Chapter IV: Introduction: Assyrian Record-Rooms. Libraries in (2)

This investigation has shewn that three of the words applied to the preservation of books, namely, _nidus_, _forulus_, and _loculamentum_, may be rendered by the English "pigeon-hole"; and that _pegma_ and _pluteus_ mean contrivances of wood which may be rendered by the English "shelving." It is quite clear that _pegmata_ could be run up with great rapidity, from a very graphic account in Cicero's letters of the rearrangement of his library. He begins by writing to his friend Atticus as follows:

I wish you would send me any two fellows out of your
library, for Tyrannio to make use of as pasters, and
assistants in other matters. Remind them to bring some
vellum with them to make those titles (_indices_) which
you Greeks, I believe, call [Greek: silluboi]. You are
not to do this if it is inconvenient to you[84]....

In the next letter he says:

Your men have made my library gay with their
carpentry-work and their titles (_constructione et
sillybis_). I wish you would commend them[85].

When all is completed he writes:

Now that Tyrannio has arranged my books, a new spirit
has been infused into my house. In this matter the help
of your men Dionysius and Menophilus has been
invaluable. Nothing could look neater than those shelves
of yours (_illa tua pegmata_), since they smartened up
my books with their titles[86].

No other words than those I have been discussing are, so far as I know, applied by the best writers to the storage of books; and, after a careful study of the passages in which they occur, I conclude that, so long as rolls only had to be accommodated, private libraries in Rome were fitted with rows of shelves standing against the walls (_plutei_), or fixed to them (_pegmata_). The space between these horizontal shelves was subdivided by vertical divisions into pigeon-holes (_nidi_, _foruli_, _loculamenta_), and it may be conjectured that the width of these pigeon-holes would vary in accordance with the number of rolls included in a single work. That such receptacles were the common furniture of a library is proved, I think, by such evidence as the epigram of Martial quoted above, in which he tells his friend that if he will accept his poems, he may "put them even in the lowest pigeon-hole (_nido vel imo_)," as we should say, "on the bottom shelf"; and by the language of Seneca when he sneers at the "pigeon-holes (_loculamenta_) carried up to the ceiling."

The height of the woodwork varied, of course, with individual taste. In the library on the Esquiline the height was only three feet six inches; at Herculaneum about six feet.

I can find no hint of any doors, or curtains, in front of the pigeon-holes. That the ends of the rolls (_frontes_) were visible, is, I think, quite clear from what Cicero says of his own library after the construction of his shelves (_pegmata_); and the various devices for making rolls attractive seem to me to prove that they were intended to be seen.

A representation of rolls arranged on the system which I have attempted to describe, occurs on a piece of sculpture (fig. 11) found at Neumagen near Treves in the seventeenth century, among the ruins of a fortified camp attributed to Constantine the Great[87]. Two divisions, full of rolls, are shewn, from which a man, presumably the librarian, is selecting one. The ends of the rolls are furnished with tickets.

The system of pigeon-holes terminated, in all probability, in a cornice. The explorers of Herculaneum depose to the discovery of such an ornament there.

The wall-space above the book-cases was decorated with the likenesses of celebrated authors--either philosophers, if the owner of the library wished to bring into prominence his adhesion to one of the fashionable systems--or authors, dead and living, or personal friends. This obvious form of decoration was, in all probability, used at Pergamon[88]; Pollio, as we have seen, introduced it into Rome: and Pliny, who calls it a novelty (_novitium inventum_), deposes to its general adoption[89]. We are not told how these portraits were commonly treated--whether they were busts standing clear of the wall on the book-cases; or bracketed against the wall; or forming part of its decoration, in plaster-work or distemper. A suitable inscription accompanied them. Martial has preserved for us a charming specimen of one of these complimentary stanzas--for such they undoubtedly would be in the case of a contemporary--to be placed beneath his own portrait in a friend's library:

Hoc tibi sub nostra breve carmen imagine vivat
Quam non obscuris iungis, Avite, viris:
_Ille ego sum nulli nugarum laude secundus,
Quem non miraris, sed puto, lector, amas.
Maiores maiora sonent: mihi parva locuto
Sufficit in vestras saepe redire manus_[90].

Placed, with my betters, on your study-wall
Let these few lines, Avitus, me recall:
_To foremost rank in trifles I was raised;
I think men loved me, though they never praised.
Let greater poets greater themes profess:
My modest lines seek but the hand's caress
That tells me, reader, of thy tenderness._

The beautiful alto-relievo in the Lateran Museum, Rome, representing an actor selecting a mask, contains a contrivance for reading a roll (fig. 12) which may have been usual in libraries and elsewhere, though I have not met with another instance of it. A vertical support attached to the table on which two masks and a MS. are lying, carries a desk with a rim along its lower edge and one of its sides. The roll is partially opened, the closed portion lying towards the left side of the desk, next the rim. The roll may be supposed to contain the actor's part[91].

It is much to be regretted that we have no definite information as to the way in which the great public libraries built by Augustus were fitted up; but I see no reason for supposing that their fittings differed from those of private libraries.

