structural:expansion, information:filtering, quality:corruption, structural:reformatting, information:highlighting
Literacy, books, and education

Estimates of the average literacy rate range from 5 to over 30%. The Roman obsession with documents and inscriptions indicates the value placed on the written word. Laws and edicts were posted as well as read out. Illiterate Roman subjects could have a government scribe (scriba) read or write their official documents for them. The military produced extensive written records. The Babylonian Talmud declared "if all seas were ink, all reeds were pen, all skies parchment, and all men scribes, they would be unable to set down the full scope of the Roman government's concerns".

Numeracy was necessary for commerce. Slaves were numerate and literate in significant numbers; some were highly educated. Graffiti and low-quality inscriptions with misspellings and solecisms indicate casual literacy among non-elites.

The Romans had an extensive priestly archive, and inscriptions appear throughout the Empire in connection with votives dedicated by ordinary people, as well as " magic spells " (e.g. the Greek Magical Papyri).

Books were expensive, since each copy had to be written out on a papyrus roll (volumen) by scribes. The codex —pages bound to a spine—was still a novelty in the 1st century, but by the end of the 3rd century was replacing the volumen. Commercial book production was established by the late Republic, and by the 1st century certain neighbourhoods of Rome and Western provincial cities were known for their bookshops. The quality of editing varied wildly, and plagiarism or forgery were common, since there was no copyright law.

Collectors amassed personal libraries, and a fine library was part of the cultivated leisure (otium) associated with the villa lifestyle. Significant collections might attract "in-house" scholars, and an individual benefactor might endow a community with a library (as Pliny the Younger did in Comum). Imperial libraries were open to users on a limited basis, and represented a literary canon. Books considered subversive might be publicly burned, and Domitian crucified copyists for reproducing works deemed treasonous.

Literary texts were often shared aloud at meals or with reading groups. Public readings (recitationes) expanded from the 1st through the 3rd century, giving rise to "consumer literature" for entertainment. Illustrated books, including erotica, were popular, but are poorly represented by extant fragments.

Literacy began to decline during the Crisis of the Third Century. The emperor Julian banned Christians from teaching the classical curriculum, but the Church Fathers and other Christians adopted Latin and Greek literature, philosophy and science in biblical interpretation. As the Western Roman Empire declined, reading became rarer even for those within the Church hierarchy, although it continued in the Byzantine Empire.