THE CONTENTS: 1) The tyranny of the evidence: a discussion of the possible uses of literacy in Etruria and Latium in the archaic age. 2) Ancient literacy and the function of the written word in Roman religion. 3) Statistics or states of mind? 4) Literacy and the parietal inscriptions of Pompeii. 5) L’ecriture en quete de lecteurs 6) Literacy in the Roman empire: mass and mode. 7) Conquest by book 8) Ancient illiteracy.