[Antoninus]

The first recorded instance of someone reading silently was by Augustine of Hippo, who came into a room and found Ambrose silently reading to himself. Until that time reading was done out loud.

I have never heard that before. Do you have any citations to back that up? It's fascinating if true.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

“Do you have any citations...”

“The Confessions”

https://web.stanford.edu/class/history34q/readings/Manguel/Silent_Readers.html

On Ambrose:

“He was an extremely popular speaker; his symbol in later Christian iconography was the beehive, emblematic of eloquence.”

Here is an article that disputes the idea that all reading in classical times was done out loud. (Alexander the Great mentioned as reading silently.) So I stand corrected, although Augustine thought Ambrose reading silently was noteworthy.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/jul/29/featuresreviews.guardianreview27