When books (_codices_), of a shape similar to that with which modern librarians have to deal, had to be accommodated as well as rolls, it is manifest that rectangular spaces not more than a few inches wide would be singularly inconvenient. They were therefore discarded in favour of a press (_armarium_), a piece of furniture which would hold rolls (_volumina_) as well as books (_codices_), and was in fact, as I shall shew, used for both purposes. The word (_armarium_) occurs commonly in Cicero, and other writers of the best period, for a piece of furniture in which valuables of all kinds, and household gear, were stowed away; and Vitruvius[92] uses it for a book-case. A critic, he says, "produced from certain presses an infinite number of rolls." In later Latin writers--that is from the middle of the first century A.D.--no other word, speaking generally, occurs.

The jurist Ulpian, who died A.D. 228, in a discussion as to what is comprised under the term _liber_, decides in favour of including all rolls (_volumina_) of whatever material, and then considers the question whether _codices_ come under the same category or not--thereby shewing that in his day both forms of books were in use. Again, when a library (_bibliotheca_) has been bequeathed, it is questioned whether the bequest includes merely the press or presses (_armarium vel armaria_), or the books as well[93].

The Ulpian Library, or rather Libraries, in Trajan's Forum, built about 114 A.D.[94], were fitted up with presses, as we learn from the passage in Vopiscus which I have already quoted; and when the ruins of the section of that library which stood next to the Quirinal Hill were excavated by the French, a very interesting trace of one of these presses was discovered. Nibby, the Roman antiquary, thus describes it:

Beyond the above-mentioned bases [of the columns in the
portico] some remains of the inside of the room became
visible on the right. They consisted of a piece of
curtain-wall, admirably constructed of brick, part of
the side-wall, with a rectangular niche of large size in
the form of a press (_in foggia di armadio_). One
ascended to this by three steps, with a landing-place in
front of them, on which it was possible to stand with
ease. On the sides of this niche there still exist
traces of the hinges, on which the panels and the
wickets, probably of bronze, rested[95].

It seems to me that we have here an early instance, perhaps the earliest, of those presses in the thickness of the wall which were so common afterwards in the monasteries and in private libraries also. A similar press, on a smaller scale, is described by the younger Pliny: "My bedroom," he says, "has a press let into the wall which does duty as a library, and holds books not merely to be read, but read over and over again[96]."

It must not, however, be supposed that cupboards were always, or even usually, sunk into the wall in Roman times. They were detached pieces of furniture, not unlike the wardrobes in which ladies hang their dresses at the present day, except that they were fitted with a certain number of horizontal shelves, and were used for various purposes according to the requirements of their owners. For instance, there is a sarcophagus in the Museo Nazionale at Rome, on which is represented a shoemaker at work. In front of him is a cupboard, exactly like those I am about to describe, on the top of which several pairs of shoes are set out.

I can, however, produce three representations of such presses being used by the Romans to contain books.

The first occurs on a marble sarcophagus (fig. 13), now in the garden of the Villa Balestra, Rome, where I had the good fortune to find it in 1898[97]; and Professor Petersen, of the German Archaeological School, was so kind as to have it photographed for me. He assigns the work to about 200 A.D.

From a photograph of a sarcophagus in the garden of the Villa Balestra. Rome.]

In the central portion, 21 in. high, by 15 1/2 in. wide, is a seated figure, reading a roll. In front of him is a cupboard, the doors of which are open. It is fitted with two shelves, on the uppermost of which are eight rolls, the ends of which are turned to the spectator. On the next shelf is something which looks like a dish or shallow cup. The lower part of the press is solid. Perhaps a second cupboard is intended. Above, it is finished off with a cornice, on which rests a very puzzling object. There are a few faint lines on the marble, which Professor Petersen believes are intended to represent surgical instruments, and so to indicate the profession of the seated figure[98]. There is a Greek inscription on the sarcophagus, but it merely warns posterity not to disturb the bones of the deceased[99].

The second representation (fig. 14) is from the tomb of Galla Placidia, at Ravenna. It occurs in a mosaic on the wall of the chapel in which she was buried, A.D. 449[100]; and was presumably executed before that date. The press closely resembles the one on the Roman sarcophagus, but it is evidently intended to indicate a taller piece of furniture, and it terminates in a pediment. There are two shelves, on which lie the four Gospels, each as a separate _codex_, indicated by the name of the Evangelist above it. This press rests upon a stout frame, the legs of which are kept in position by a cross-piece nearly as thick as themselves.

From a mosaic above the tomb of the Empress Galla Placidia at Ravenna.]

The third representation of an _armarium_ (fig. 15) occurs in the manuscript of the Vulgate now in the Laurentian Library at Florence, known as the _Codex Amiatinus_, from the Cistercian convent of Monte Amiata in Tuscany, where it was preserved for several centuries[101]. The thorough investigation to which this manuscript has lately been subjected shews that it was written in England, at Wearmouth or Jarrow, but possibly by an Italian scribe, before A.D. 716, in which year it was taken to Rome, as a present to the Pope. The first quaternion, however, on one of the leaves of which the above representation occurs, is probably older; and it may have belonged to a certain _Codex grandior_ mentioned by Cassiodorus, and possibly written under his direction[102].

The picture (fig. 15), which appears as the frontispiece to this work, shews Ezra writing the law. On the margin of the vellum, in a hand which is considered to be later than that of the MS., are the words:

CODICIBUS SACRIS HOSTILI CLADE PERVSTIS
ESDRA DEO FERVENS HOC REPARAVIT OPUS.

