Ancient Libraries

The libraries of the ancient world were completely unlike those we know today. This book explores and explains those differences.

Jason König (Edited by), Katerina Oikonomopoulou (Edited by), Greg Woolf (Edited by)

9781316628843, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 29 September 2016

500 pages, 27 b/w illus.
24.4 x 17 x 2.5 cm, 0.85 kg

'The readability, immense variety and breadth of learning of the contributions to Ancient Libraries set a new benchmark, at a time when this subject is undergoing a welcome renaissance.' J. Wasserstein, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

The circulation of books was the motor of classical civilization. However, 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.

Introduction: approaching the ancient library Greg Woolf
Part I. Contexts: 1. Libraries in ancient Egypt Kim Ryholt
2. Reading the libraries of Assyria and Babylonia Eleanor Robson
3. Fragments of a history of ancient libraries Christian Jacob
Part II. Hellenistic and Roman Republican Libraries: 4. Men and books in fourth-century BC Athens Massimo Pinto
5. From text to text: the impact of the Alexandrian Library on the work of Hellenistic poets Annette Harder
6. Where was the Royal Library of Pergamon? An institution found and lost again Gaelle Coqueugniot
7. Priests, patrons and playwrights: libraries in Rome before 168 BC Mike Affleck
8. Libraries in a Greek working life: Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a case study in Rome Daniel Hogg
9. Libraries and intellectual debate in the Late Republic: the case of the Aristotelian corpus Fabio Tutrone
10. Ashes to ashes? The Library of Alexandria after 48 BC Myrto Hatzimichali
11. The non-Philodemus book collection in the Villa of the Papyri George W. Houston
12. 'Beware of promising your library to anyone': assembling a private library at Rome T. Keith Dix
Part III. Libraries of the Roman Empire: 13. Libraries for the Caesars Ewen Bowie
14. Public libraries in the cities of the Roman Empire Matthew Nicholls
15. Flavian libraries in Rome Pier Luigi Tucci
16. Archives, books and sacred space in Rome Richard Neudecker
17. Visual supplementation and metonymy in the Roman public library David Petrain
18. Libraries and reading culture in the High Empire William A. Johnson
19. Galen, Ptolemy III and the Athenians: libraries, perception and history Michael W. Handis
20. Libraries and paideia in the Second Sophistic: Galen and Plutarch Alexei V. Zadorojnyi
21. The professional and his books: special libraries in the Roman world Victor Martinez and Megan Finn Senseney.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]