362 (CIL 3.459). Cf. also P.Reinach inv.2140
= CLA V 699, assigned to the fourth or fifth
century.
The
relationship between these systems and the shorthand in use during the early
Empire is unknown. See Ganz's remark, (1990), 37, that "Traditionally this
vocabulary [i.e. the system of shorthand used in the classical period and in
late antiquity] has been identified with the commentaries which are preserved in
the Commentarii Notarum Tironian[ar]um... However,
our earliest evidence for the use of shorthand in official documents reveals
that the elaborate shorthand system taught by the
Commentarii was not used by the urban bureaucracy of Ravenna". Whether
the tachygraphic writing on our tablets represents Tironian notes as known from
the Carolingian period (Mentz's System A), or whether, as we think less likely,
it represents either of those known from Ravenna, or whether it represents
something different from any of the known systems, we do not feel competent to
judge. It would, we feel, be hazardous in the extreme to attempt any
transcription of these tablets. Even if they are essentially the same as the
attested Tironian notes, we can hardly suppose that the signs would have been
made in the same way 500 or more years earlier and on a different medium.
Hitherto the idea that the Romans were acquainted with shorthand in the
classical period has been no more than a conclusion drawn from the literary
evidence and from the existence of inscriptions referring to
notarii and the like. The importance of the
tablets from Vindolanda is that they provide documentary confirmation that
shorthand was used in military circles on the frontier of the Roman world by
about AD 100.
As we have not offered any transcription, we include plates of
the better preserved examples. We should warn the reader that in
some cases the "writing" is so enigmatic that we cannot
be sure that the plates present the tablet the right way up. For
other possible examples see 376
and 401.
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