Behind him is a press (_armarium_) with open doors. The lower portion, below these doors, is filled in with panels which are either inlaid or painted, so that the frame on which it is supported is not visible, as in the Ravenna example. The bottom of the press proper is used as a shelf, on which lie a volume and two objects, one of which probably represents a case for pens, while the other is certainly an inkhorn. Above this are four shelves, on each of which lie two volumes. These volumes have their titles written on their backs, but they are difficult to make out, and my artist has not cared to risk mistakes by attempting to reproduce them. The words, beginning at the left hand corner of the top-shelf, are:

OCT.[103] LIB. REG.
HIST. LIB. PSALM. LIB.
SALOMON. PROPH.
EVANG. IIII. EPIST. XXI.
ACT. APOSTOL.

The frame-work of the press above the doors is ornamented in the same style as the panels below, and the whole is surmounted by a low pyramid, on the side of which facing the spectator is a cross, beneath which are two peacocks drinking from a water-trough.

I regret that I could not place this remarkable drawing before my readers in the rich colouring of the original. The press is of a reddish brown: the books are bound in crimson. Ezra is clad in green, with a crimson robe. The background is gold. The border is blue, between an inner and outer band of silver. The outermost band of all is vermilion.

I formerly thought that this book-press might represent those in use in England at the beginning of the eighth century; but, if the above attribution to Cassiodorus be accurate, it must be accounted another Italian example. It bears a general similarity to the Ravenna book-press, as might be expected, when it is remembered that Cassiodorus held office under Theodoric and his successors, and resided at Ravenna till he was nearly seventy years old.

The foundation of Christianity did not alter what I may call the Roman conception of a library in any essential particular. The philosophers and authors of Greece and Rome may have occasionally found themselves in company with, or even supplanted by, the doctors of the Church; but in other respects, for the first seven centuries, at least, of our era, the learned furnished their libraries according to the old fashion, though with an ever increasing luxury of material. Boethius, whose _Consolation of Philosophy_ was written A.D. 525, makes Philosophy speak of the "walls of a library adorned with ivory and glass[104]"; and Isidore, Bishop of Seville A.D. 600-636, records that "the best architects object to gilded ceilings in libraries, and to any other marble than _cipollino_ for the floor, because the glitter of gold is hurtful to the eyes, while the green of _cipollino_ is restful to them[105]."

A few examples of such libraries may be cited; but, before doing so, I must mention the Record-Office (_Archivum_), erected by Pope Damasus (366-384). It was connected with the Basilica of S. Lawrence, which Damasus built in the Campus Martius, near the theatre of Pompey. On the front of the Basilica, over the main entrance, was an inscription, which ended with the three following lines:

ARCHIVIS FATEOR VOLUI NOVA CONDERE TECTA ADDERE PRAETEREA
DEXTRA LAEVAQUE COLUMNAS QUAE DAMASI TENEANT PROPRIUM PER
SAECULA NOMEN.

I confess that I have wished to build a new abode for
Archives; and to add columns on the right and left to
preserve the name of Damasus for ever.

These enigmatical verses contain all that we know, or are ever likely to know, respecting this building, which is called _chartarium ecclesiae Romanae_ by S. Jerome[106], and unquestionably held the official documents of the Latin Church until they were removed to the Lateran in the seventh century. The whole building, or group of buildings, was destroyed in 1486 by Cardinal Raphael Riario, the dissolute nephew of Sixtus IV., to make room for his new palace, now called Palazzo della Cancelleria, and the church was rebuilt on a new site. The connexion with Pope Damasus is maintained by the name, S. Lorenzo in Damaso. No plan of the old buildings, or contemporary record of their arrangement, appears to exist. My only reason for drawing attention to a structure which has no real connexion with my subject is that the illustrious De Rossi considers that in the second line of the above quotation the word column signifies colonnades; and that Damasus took as his model one of the great pagan libraries of Rome which, in its turn, had been derived from the typical library at Pergamon[107]. According to this view he began by building, in the centre of the area selected, a basilica, or hall of basilican type, dedicated to S. Lawrence; and then added, on the north and south sides, a colonnade or loggia from which the rooms occupied by the records would be readily accessible. This opinion is also held by Signor Lanciani, who follows De Rossi without hesitation. I am unwilling to accept a theory which seems to me to have no facts to support it; and find it safer to believe that the line in question refers either to the aisles of the basilica, or to such a portico in front of it as may be seen at San Clemente and other early churches.

A letter to Eucherius, Bishop of Lyons in A.D. 441, from a correspondent named Rusticus, gives a charming picture of a library which he had visited in his young days, say about A.D. 400:

I am reminded of what I read years ago, hastily, as a
boy does, in the library of a man who was learned in
secular literature. There were there portraits of
Orators and also of Poets worked in mosaic, or in wax of
different colours, or in plaster, and under each the
master of the house had placed inscriptions noting their
characteristics; but, when he came to a poet of
acknowledged merit, as for instance, Virgil, he began as
follows:

Virgilium vatem melius sua carmina laudant;
In freta dum fluvii current, dum montibus umbrae
Lustrabunt convexa, polus dum sidera pascet,
Semper honos nomenque tuum laudesque manebunt.

Virgil's own lines most fitly Virgil praise:
As long as rivers run into the deep,
As long as shadows o'er the hillside sweep,
As long as stars in heaven's fair pastures graze,
So long shall live your honour, name, and praise.[108]

Agapetus, who was chosen Pope in 535, and lived for barely a year, had intended, in conjunction with Cassiodorus, to found a college for teachers of Christian doctrine. He selected for this purpose a house on the Caelian Hill, afterwards occupied by S. Gregory, and by him turned into a monastery. Agapetus had made some progress with the scheme, so far as the library attached to the house was concerned, for the author of the Einsiedlen MS., who visited Rome in the ninth century, saw the following inscription "in the library of S. Gregory"--i.e. in the library attached to the Church of San Gregorio Magno.

