On Reading Latin

Romans always read aloud, or so they say.

St Augustine, coming to visit St Ambrose who would become instrumental in his conversion to Christianity, was surprised by his peculiar way of reading. 

"When he read," said Augustine, "his eyes scanned the page and his heart sought out the meaning, but his voice was silent and his tongue was still. Anyone could approach him freely and guests were not commonly announced, so that often, when we came to visit him, we found him reading like this in silence, for he never read aloud."

Of course, this is how the majority of us read nowadays unless we are reading aloud for someone to listen.  A classics professor writes:

There is no disputing the fact that the Romans read everything aloud, in fact they were apparently not able to read silently. We know this from testimony about Roman villas having private "reading rooms" where the master could read without disturbing the family, and it was only in the time of St. Augustine that silent reading developed, perhaps out of the requirements of monastic life. In other words, all Romans continually "phonated" the way a third grade child often does, and were happy with this as a satisfactory way to read. Of course there is one major benefit: Reading is kept to a slow and sensitive pace, one savors the sounds and enjoys minute changes of meaning and inflections of mood. It is said that a modern student must be able to read forty pages of non-technical prose an hour simply to be able to keep up with college assignments in the Humanities. One marvels at how much is covered, but cannot help wondering how much is missed.

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