Libraries in the Ancient World [Paperback]

Lionel Casson (Author)

Book Description

Series: Yale Nota Bene | Publication Date: September 1, 2002

This work tells the story of Ancient libraries from their very beginnings, when "books" were clay tablets and writing was a new phenomenon. Classicist Lionel Casson takes us on a tour from the royal libraries of the Ancient Near East, through the private and public libraries of Greece and Rome, down to the first Christian monastic libraries. He explains what books were acquired and how, who read them, how they were organized, and more.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Dewey decimal system of cataloguing and its modern successors are relatively new, and they sometimes seem inadequate as ways of organizing knowledge in ever-changing fields of study. But the idea of bringing order to collections of written material is an ancient one, as Lionel Casson writes in this lucid survey of bibliophilia in the ancient Mediterranean. Among the earliest examples of written material that we have are lists of library holdings, clay tablets from Mesopotamia that archive commercial inventories, scholarly texts, and a surprising number of works on witchcraft and remedies against it.

Ancient libraries grew, Casson writes, by many means: by peaceful trade, as when book-hungry Romans spent extravagant sums on Greek texts made in southern Italy; by conquest, as when the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal looted the libraries of his ancient rival Babylon, carting the contents to his capital of Nineveh; and by fiat, as when the Egyptian pharaohs appropriated private collections to round out their own. Those libraries nourished the great philosophers and writers of old, shaping world culture into our own time. But, as Casson ably shows, the enemies of books are many, among them floods, fires, insects, and intolerance. As it is today, so it was in the past, and contending empires and ideologies too often expressed themselves by sacking and burning the collections of their enemies--by reason of which we have only a few of the works that engaged readers in the distant past.

Casson's slender book enhances our understanding of the role of books and their collectors in the ancient world, and bibliophiles and historians alike will find much of value in its pages. --Gregory McNamee --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

This, according to the author (Travel in the Ancient World; etc.), "is the first full-scale study of libraries in the ancient world." This alone will make the book very attractive to a readership well beyond those with professional interests in the ancient world. And yet the book's title sells its contents short since it is really about a great deal more than the curatorship of the written word through its very specialized beginnings in the Near East c. 3000 B. C. until the collapse of cities in the Western Roman world. Casson's book is not limited to where and when important libraries existed; it offers a social history transcending the idea of a library as we know it. Casson discusses literacy in the ancient world; the techniques of production and the materials from which books were made (clay tablets in the oldest repositories in the Near East; papyrus and parchment in the West); trade in books; the centrality of libraries as the predecessors of modern universities and research institutions; the organization of Greco-Roman libraries, which continues, necessarily modified, in today's libraries; the differences and intersections among royal, private and public libraries; the kinds of books favored by libraries and even observations on the concept of the rare book in antiquity. Detailed consideration of the architectural elements of ancient libraries (what did these libraries look like? Where and how were books stored? How were reading rooms arranged?) makes the book as appealing to the archeologist as the bibliophile.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (September 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300097212
• ISBN-13: 978-0300097214
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #112,602 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Libraries Before Books, August 6, 2001

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Libraries in the Ancient World (Hardcover)

There were libraries before there were books. A fascinating survey, _Libraries in the Ancient World_ (Yale University Press) by Lionel Casson, explains how the libraries were similar and different from our own, and how they managed without printing and without books as we know them. The similarities are reassuring and often delightful. We suspect there were Egyptian libraries, but we have never found one, because there are no masses of papyrus documents; such collections may have been lost in fires. The Sumerians, however, had written records were in cuneiform letters, pressed into clay. Some of the collections of these tablets offered the privilege of borrowing, and librarians then seem to have been bothered by two of the same problems that beset librarians now, theft and damage. Tablets bore warnings or curses calling upon the services of the local gods: "Whoever removes the tablet... may Ashur and Ninlil, angered and grim, cast him down, erase his name, his seed, in the land", "He who carries it off, may Adad and Shala carry him off!", and "Who rubs out the text, Marduk will look upon him with anger."

It was the Greeks who instituted libraries with aims similar to our own, shelves full of books on a wide range of subjects, available to readers who could come in and consult them. There was a demand for books, and by the fourth century BCE, bookselling was a flourishing industry. The booksellers probably employed scribes to turn out copies of works. There were no such things as royalties or author's rights. Rome conquered all, but Greece held intellectual sway over the Romans, who continued the library tradition. Roman libraries had bookshelves of a particular type set into the walls, and archeologists can spot the tell-tale imprint of the bookshelves and thereby identify a chamber as a library. Independent public libraries faded as the libraries became incorporated, surprisingly, into other structures, the baths. Here they served as part of a recreational and cultural center. Casson ends his story with the codex and the great monastic libraries. The codex is very much like a modern book, not a scroll, but a mass of pages sewn together with covers (perhaps of wood). It was less bulky (both sides of the paper being used) and could be held in one hand, with the other hand taking notes. It took a long time for the scrolls to die out, except among the Christians who used codices for their scriptures, possibly because of the pagan association to scrolls.

Casson, a Professor Emeritus of Classics, has gathered together an important tale not just of libraries but of reading and publishing. It is the first full study of libraries in the ancient world. If you love libraries and books, this is a fine book for learning about their earliest foundations.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Small, but complete, June 27, 2001

By 

Kurt A. Johnson (North-Central Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Libraries in the Ancient World (Hardcover)

In this delightful little book, Professor Lionel Casson traces the history of libraries from the archives of ancient Mesopotamia, through the extensive libraries of classical Greece, the Hellenistic kingdoms, and on to those of Rome, from its beginning to its final fall. Accompanying this, the author gives the history of literacy, and the evolution of writing technology--from the clay tablets of Sumer, through papyrus scrolls, to parchment codices.

For such a small work, this book is remarkably complete. The author covers literacy, the technology of book making, the architecture of libraries, the physical organization of the books, how the libraries were used, who had access to them, and so much more. I really enjoyed this book, and think that you will too!

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sparkling Libraries, April 25, 2001

By 

L. Wells (MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Libraries in the Ancient World (Hardcover)

For a book that could have been unspeakably dull, Libraries in the Ancient World is a fascinating (and easy to read) look at a neglected aspect of the classical world. Starting with Ebla and the Sumarians, it travels through Greece, Egypt, Rome and up into the Medieval world providing insight and amusing anecdotes about historical figures from ancient times. Most people have heard about the burning of the Library at Alexandria -- not many might realize it burned several times, and was rebuilt until the last burning finally destroyed it. One of Marc Antony's gifts to Cleopatra was scrolls to replace some burned in one fire. Early clay tablets show that one thing never changes for libraries; there is an invocation to the Gods asking that they wipe from the earth -- book thieves. It includes a bibliography if you want to do more investigation.