SANCTORVM VENERANDA COHORS SEDET ORDINE LONGO
DIVINAE LEGIS MYSTICA DICTA DOCENS
HOS INTER RESIDENS AGAPETVS IVRE SACERDOS
CODICIBVS PVLCHRVM CONDIDIT ARTE LOCVM
GRATIA PAR CVNCTIS SANCTVS LABOR OMNIBVS VNVS
DISSONA VERBA QVIDEM SED TAMEN VNA FIDES

Here sits in long array a reverend troop
Teaching the mystic truths of law divine:
'Mid these by right takes Agapetus place
Who built to guard his books this fair abode.
All toil alike, all equal grace enjoy--
Their words are different, but their faith the same.

These lines undoubtedly imply that there was on the walls a long series of portraits of the Fathers of the Church, including that of Agapetus himself, who had won his right to a place among them by building a sumptuous home for their works[109].

The design of Agapetus, interrupted by death, was carried forward by his friend Cassiodorus, at a place in South Italy called Vivarium, near his own native town Squillace. Shortly after his final retirement from court, A.D. 538, Cassiodorus established there a brotherhood, which, for a time at least, must have been a formidable rival to that of S. Benedict. A library held a prominent place in his conception of what was needed for their common life. He says little about its size or composition, but much rhetoric is expended on the contrivances by which its usefulness and attractiveness were to be increased. A staff of bookbinders was to clothe the manuscripts in decorous attire; self-supplying lamps were to light nocturnal workers; sundials by day, and water-clocks by night, enabled them to regulate their hours. Here also was a _scriptorium_, and it appears probable that between the exertions of Cassiodorus and his friend Eugippius, South Italy was well supplied with manuscripts[110].

These attempts to snatch from oblivion libraries which, though probably according to our ideas insignificant, were centres of culture in the darkest of dark ages, will be illustrated by the fuller information that has come down to us respecting the library of Isidore, Bishop of Seville 600-636. The "verses composed by himself for his own presses," to quote the oldest manuscript containing them[111], have been preserved, with the names of the writers under whose portraits they were inscribed.

There were fourteen presses, arranged as follows:

I. Origen.
II. Hilary.
III. Ambrose.
IV. Augustine.
V. Jerome.
VI. Chrysostom.
VII. Cyprian.
VIII. Prudentius.
IX. Avitus, Juvencus, Sedulius.
X. Eusebius, Orosius.
XI. Gregory.
XII. Leander.
XIII. Theodosius, Paulus, Gaius.
XIV. Cosmas, Damian, Hippocrates, Galen.

These writers are probably those whom Isidore specially admired, or had some particular reason for commemorating. The first seven are obvious types of theologians, and the presses over which they presided were doubtless filled not merely with their own works, but with bibles, commentaries, and works on Divinity in general. Eusebius and Orosius are types of ecclesiastical historians; Theodosius, Paulus, and Gaius, of jurists; Cosmas, Damian, etc. of physicians. But the Christian poets Prudentius to Sedulius could hardly have needed two presses to contain their works; nor Gregory the Great the whole of one. Lastly, Leander, Isidore's elder brother, could only owe his place in the series to fraternal affection. I conjecture that these portraits were simply commemorative; and that the presses beneath them contained the books on subjects not suggested by the rest of the portraits, as for example, secular literature, in which Isidore was a proficient.

The sets of verses[112] begin with three elegiac couplets headed _Titulus Bibliothece_, probably placed over the door of entrance.

Sunt hic plura sacra, sunt hic mundalia plura:
Ex his si qua placent carmina, tolle, lege.
Prata vides, plena spinis, et copia florum;
Si non vis spinas sumere, sume rosas.
Hic geminae radiant veneranda volumina legis;
Condita sunt pariter hic nova cum veteri.

Here sacred books with worldly books combine;
If poets please you, read them; they are thine.
My meads are full of thorns, but flowers are there;
If thorns displease, let roses be your share.
Here both the Laws in tomes revered behold;
Here what is new is stored, and what is old.

The authors selected are disposed of either in a single couplet, or in several couplets, according to the writer's taste. I will quote the lines on S. Augustine:

Mentitur qui [te] totum legisse fatetur:
An quis cuneta tua lector habere potest?
Namque voluminibus mille, Augustine, refulges,
Testantur libri, quod loquor ipse, tui.
Quamvis multorum placeat prudentia libris,
Si Augustinus adest, sufficit ipse tibi.

They lie who to have read thee through profess;
Could any reader all thy works possess?
A thousand scrolls thy ample gifts display;
Thy own books prove, Augustine, what I say.
Though other writers charm with varied lore,
Who hath Augustine need have nothing more.

The series concludes with some lines "To an Intruder (_ad Interventorem_)," the last couplet of which is too good to be omitted:

Non patitur quenquam coram se scriba loquentem;
Non est hic quod agas, garrule, perge foras.

A writer and a talker can't agree:
Hence, idle chatterer; 'tis no place for thee.

