Memory might be regarded as one of the oldest arts. In ancient times, memory was the sole medium by which all history and knowledge could be recorded. The development of good memory skills was not only essential but was also a topic of endless fascination.
The word ‘ mnemonic means pertaining to memory or memory aid. It comes from the ancient Greek word for remember. It is also related to Mnernosyne, the name of the ancient Greek goddess of memory. Mnemosyne was believed to know everything in the past, present, and future. As the mother of the nine Muses, who each represented a separate artistic discipline, she was revered as the source of creativity. Greek myth also relates that when the dead entered the Underworld, they would drink from Let He, the river of Forgetting, and instantly all their memories would be obliterated.
These mythic associations reflect the fact that memory was a faculty that the ancient Greeks held in the highest possible esteem. The most revered literary works in the Greek world were the Iliad and the Odyssey – two great epics that also form the earliest works of European literature. These epic poems were attributed to the poet Homer. Modern scholars question whether ‘Homer’ can have been one single person. Still, it does seem likely that versions of these epics had been composed in preliterate times and learned and recited for centuries by Greek bards before they were written down around 750 BC.
Natural and artificial memory
Greek thinkers in the 4th century BC began to distinguish between what they called natural memory and artificial memory techniques. The discovery of the importance of visualization in memory and the method of loci that makes use of it is accredited to Simonides, a poet who used superb imagery in his writing. The great philosopher Aristotle also understood the value of the senses, especially sight. He wrote that ‘it is impossible even to think without a mental picture,’ adding that memory belonged to the same part of the soul as imagination, but with mental images conjured up from the past rather than created in the present. Aristotle also recognized that natural memory relies on association.
The importance of rhetoric
The main use of memory techniques in ancient Greece was in rhetoric, the art of persuasive public speaking. The ancient Greeks were also the inventors of theatre in the Western tradition, an art form that depends crucially on the memory of the performers.
Roman orators went on to make even greater use of mnemonic techniques. Influential works on Latin oratory by Cicero and Quintilian introduced Greek memory methods to the Roman world, and mnemonics came to be seen as a crucial component of rhetorical technique. The most highly regarded Roman orators were those who spoke convincingly without recourse to written notes. According to Cicero, even a good natural memory such as his own – he could orate non-stop for up to three hours – could be improved by the use of mnemonic techniques.
Our knowledge of ancient memory techniques derives largely from a book on rhetoric written in the 1st century BC called Ad Herennium (To Herennius). The anonymous author calls memory ‘ the treasure-house of inventions, the custodian of all the arts of rhetoric’ and describes in detail the ancient mnemonic techniques of images and places. His was the only complete guide to rhetoric to survive in either Creek or Latin, and it became the standard textbook for students of classical rhetoric.
Memory through the ages
After the close of the classical period, the arts of memory remained a central part of the educational curriculum well into the Middle Ages. Sometimes, these arts were seen as mysterious and akin to magic. During the Renaissance, progressive thinkers such as Giordano Bruno became fascinated by memory and what it could reveal about the origin of ideas and the supernatural world. However, many such thinkers were persecuted by the church for moving beyond religious teachings.
Over the past hundred years, memory has become a key area of study in the new science of psychology. Today, the memory methods of the Greeks and Romans stand alongside a scientific understanding of the mind, remaining as useful as they were in the ancient world.
EPIC SONGS
The question of how Homer and other ancient bards memorized lengthy epics perplexed scholars for centuries until the invention of the tape recorder. Epic singers in non-literate societies were recorded singing the same song on separate occasions, and it was found that there were large variations in episodes, details, and wording. Yet the singers insisted that they always sang the same song with identical words.
The key lies in how ‘same’ and ‘word’ is interpreted. For nonliterate people, a ‘word’ is more like an utterance or idea, and two songs are the ‘same’ if they convey the same story or set of ideas. Similarly, we would consider two versions of a fairy tale to be telling the ‘same’ story even though one may be a very short children’s book and the other a feature film. Epic songs also contain natural memory aids such as rhythm, rhyme, narrative, and vivid images – elements still used in mnemonic rhymes and in the slogans and jingles devised by advertisers to help us remember their products.
