"Before print technology, every book was unique. Two manuscripts of the "same" text could package and transmit that text very differently, depending on the choices made by the scribes, compilers, translators, annotators, and decorators. Is it appropriate, Elizabeth Bryan asks, for us to read these books as products of a single author's consciousness? And if not, how do we read them?" "In Collaborative Meaning in Medieval Scribal Culture, Bryan compares...

On 1 January A.D. 69, the Roman people particularly the inhabitants of Rome, had every reason to feel optimistic. The infamous Nero was dead and Galba, in his seventies, a greatly respected governor of Nearer Spain, had been chosen emperor with the whole-hearted consent of army and Senate. And yet, within the first fortnight of the New Year, Galba had been brutally assassinated in the Roman Forum. During a year which had begun with such high hopes...