With these three examples I conclude the section of my work which deals with what may be called the pagan conception of a library in the fulness of its later development. Unfortunately, no enthusiast of those distant times has handed down to us a complete description of his library, and we are obliged to take a detail from one account, and a detail from another, and so piece the picture together for ourselves. What I may call "the pigeon-hole system," suitable for rolls only, was replaced by presses which could contain rolls if required, and certainly did (as shewn (fig. 13) on the sarcophagus of the Villa Balestra), but which were specially designed for _codices_. These presses were sometimes plain, sometimes richly ornamented, according to the taste or the means of the owner. With the same limitations the floor, the walls, and possibly the roof also were decorated. Further, it was evidently intended that the room selected for books should be used for no other purpose; and, as the books were hidden from view in their presses, the library-note, if I may be allowed the expression, was struck by numerous inscriptions, and by portraits in various materials, representing either authors whose works were on the shelves, or men distinguished in other ways, or friends and relations of the owner of the house.

The Roman conception of a library was realised by Pope Sixtus V., in 1587[113], when the present Vatican Library was commenced from the design of the architect Fontana. I am not aware that there is any contemporary record to prove that either the Pope or his advisers contemplated this direct imitation; but it is evident, from the most cursory inspection of the large room (fig. 16), that the main features of a Roman library are before us[114]; and perhaps, having regard to the tendency of the Renaissance, especially in Italy, it would be unreasonable to expect a different design in such a place, and at such a period.

This noble hall--probably the most splendid apartment ever assigned to library-purposes--spans the Cortile del Belvedere from east to west, and is entered at each end from the galleries connecting the Belvedere with the Vatican palace. It is 184 feet long, and 57 feet wide, divided into two by six piers, on which rest simple quadripartite vaults. The north and south walls are each pierced with seven large windows. No books are visible. They are contained in plain wooden presses 7 feet high and 2 feet deep, set round the piers, and against the walls between the windows. The arrangement of these presses will be understood from the general view (fig. 16), and from the view of a single press open (fig. 17).

In the decoration, with which every portion of the walls and vaults is covered, Roman methods are reproduced, but with a difference. The great writers of antiquity are conspicuous by their absence; but the development of the human race is commemorated by the presence of those to whom the invention of letters is traditionally ascribed; the walls are covered with frescoes representing the foundation of the great libraries which instructed the world, and the assemblies of the Councils which established the Church; the vaults record the benefits conferred on Rome by Sixtus V., in a series of historical views, one above each window; and over these again are stately figures, each embodying some sacred abstraction--"Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers"--with angels swinging censers, and graceful nymphs, and laughing satyrs--a strange combination of paganism and Christianity--amid wreaths of flowers, and arabesques twining round the groups and over every vacant space, partly framing, partly hiding, the heraldic devices which commemorate Sixtus and his family:--a web of lovely forms and brilliant colours, combined in an intricate and yet orderly confusion.

It may be questioned whether such a room as this was ever intended for study. The marble floor, the gorgeous decoration, the absence of all appliances for work in the shape of desks, tables, chairs, suggest a place for show rather than for use. The great libraries of the Augustan age, on the other hand, seem, so far as we can judge, to have been used as meeting-places and reading-rooms for learned and unlearned alike. In general arrangement and appearance, however, the Vatican Library must closely resemble its imperial predecessors.

From a photograph.]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon_, 2 vols., 8vo. Lond. 1853. Vol. II., p. 343.

[2] Ezra, vi. I.

[3] Mr Layard gives a view of the interior of one of these rooms (p. 345) after it had been cleared of rubbish.

[4] _La Bibliotheque du Palais de Ninive_, par M. Joachim Menant. 8vo. Paris, 1880, p. 32.

[5] The two languages are the ancient Sumerian and the more modern Assyrian.

[6] Athenaeus, Book 1., Chap. 4.

[7] _Noct. Att._ Book VII., Chap. 17. Libros Athenis disciplinarum liberalium publice ad legendum praebendos primus posuisse dicitur Pisistratus tyrannus.

[8] Xenophon, _Memorabilia_, Book IV., Chap. 2.

[9] Aristoph. _Ranae_, 1407-1410, translated by J. H. Frere. The passage has been quoted by Castellani, _Biblioteche nell' Antichita_, 8vo., Bologna, 1884, pp. 7, 8, and many others.

[10] Strabo, ed. Kramer, Berlin, 8vo., 1852, Book XIII., Chap. I, Sec. 54. [Greek: protos hon hismen synagagon biblia, kai didaxas tous en Aigypto basileas bibliothekes syntaxin.]

[11] Book XIII., Chap. 4, Sec. 2.

[12] Book XVII., Chap. 1, Sec. 8. [Greek: ton de basileion meros esti kai to Mouseion, echon peripaton kai exedran kai oikon megan, en ps to sussition ton metechonton tou Mouseion philologon andron esti de te sunodo taute kai chremata koina kai iereus o epi to Monseio, tetagmenos tote men upo ton Basileon nun d upo Kaisaros.]

[13] One of the anonymous lives of Apollonius Rhodius states that he presided over the Museum Libraries ([Greek: ton bibliothekon ton Mouseion]).

[14] Epiphanius, De Pond. et Mens., Chap. 12. [Greek: eti de usteron kai etera egeneto bibliotheke en to Serateio, mikrotera tes protes, etis thugater onomasthe autes.]

