Ancient Libraries

Description

The circulation of books was the motor of classical civilization. But books were both expensive and rare, and so libraries private and public, royal and civic played key roles in articulating intellectual life. This collection, written by an international team of scholars, presents a fundamental reassessment of how ancient libraries came into being, how they were organized and how they were used. Drawing on papyrology and archaeology, and on accounts written by those who read and wrote in them, it presents new research on reading cultures, on book collecting and on the origins of monumental library buildings. Many of the traditional stories told about ancient libraries are challenged. Few were really enormous, none were designed as research centres, and occasional conflagrations do not explain the loss of most ancient texts. But the central place of libraries in Greco-Roman culture emerges more clearly than ever. Contents List of figures Notes on contributors Acknowledgments List of abbreviations Introduction Histories of ancient libraries Alien libraries Libraries and literatures Libraries and the history of the book Libraries and knowledge Part I Contexts 1 Libraries in ancient Egypt The library of Alexandria Libraries in ancient Egypt The Tebtunis temple library The cultic literature15 The scientific literature The narrative literature Conclusions 2 Reading the libraries of Assyria and Babylonia Cuneiform literacies Assurbanipal's library at Nineveh Ezida, another Assyrian royal library Huzirina, a school collection in provincial Assyria Res, a city temple in Hellenistic Uruk Conclusions: the four libraries compared 3 Fragments of a history of ancient libraries Introduction Conclusion Part II Hellenistic and Roman Republican libraries 4 Men and books in fourth-century BC Athens The cultural background Personal and practical libraries Food for thought: books for intellectual purposes Collating books Towards a new idea of the library 5 From text to text Introduction Philology The literary tradition Myth, history and geography Conclusions 6 Where was the royal library of Pergamum? The discovery of the royal Attalid library of Pergamum The north-eastern hall: arrangement and function The basis of the identification of the library Conclusions 7 Priests, patrons, and playwrights Aemilius Paullus and the library of Macedon Priests and books in Republican Rome Temple libraries in Republican Rome? Book collections and the origins of Latin literature Conclusions 8 Libraries in a Greek working life Introduction Publishing in antiquity Antiquitates Romanae, Book I Internationalism 9 Libraries and intellectual debate in the late Republic Reading Aristotle at Rome De finibus and the library of Lucullus The library of Sulla Concluding remarks 10 Ashes to ashes? The library of Alexandria after 48 BC Introduction Fire and aftermath Beyond the fire: post-Hellenistic intellectual trends The weight of tradition: Didymus and meta-scholarship Conclusions 11 The non-Philodemus book collection in the Villa of the Papyri Analysis and discussion of the non-Philodemus collection Descriptive catalogue of manuscripts by authors other than Philodemus that have been found in the Villa of the Papyri 12 “Beware of promising your library to anyone” Purchases Gifts and inheritances Miscellaneous acquisitions Losses Patterns of use Conclusions Part III Libraries of the Roman Empire 13 Libraries for the Caesars Introduction The libraries The librarians Conclusions 14 Roman libraries as public buildings in the cities of the Empire Bibliothecas quas maximas posset publicare Augustus and the Palatine library Location, location, location: some provincial public libraries Libraries as cultural centres: spaces for audiences and visitors 15 Flavian libraries in the city of Rome The Domitianic library in the Templum Pacis The library of Apollo as a model for the library of Peace Storerooms, library halls, and books around the Palatine hill Copies and originals AddendumGalen On the avoidance of grief 19: Rome or Antium? 16 Archives, books and sacred space in Rome Life in the library The Atrium Libertatis The Temple of Apollo and the Bibliotheca Tiberiana The Templum Pacis Libraries and sacred space 17 Visual supplementation and metonymy in the Roman public library Greek and Latin letters in the Palatine library Armaria, visual supplements, and metonymy A portrait for Germanicus Conclusions 18 Libraries and reading culture in the High Empire Introduction Fronto, Gellius, and Galen on the libraries of Rome Great men and book collections Emperors and book collections 19 Myth and history Background and context of Galen's story The legacy of the Alexandrian library Conclusions 20 Libraries and paideia in the Second Sophistic Now you see them, now you don’t Plutarch: library as example Galen and the frail text Conclusions: beware of hardware 21 The professional and his books The myth of the universal library Special libraries Special libraries in the ancient world Conclusions Bibliography General index Index locorum