Libraries in ancient Greece and Rome

Πειραματικό Λύκειο Αγ. Αναργύρων, Athens/1st Grade, 2009-2010
8. ΒΙΒΛΙΟΘΗΚΗBIBLIOTHECA/BIBLIOTHECE(Bybliotheca) from the word βίβλος/βύβλος (=papyrus, imported in Greece from the Phoenician city of Byblos)Libraries in the ancient Greek and Roman world

Libraries in Greece
The public library in Greece first appeared by the 4th century BC, though the private library was more prevalent.
Aristotle amassed a large private collection in his school. Strabo (Στράβων), the ancient Greek geographer mentions that Aristotle was the first to have put together a collection of books and to have taught the kings in Egypt how to arrange a library (Γεωγραφικά/Geographica13.1.54.8).
Books were scrolls, mostly made of papyrus, but sometimes of leather. They were kept in pigeonholes with titles written on wooden tags hung from their outer ends.
The first libraries were notbuildings specially designed to house books. The books were stored in shelves located in the rooms or warehouses, whereas the reading was made outdoors, taking a walk or seated under a porch.

The Library of Alexandria
The first library was the Great Library of Alexandria, a public library open to those with the proper scholarly and literary qualifications, founded in 290 BC. At its height, the library held nearly 750,000 scrolls.
Funds from the royal treasury paid the chief librarian and the scholarly staff.

Von Corven’s rendition of the Great Library of Alexandria

The Library of Pergamon (Πέργαμον), on the Pergamon Acropolis, must have served as modelto the Roman libraries in its organization.
The Library of Pergamon

The first Roman libraries were private and were constituted by the books that were seized by the generals in the East campaigns.
Although already in the 2nd century BC Latin books circulated, the first Roman libraries consisted of Greek works that spread through the Roman world.
The Roman libraries were classified in two sections, according to what language books were written,in Greek or Latin. The idea to found a library with sections on Latin and Greek was Caesar's, who wished to equip Rome with a great public library.
The Roman Libraries

Roman Libraries
Rome had three public libraries at the time of Augustus' death in 14 AD: Pollio's, one in the Porticus of Octavia, and Augustus' on the Palatine Hill.
When Trajan (98-117 AD) dedicated his monumental column in 112-113, a Library (sectioned into the Greek and Latin chambers) was part of the complex. The collection included about 20,000 volumes.
Libraries remained the domain of the learned: teachers, scientists, scholars. One important aspect of the diffusion of books, known also in Greece, were the recitationes, in which works were read publicly.

1. Triumphal Arch at the Entrance 2. Statue of the Emperor 3. hemicycles 4. Basilica Ulpia (law court)
5. Two libraries (in red circle on the ground plan) 6. Trajan’s column 7. Trajan’s temple
(Sarring-Packer, 1997)
Forum Trajani, Rome

Vitruvius, De Architectura, 1.2.7 on the construction of Libraries
itemnaturaedecorerit, sicubiculisetbybliothecisaborienteluminacapiuntur, balneisethibernaculisaboccidentehiberno, pinacothecisetquibuscertisluminibusopusestpartibus, aseptentrione […].

(F. Krohn. Lipsiae. B.G. Teubner. 1912)

There will also be natural propriety in using an eastern light for bedrooms and libraries, a western light in winter for baths and winter apartments, and a northern light for picture galleries and other places in which a steady light is needed […]

(Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture. Morris Hicky Morgan. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. London: HumphreyMilford. OxfordUniversityPress. 1914)

The books in Roman libraries were classified in shelves named pegmata; the hollow sections of the shelves, being called nidi, were further divided into a sort of honeycomb structure, with the individual hollows being called foruli or locumenta.Thusthe books were archived by nidi, foruli et locumenta.
The Roman Libraries
Scrolls of papyruses on shelves, Library of Alexandria

Libraries were normally standing next to a temple and consisted mainly of a large storage room for books and a porch on which one might read, or from where one could take a walk in the gardens or from where works could be recited aloud to an audience.
The public libraries, being beautifully constructed with splendid colonnade façades, through which they were ascending stairs, so that, more than merely entering a library one ascended into a “Temple of the Wisdom".
Hadrian’s Library in Athens, 2nd century AD

The Library of Celsus in Ephesus, one of the most important Libraries in the Roman world, 2nd century AD
Evdokia Romanou, student/Alexandra Melista, teacher

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Libraries in ancient Greece and Rome

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