[15] Ammianus Marcellinus, Book XXII., Chap. 16, Sec. 12. Atriis columnariis amplissimis et spirantibus signorum figmentis ita est exornatum, ut post Capitolium quo se venerabilis Roma in aeternum attollit, nihil orbis terrarum ambitiosius cernat. See also Aphthonius, _Progymn._ C. XII. ed. Walz, _Rhetores Graeci_, i. 106.

[16] Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, Book V., Chap. 30. Longeque clarissimum Asiae Pergamum.

[17] Strabo, Book XIII., Chap. 4, Sec. 2. After recounting the successful policy of Eumenes II. towards the Romans, he proceeds: [Greek: kateskenase de ontos ten polin, kai to Nikephorion alsei katephuteuse, kai anathemata kai bibliothekas kai ten epi tosonde katoikian tou Pergamon ten nun ousan ekeinos prosephilokalese].

[18] _De Architectura_, Book VII., Praefatio. The passage is quoted in the next note.

[19] Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, Book XIII., Chap. 11. Mox aemulatione circa bibliothecas regum Ptolemaei et Eumenis, supprimente chartas Ptolemaeo, idem Varro membranas Pergami tradidit repertas. Vitruvius, on the other hand (_ut supra_) makes Ptolemy found the library at Alexandria as a rival to that at Pergamon. Reges Attalici magnis philologiae dulcedinibus inducti cum egregiam bibliothecam Pergami ad communem delectationem instituissent, tune item Ptolemaeus, infinito zelo cupiditatisque incitatus studio, non minoribus industriis ad eundem modum contenderat Alexandriae comparare.

[20] Plutarch, _Antonius_, Chap. 57. To a list of accusations against Antony for his subservience to Cleopatra, is added the fact: [Greek: charisasthai men aute tas ek Pergamon bibliothekas, en ais eikosi muriades biblon aplon esan].

[21] _Altertuemer von Pergamon_, Fol., Berlin, 1885, Band 11. Das Heiligtum der Athena Polias Nikephoros, von Richard Bohn. The ground-plan (fig. 2) is reduced from Plate III. in that volume.

[22] _Die Pergamenische Bibliothek._ Sitzungsberichte der Koenigl. Preuss. Akad. der Wiss. zu Berlin, 1884, II. 1259-1270.

[23] In my first lecture as Sandars Reader at Cambridge in the Lent Term, 1900, I pointed out that this enclosure was of about the same size as Nevile's Court at Trinity College, if to the central area there we add the width of one of the cloisters; and that the temple of Athena was of exactly the same width as the Hall, but about 15 feet shorter. Nevile's Court is 230 feet long from the inside of the pillars supporting the Library to the wall of the Hall; and it has a mean breadth of 137 feet. If the width of the cloister, 20 feet, be added to this, we get 157 feet in lieu of the 162 feet at Pergamon.

[24] Now in the Royal Museum, Berlin.

[25] Similar sockets have been discovered in the walls of the chambers connected with the Stoa of King Attalus at Athens. These chambers are thought to have been shops, and the sockets to have supported shelves on which wares were exposed for sale. Conze, ut supra, p. 1260; Adler, _Die Stoa des Koenigs Attalos zu Athen_, Berlin, 1874; Murray's _Handbook for Greece_, ed. 1884, 1. p. 255.

[26] Suetonius, _Caesar_, Chap. 44.

[27] Pliny, _Nat. Hist._, Book VII., Chap. 30; Book XXXV., Chap. 2.

[28] Suetonius, _Augustus_, Chap. 29.

[29] Isidore, _Origines_, Book VI., Chap. 5.

[30] Lanciani, _Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome_, ed. 1897, p. 471. Middleton, Ancient Rome, 1892, II. 204, 205.

[31] Nibby, _Roma Antica_, p. 601. [Augusto] vi aggiunse un luogo per conversare chiamato _Schola_.

[32] Vell. Pat., Book 1., Chap. II. Hic est Metellus Macedonicus qui porticus quae fuere circumdatae duabus aedibus sine inscriptione positis, quae nunc Octaviae porticibus ambiuntur, fecerat.

[33] Suet. _De Illustr. Gramm._ c. 2.

[34] Middleton, _Ancient Rome_, 1892, II. 205.

[35] I have taken these dimensions from Middleton's Plan of the Palatine Hill (_ut supra_, p. 156), but until the site has been excavated they must be more or less conjectural.

[36] Middleton, _Ibid._, I. 185-188. The evidence for the portraits rests on the following passage in the _Annals_ of Tacitus ii. 37, where he is relating how Hortalus, grandson of the orator Hortensius, being reduced to poverty, came with his four children to the Senate: "igitur quatuor filiis ante limen curiae adstantibus, loco sententiae, cum in Palatio senatus haberetur, modo Hortensii inter oratores sitam imaginem, modo Augusti, intuens, ad hunc modum coepit."

[37] Pausanias, _Attica_, Book I., Chap. 18, Sec. 9, ed. J. G. Frazer, Vol. I., p. 26.

[38] The above description is derived from Miss Harrison's book, _ut supra_, pp. 195-198; Pausanias, ed. J. G. Frazer, Vol. II., pp. 184, 185.

[39] Eusebius, _Chronicon_, ed. Schoene, Vol. II., p. 167.

[40] Middleton, _Ancient Rome_, I. 186.

[41] _Tristia_, III. 59.

[42] _Epist._, I. 3. 17.

[43] _Noctes Atticae_, V. 21. 9.

[44] Vopiscus, _Hist. Aug. Script._, II. 637.

