Ancient LibrariesJason König, Aikaterini Oikonomopoulou, Greg Woolf 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
Libraries in ancient Egypt 23 | 23 |
Reading the libraries of Assyria and Babylonia 38 | 38 |
Fragments of a history of ancient libraries 57 | 57 |
Men and books in fourthcentury BC Athens 85 | 85 |
the impact of the Alexandrian library | 96 |
Where was the royal library of Pergamum? An institution found | 109 |
libraries in Rome | 124 |
the case | 152 |
Roman libraries as public buildings in the cities | 261 |
Flavian libraries in the city of Rome 277 | 277 |
Archives books and sacred space in Rome 312 | 312 |
Visual supplementation and metonymy in the Roman | 332 |
Libraries and reading culture in the High Empire 347 | 347 |
Galen and the Alexandrian library 364 | 364 |
Plutarch | 377 |
special libraries | 401 |
Ashes to ashes? The library of Alexandria after 48 BC 167 | 167 |
The nonPhilodemus book collection in the Villa | 183 |
assembling | 209 |
Libraries for the Caesars 237 | 237 |
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Common terms and phrases
Alexandrian library ancient libraries antiquity Antium architectural archives Aristotle Aristotle’s Athenaeus Athens Atticus Augustan Augustus authors BC Cav biblioth¯ek¯e bibliotheca book collection book-rolls building Caesar Callimachus Cavallo century BC Cicero collection of books copies cultural Demetrius Dionysius Dix and Houston Domitian Domus Tiberiana Egypt Egyptian emperor Epicurus evidence Flavian Galen Gellius Greek Hadrian hall Hellenistic imperial included inscription intellectual Isocrates kaª knowledge Latin letters library of Alexandria library of Apollo library of Peace library’s literary literature Lucullus manuscripts mentioned Mouseion Neleus ofthe Palatine library papyri Perª Pergamum perhaps PHerc Philodemus philosophical Plin Pliny Plut Plutarch portico portraits Ptolemy public libraries reading reconstruction reference rolls Roman Rome Rome’s royal library sanctuary scholarly scholars scribe second century sources special libraries statue story Strabo Subscriptio Suet suggests tablets tän temple library Templum Pacis texts textual Theophrastus tradition Tyrannio Varro Via Sacra Villa volume writing written