THE literature of Greece has become the property of the world, but of the existence of literary property in Greece--that is, of any system or practice of compensation to writers from their readers or hearers, either direct or indirect--the traces are very slight; so slight, in fact, that the weight of authority is against the probability of such practice having obtained at all. It is fortunate for the literature of the world that the Greek poets, dramatists, historians, and philosophers were content to do their work for the approval of their own generation, for the chance of fame with the generations to come, or for the satisfaction of the work itself, as their rewards in the shape of anything more tangible than fame appear to have been either nothing or something very inconsiderable. Clement says: “After the most painstaking researches through the records left us by the Greeks, we are compelled to conclude that in none of the Greek states was any recognition ever given under provision of law, to the right of authors to any control over their own productions.”[18] Breulier writes: “Literary property, in any sense in which the term is understood to-day, did not exist at Athens.”[19] Wilhelm Schmitz concludes that “no such relation as that which to-day exists between authors and booksellers (publishers) was known among the Greeks. In none of the writings of the time, do we find the slightest reference to any such publishing arrangements as Roman authors in the time of Martial were accustomed to secure.”[20] This treatise of Schmitz’s is a painstaking and interesting study of the conditions of Greek literature in classic times and of the relations of Greek writers to their public, and for certain portions of this chapter I am largely indebted to the results of his investigations. Géraud remarks that in the first development of written language and literature among the Hebrews and Egyptians, it is easy to recognize the “fatal influence of the spirit of priestly caste, an influence from which the Greek peoples were comparatively free.”[21] The richest literature of antiquity, he goes on to say, is that of Greece, and it was also in Greece that the art of writing made the most rapid advances. The teaching of the priests, whether given through the oracles or not, was purely oral, so that the Greeks did not come into possession of any body of sacred scriptures such as formed the original literature of other peoples. On the other hand, the ardent nature, inquiring and active intellect, and brilliant imagination of the Greeks, gave an early and rapid development to the arts, to poetry, and to speculative philosophy.