[45] Aulus Gellius, _ut supra_, XVI. 8. 2.

[46] _Ibid._, XI. 17. 1.

[47] Flavii Vopisci _Tacitus_, c. 8.

[48] Id., _Aurelianus_, c. 1.

[49] _Noctes Atticae_, XIX. 5.

[50] Plutarch, _Lucullus_, Chap. XLII. [Greek: Spondes d' axia kai logoy ta peri ten ton biblion kataskeuen. kai gar polla, kai gegrammena kalos, sunege, e te chresis en philotimotera tes kteseos, aneimenon pasi ton bibliothekon, kai ton peri autas peripaton kai scholaoterlon akolutos upodechomenon tous Ellenas, osper eis Mouson ti katagogion ekeise phoitontas kai sundiemereuontas allelois, apo ton allon chreion asmenos apotrechontas].

[51] _De Tranquillitate Animi_, Chap. IX. Studiorum quoque quae liberalissima impensa est, tamdiu rationem habet quamdiu modum. Quo innumerabiles libros et bibliothecas quarum dominus vix tota vita indices perlegit? onerat discentem turba, non instruit, multoque satius est paucis te auctoribus tradere, quam errare per multos. Quadraginta milia librorum Alexandriae arserunt: pulcherrimum regiae opulentiae monumentum alius laudaverit, sicut et Livius, qui _elegantiae regum curaeque egregium id opus_ ait _fuisse_: non fuit elegantia illud aut cura, sed studiosa luxuria, immo ne studiosa quidem, quoniam non in studium sed in spectaculum comparaverant sicut plerisque ignaris etiam servilium literarum libri non studiorum instrumenta sed coenationum ornamenta sunt. Paretur itaque librorum quantum satis sit, nihil in adparatum. "Honestius" inquis "hoc impensis quas in Corinthia pictasque tabulas effuderim." Vitiosum est ubique quod nimium est. Quid habes cur ignoscas homini armaria citro atque ebore captanti, corpora conquirenti aut ignotorum auctorum aut improbatorum et inter tot milia librorum oscitanti, cui voluminum suorum frontes maxime placent titulique? Apud desidiosissimos ergo videbis quicquid orationum historiarumque est, tecto tenus exstructa loculamenta. Iam enim inter balnearia et thermas bibliotheca quoque ut necessarium domus ornamentum expolitur. Ignoscerem plane, si studiorum nimia cupidine oriretur: nunc ista conquisita, cum imaginibus suis descripta, sacrorum opera ingeniorum in speciem et cultum parietum comparantur. With this passage may be compared Lucian's tract: [Greek: Eros apaideuton kai polla biblia onoumenon.] My friend Mr F. Darwin in informs me that the Latin citrus, or Greek [Greek: kedros], is the coniferous tree called _Thuia articulata = Callitris quadrivalvis_. See Helm, _Kulturpflanzen_, Berl. 1894. Engl. Trans, p. 431.

[52] Lanciani, _Ancient Rome_, 8vo. 1888, p. 193.

[53] _Ancient Rome_, ed. 1892, ii. 254.

[54] _Phil. Trans._, Vol. XLVIII., Pt 2, p. 634.

[55] _Ibid._, p. 821.

[56] _Ibid._, p. 825.

[57] _Opere di G. G. Winckelmann_, Prato, 1831, VII. 197.

[58] Lanciani, _Ruins of Ancient Rome_, pp. 213-217. He describes and figures Ligorio's elevation, from MS. Vat. 3439, in _Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma_, Ann. X. Ser. II., 1882. pp. 29-54. See also Middleton, _Ancient Rome_, 1892, II. 15-19. The plan of Rome called the Capitoline Plan, because it is now preserved in the Museum of the Capitol, was fixed to the north-east wall (fig. 7. 3).

[59] The average length of a roll may be taken at 20-30 ft.; the width at 9-11 in. See _The Palaeography of Greek Papyri_, by F. G. Kenyon, Oxf. 1899, Chap. II.

[60] The breadth of these columns from left to right was not great, and their length was considerably shorter than the width of the roll, as a margin was left at the top and bottom.

[61] _Antichita di Ercolano_, Fol. Napoli, 1779. Vol. V., Tavola 55, p. 243.

[62] In this statue the roll is a restoration, but a perfectly correct one. It is original, and slightly different, in the replica of the statue at Knowle Park, Sevenoaks, Kent. See a paper on this statue by J. E. Sandys. Litt.D. in _Melanges Weil_, 1898. pp. 423-428.

[63] Horace, _Epodes_, XIV. 5-8. Comp. Martial, _Epigrams_, IV. 89. Ohe! libelle, Iam pervenimus usque ad umbilicos.

[64] _Tristia_, I. i. 109.

[65] Catullus (XXII. 7) says of a roll which had been got up with special smartness:

Novi umbilici, lora rubra, membrana
Directa plumbo, et pumice omnia aequata.

[66] Lucian, _Adv. Indoct._, Chap. 16.

[67] _Epigrams_, X. 93.

[68] My friend M. R. James, Litt.D., of King's College, has kindly given me the following note: In the apocryphal Assumption of Moses Joshua is told to 'cedar' Moses' words (= rolls), and to lay them up in Jerusalem: "quos ordinabis et chedriabis et repones in vasis fictilibus in loco quem fecit [Deus] ab initio creaturae orbis terrarum." Assump. Mos., ed. Charles, I. 17. See also Dueange, s.v. Cedria. Vitruvius (II. ix. 13) says: "ex cedro oleum quod cedreum dicitur nascitur, quo reliquae res cum sint unctae, uti etiam libri, a tineis et earie non laeduntur." See above, p. 22.

