Description
Book SynopsisThis book opens a window onto the book cultures of antiquity, challenging old myths, presenting new research and exploring the implications for ancient science. It examines ancient libraries in the context of cultures of collection and display and reveals their complex relationship with private collections of books.
Trade Review'[An] important contribution to ancient cultural history.' The Times Literary Supplement
'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
Table of ContentsIntroduction: 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.
