Roman Libraries

The Seven Public Libraries of Rome

  1. The two Reading Rooms:
    • one for Works in Latin and one for Works in Greek.
  2. The ‘Bybliothecis’:
  3. The Books:
    • These were either in the form of a Scroll or a Codex.
    • The Romans brought the contents of the Imperial Library of Macedon to Rome, when Greece was occupied in 168 BCE.

Private Libraries

  • Some wealthy Romans had their own private libraries.
  • Gordian II, who was briefly Emperor for one month, is said by Edward Gibbon to have had a Library of 62,000 Works.

Villa of the Papyri

  • In Herculaneum, the Villa of the Papyri was buried in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. The 2,000 Works found in the library were all scrolls. Many are Works by Epicurus (341-270 BCE).
  • It is the only library from Ancient Rome to survive intact.
  • Although the scrolls were all burnt into carbonised cylinders, some restoration has been possible. The 1,700 scrolls that have been opened were mostly written in Greek.
  • The owner of the villa and its library is not known. One theory is that this library belonged to either the poet Philodemus (c.110-c.35 BCE), who was a follower of Epicurus, or to L. Calpurnius Piso Caesonius. The latter was Consul of Rome in 58 BCE, the father-in-law of Julius Caesar and Patron of Philodemus.

Libraries of the Ancient World

  • Other Ancient Libraries:
    1. Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (c. 650 BCE), 30,000 clay tablets in Akkadian, including the Epic of Gilgamesh, and were also written in Assyrian.
    2. Library of Ugarit in Syria, (1,200 BCE) with texts in Ugaritic, (a similar language to Phoenician), in Hurrian, Akkadian and Sumerian.
    3. Library of Mari in Syria, (1,800-1,750 BCE), 15,000 clay tablets in Akkadian script with all texts referring to the period between 1800-1750 BCE.
    4. Han Dynasty Imperial Library (206 BCE- 220 CE) whose Works are divided into two periods:
      1. Pre 221 BCE: The Four Books, The Five Classics, Taoism, Mohism, Legalism, The Seven Military Classics.
      2. Post 206 BCE: Records of the Grand Historian Sima Qian, Book of Han, Ban Gu, and others. (after the burning of the imperial library in 213 BCE).
    5. Library of Taxila or Takshashila in N. Pakistan, (5th century BCE – 5th century CE)
      • The centre of Hindu and Buddhist learning: The Vedas, The Eighteen Arts, Law School, Medical School, the School of Military Science.
      • Taxila was located near modern Islamabad on Grand Trunk Road (2,600 km) which ran from the mouth of the Ganges to the Khyber Pass
      • The Emperor Chandragupta Maurya (321-297 BCE) was educated at Taxila. He founded the Mauryan Empire.
    6. Library of Ctesiphon, Persia.

The Roman Authors

Roman Books

  1. Scroll
    • The Scroll was a Work hand written on a long sheet of Papyrus, and then rolled into a cylinder. Instead of turning the pages of a book, the reader unrolled the cylinder as he progressed.
    • Special inks were developed to prevent the ink flaking off when the scroll was unrolled and rerolled. Nonetheless, letters often fell off the Scroll.
    • By the 300 CE scrolls were being replaced by the Codex. After the sixth century CE, Scrolls were no longer being produced.
    • Scrolls were transported in protective tubular containers called ‘capsae’.
  2. Codex
    • Codex means ‘trunk of a tree’ in Latin, ie, a block of wood.
    • Pages of Papyrus or Parchment were bound together to form a book. Sometimes one long piece of Papyrus was folded into a concertina, without being cut into pages.
    • Introduced by the Romans and first mentioned by Martial in the first century CE, the Codex had replaced the Scroll by the sixth century CE.
    • The Codex was adopted at an early stage by Christianity as its format for the Bible.
    • The Nag Hammadi Library written in c.330 CE consists entirely of Codices.
  3. Wax Tablets
    • The Wax Tablet was two pieces of flat wood hinged together with wax on each inner surface. A letter could be written on the wax, the tablet sealed with a lead seal and be posted to a Statio in another part of the Roman Empire via the Roman Road system.
    • After reading the tablet, the wax was smoothed over, and new writing could be written onto the wax. They were for personal use. The Codex was derived from these wooden writing tablets covered in wax.
    • The Vindolanda Tablets
    • These are wax tablets inscribed in ink. Thousands were found in the fort of Vindolanda, Britannia, dating around 100 CE, and are now in the British Museum. The wax tablet could be reused, but an inked wooden tablet had to be thrown way. They were for personal use.
  4. Pugillares membrane
    • ‘Pugillares membrane’: this was a folded parchment notebook mentioned by Martial. They were used as personal notebooks and as letters to send to one another.
  5. Palimpsest
    • Palimpsest: meaning ‘scraped’, was the practice of scraping or washing the writing off the parchment and using it again.

Roman Booksellers

  • Booksellers
    • Roman Booksellers or ‘Taberna Librarii’ were located in the Argelitum and the Vicus Sandalarius.
    • Books for sale were listed on the door of the shop. Martial. Prices of Books varied around 5 Denarii.
  • Scribes
    • The Scribes copied new and ancient Works to supply the demands of Private and Public Libraries under the Roman Empire, and sold them in small bookshops.

Roman Newspapers

  • Acta
    • Every day the news of the latest developments was published in Rome.
    • The news was etched on stone tablets or thin metal sheets and placed in the Forum Romanum. They were often distributed to the Provinces.

 

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