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Originally Posted by Apollonian
Why would the Romans adopt paper?
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They wrote letters, kept records, liked legal matters documented, and reading was seen as a desirerable skill even for slaves to have.
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In the Hellenistic period, novels existed; we have surviving examples on papyrus from Egypt.
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We have annecdotal evidence for novels being popular in Rome. Including a letter from a Christian priest that he'd scraped all 300 novels his grandmother had collected and had scibes writte on parchment off the parchment and hymns written in their place. Given that the number of novels may have been exagerated and matterials other than novels called novels, that's still an impressive collection destroyed.
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Maybe they've got a project to introduce widespread literacy,...
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Although Rome had a far lower literacy rate than Early Modern England, for the Ancient world, they weren't bad. Paper would be and stay popular once introduced.