Gradually after that, Rome superseded Alexandria as an intellectual center, as Alexandria had previously superseded Athens. The conquest of Greece, over a hundred years before, had been the cause of many Greek scholars and philosophers taking up their abode in Rome. This, with the fact that a great number of scribes and copyists had involuntarily come to the Eternal City because of the fortunes of war, helped to develop in the Romans an interest in literature. During the period of Roman history identified with Julius Cæsar there were customs in manuscript making that are interesting in their suggestion of modern newspaper methods. In fact, Cæsar is credited with having been the founder of the newspaper. He introduced the daily publication of the news of the Roman Senate and People, a radical change from the previous custom of issuing yearly news-letters known as the Annals. The acts of the senate were reported by trained writers known as tabularii, or inscribers of tablets, and were revised and edited before publication by a senator appointed to that duty. Abbreviated forms of writing were used in “reporting,” a sort of short-hand which enabled the scribe to write as rapidly as a man could speak. Cæsar himself wrote his letters in characters which prevented them being read by his enemies. [Illustration: ROMAN WAXED TABLET The present method of binding flat books might have originated with these old tablets ] The “Acts of the Senate” grew into a diary of general news, known as the “Acts of the City,” and it is likely that the educated slaves in the families of public men were called into service to duplicate copies for circulation. Altho the Emperor Augustus, who reigned in Rome at the beginning of the Christian era, discontinued publishing the Acts of the Senate, he encouraged the writing and copying of books to such extent that the period is a memorable one in literature. The classic authors, Virgil and Horace, wrote at that time, and many other important manuscripts were produced. Slave labor was utilized for copying, and large editions of manuscript rolls were produced with an ease that rivaled the later method of the printing press. In such instances it was the custom for a reader to read aloud, to, say, one hundred trained writers. The possibilities of this process may be imagined. Horace allowed his slaves rations which were so meager that the entire cost of production, including papyrus and binding, of a small book was equivalent to about twelve cents in United States coin. Thus it will be seen that in the days of the Roman Empire books were plentiful and cheap because of slave labor, just as they are cheap in modern times because of machinery. For most of their books the Romans, as had the Egyptians and Greeks before them, used rolls of papyrus wound about rods.