The origin of newspapers is quite curious, and antedates
the invention of printing. The _acta diurna_, or journals of public
events, were the daily manuscript reports of the Roman Government during
the later commonwealth. In these, among other matters of public interest,
every birth, marriage, and divorce was entered. As an illustration of the
character of these brief entries, we have the satire of Petronius, which
he puts in the mouth of the freed man Trimalchio: "The seventh of the
Kalends of Sextilis, on the estate at Cumae, were born thirty boys, twenty
girls; were carried from the floor to the barn, 500,000 bushels of wheat;
were broke 500 oxen. The same day the slave Mithridates was crucified for
blasphemy against the Emperor's genius; the same day was placed in the
chest the sum of ten millions sesterces, which could not be put out to
use." Similar in character were the _Acta Urbana_, or city register, the
_Acta Publica_, and the _Acta Senatus_, whose names indicate their
contents. They were brief, almost tabular, and not infrequently
sensational.
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