Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1902-01-09
ROMANS DAILY PAPERS,
"Acta" Issued Regularly With All the
News of the Day.

| "a eiS LAY.
An interesting study has been pub
lished in one of the Italian reviews on
| journalism in ancient Rome The pc
| riodical press dates from the times
Of Cicero and julius Caesar when
news sheets-Acta Diurna Urbis
daily city events)--were posted
every morning in the forum and
copied and sold in the city and the
provinces.
They were dry chronicles of the
events of the day-a paltry streamlet
when compared with the mighty riv
ers of our days-containing no lead
ing articles, no learned polemics, no
foreign correspondence, but a sum
mary of some important debate in the
senate, reports of law courts, descrip-
tions of gladiatorial fights, accounts
of portents, religious festivals, and
crimes.
These Acta were collected and
placed in some office or public library,
and must have formed an interesting
series from the last days of the repub-
lie down 20 the reign of Constantine,
when the seat of government and pos
sibly the newspaper files were re-
moved to COnstantinople, says a
Rome correspondent
The collection is now lost, but frag-
ments have been preserved N the
works of Tacitus, Pliny, Suetonius,
and Dion, interesting fragments,
mostly of trivialities, which have Gid
ed down to us through the cycle of
centuries throwing a glimmer, as of
flashlights, over the greatest empire
of antiquity as it worked and lived.
In a news sheet of April II, A U.
c., 748 (B. c. 81, it was recorded that
G. Crispinus, q plebian from FiesOle,
came to Rome with seven sons, two
daughters, and thirty-five grand-chii-
dren to offer a sacrifice to the Capt.
toline Jove, and that when the corpse
of Felix the ChariOteer was placed in
the funeral pile a devoted friend
rushed on the burning pyre and was
cremated with him.
Other sheets announce that sentence
those butchers who VIGOROUSLY sold
meat not inspected by the authorities
and that the fines were immediately
paid and would be devoted to the
erection of a shrine; that an ARRAY
took place last night at ''The Bear"
wine shop near the temple Janus.
and that the landlord was dangerously
wounded that a violent thunder
storm burst yesterday over the city,
the lightning striking the old oak tree
III the Velia, and that Deniph0n, the
robber lately arrested by the legate
Neava, was crucifed early this morn
ing.
one OF the newspapers Of the reign
OF Nero told the story Of the dog be-
longing to a slave executed by the
emperor's orders. The dog stood by
the corpse, and when food was given
it pushed the food with its nose to the
lips of the dead slave, and when the
corpse was thrown into the Tiber the
/ poor animal leaped into the river and
tried to keep the body above water.
Other Acta described the funeral of
Germanicus and the indignant pro-
tests of the senator Thraseas when
his cowardly colleagues applauded Ne
| ros matricide. Those ancient Jour
| nallsts also tried their hand st Can
ards" Thus it was gravely announced
that phoenix had been brought to
Rome and exhibited in the Comitia
and that during the trial Of Milo for
the murder of Clodius it rained baked
bricks IN several parts of the city.
These startling items of news are
clumslIy conceived and evidently lack
| the skill displayed in our later DAYS
in the same line. They are on a par
with some Of the portents of the mid
ale ages and show the gullibility of
the Roman public in olden times.