Inside Roman Libraries

Inside Roman Libraries: Book Collections and Their Management in Antiquity

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.

The unexpected murder in the little Cotswolds town of Colombury has everyone guessing. Before the answers are found more lives are threatened.

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

Written by one of the foremost historians of the Roman Empire, this collection of both new and previously published essays forms a colorful picture of daily life in the Mediterranean world between A.D. 50 and 450. Here, for example, the author applies statistical analysis to broad groups of people on matters ranging from justice through medicine to language. In so doing he is able to substantiate general statements about routines in ordinary people's behavior and to detect within these routines the very changes that constitute history. Such analysis also shows how this era benefits from the same historiographical approaches that have so successfully elucidated sociocultural phenomena in other periods. Drawing from statistical analysis and many other historical approaches, these essays on popular mores in the Roman Empire cover such topics as language and art, acculturation, thought and religion, sex and gender, cruelty and slavery, and aspects of class and power relations. The author introduces the collection with several essays on historical method, as it pertains to the richness of documentation and variety to be found in the region and period chosen. Ramsay MacMullen is Dunham Professor of History and Classics at Yale University. The most recent of his many books include Corruption and the Decline of Rome and Christianizing the Roman Empire: A.D. 100-400, both published by Yale. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Excerpt from Public Libraries and Literary Culture in Ancient Rome The idea of founding public libraries in the capital of the Roman Empire originated with Julius Caesar: the actual realization of this idea was effected by Augustus. In the era of peace, so auspiciously dawning but soon so ruthlessly disturbed, none of the dictator's plans for the development of Rome was more significant than that of instituting libraries for public patronage. Caesar had doubtless long since learned to appreciate the value of the public libraries already established in important literary centers in Asia Minor, Egypt, and Greece, and could therefore easily foresee the function they were destined to perform among the Romans themselves. A twofold motive on Caesar's part is set forth by Suetonius:' first, to reduce all existing codes of civil law to a more simplified form by extracting only the essential features and combining them in a select series of legal documents; and, secondly, to throw open to public use as many libraries' as possible, both Greek and Latin, the duty of organizing and managing them to devolve upon Marcus Terentius Yarro. Before so worthy an undertaking could be executed, however, political conditions suddenly changed. Caesar was assassinated, and Varro, likewise thwarted by his enemies, suffered at the hands of the proscriptionists - events which augured ill for the furtherance of literary interests at Rome. But, fortunately, the affairs of the new Empire were to be administered by a successor whose ambition lay in the direction of literary as well as political supremacy. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

What was a Roman book? How did it differ from modern books? How were Roman books composed, published and distributed during the high period of Roman literature that encompassed, among others, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Martial, Pliny and Tacitus? What was the ‘scribal art’ of the time? What was the role of bookshops and libraries? The publishing of Roman books has often been misrepresented by false analogies with contemporary publishing. This wide-ranging study re-examines, by appeal to what Roman authors themselves tell us, both the raw material and the aesthetic criteria of the Roman book, and shows how slavery was the ‘enabling infrastructure’ of literature. Roman publishing is placed firmly in the context of a society where the spoken still ranked above the written, helping to explain how some books and authors became politically dangerous and how the Roman book could be both an elite cultural icon and a contributor to Rome’s popular culture through the mass medium of the theatre.

Excerpt from Public Libraries and Literary Culture in Ancient Rome As no treatise dealing with public libraries in antiquity has survived from ancient or mediaeval times, it is only by the study of miscellaneous data afforded by classical literature, inscriptions, and monuments that a conception of public libraries in ancient Rome may be obtained. Employing such sources of information, the present inquiry will concern itself with the history, equipment, contents, manage ment, object, and cultural significance of the Roman public library. Particular attention will be directed to libraries in Rome during the first one hundred and fifty years of the Empire. The first four centuries, however, form the total period under general consideration. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.