[69] _Epigrams_, III. ii. 6.

[70] Ovid (_Tristia_, I. i. 105) addressing his book, says:

Cum tamen in nostrum fueris penetrale receptus
Contigerisque tuam, scrinia curva, domum.

[71] _Epigrams_, I. 117.

[72] _Epigrams_, VII. 17.

[73] Suet. _Aug._ 31. Libros Sibyllinos condidit duobus _forulis_ auratis sub Palatini Apollinis basi.

[74] _Sat._ III. 219.

[75] _Georg._ IV. 250.

[76] _De Re Rustica_, VIII. 8. Paxillis adactis tabulae superponantur; quae vel loculamenta quibus nidificent aves, vel fictilia columbaria, recipiant.

[77] _Ibid._, IX. 12. 2. The writer, having described bees swarming, proceeds: protinus custos novum loculamentum in hoc praeparatum perlinat intrinsecus praedictis herbis ... tum manibus aut etiam trulla congregatas apes recondat, atque ... diligenter compositum et illitum vas ... patiatur in eodem loco esse dum advesperascat. Primo deinde crepusculo transferat et reponat in ordinem reliquarum alvorum.

[78] Vegetius, _Art. Vet._, III. 32. Si iumento loculamenta dentium vel dentes doluerint.

[79] Vitruvius, _De Arch._, ed. Schneider, X. 9. Insuper autem ad capsum redae loculamentum firmiter figatur habens tympanum versatile in cultro collocatum, etc.

[80] Dr. Sandys, in his edition of Aristotle's _Constitution of Athens_, 1893, p. 174, has shewn that in the office of the public clerk a similar contrivance was used, called [Greek: epistulion]: "a shelf supporting a series of pigeon-holes, and itself supported by wooden pedestals."

[81] Ulpian, _Digest_, 33. 7. 12. In emptionem domus et specularia et pegmata cedere solent, sive in aediticiis sint posita, sive ad tempus detracta.

[82] _Ibid._, 29. 1. 17. Reticuli circa columnas, plutei circa parietes, item cilicia, vela, aedium non sunt.

[83] _Sat._ II. 4. I do not think that these lines refer to a library. The whole house, not a single room in it, is full of plaster busts of philosophers.

[84] _Ep._ cv. (ed. Billerbeck); _Ad Att._ IV. 4, p. 2.

[85] _Ep._ cvi. (_ibid._); _Ad Att._ IV. 5.

[86] _Ep._ cxi. (_ibid._); _Ad Att._ IV. 8.

[87] This cut is given in _Antiquitatum et Annalium Trevirensium libri_ XXV. Auctoribus RR. PP. Soc. Jesu P. Christophoro Browero, et P. Jacobo Masenio. 2 v. fol. Leodii, 1670. It is headed: Schema voluminum in bibliothecam (sic) ordine olim digestorum Noviomagi in loco Castrorum Constantini M. hodiedum in lapide reperto excisum. See also C. G. Schwarz, _De Ornamentis Librorum_, 4to, Lips. 1756, pp. 86, 172, 231, and Tab. II., fig. 4. I learnt this reference from Sir E. M. Thompson's _Handbook of Greek and Latin Palaeography_, ed. 2, 1894, p. 57, _note_. The Director of the Museum at Treves informs me that all the antiquities discovered at Neumagen were destroyed in the seventeenth century.

[88] See above, p. 11.

[89] _Ibid._, p. 12.

[90] _Epigrams_, Lib. IX. _Introduction_.

[91] The whole relief is figured in Seyffert, _Dictionary of Classical Antiquities_, ed. Nettleship and Sandys, p. 649.

[92] _De Architectura_, Lib. VII, Pref. [Aristophanes] e certis amiariis infinita volumina eduxit.

[93] _Digesta Justiniani Augusti_, ed. Mommsen. 8vo. Berlin, 1870. Vol. II. p. 88. Book XXXII. 52.

[94] This is the date of the _Columna cochlis_. Middleton's Rome, II. 24 note.

[95] Nibby, _Roma Antica_, 8vo. Roma, 1839, p. 188.

[96] _Epist._ II. 17. 8. Parieti eius [cubiculi mei] in bibliothecae speciem armarium insertum est quod non legendos libros sed lectitandos capit.

[97] I should not have known of the existence of this sarcophagus had it not been figured, accurately enough on the whole, in _Le Palais de Scaurus_, by Mazois, published at Paris in 1822. The sarcophagus had passed through the hands of several collectors since Mazois figured it, and I had a long and amusing search for it.

[98] _Mittheilungen des K. D. Archaeologischen Instituts Rom_, 1900, Band XV. p. 171. Der Sarkophag eines Arztes.

[99] The inscription is printed in full in _Antike Bilderwerke in Rom ... beschrieben von Friedrich Matz., und F. von Duhn_, 3 vols., 8vo. Leipzig, 1881, Vol. II. p. 346, No. 3127^*.

[100] Garrucci, _Arte Christiana_, Vol. IV. p. 39. It would appear from some curious drawings on glass figured by Garrucci, _ut supra_ Pl. 490, that the Jews used presses of similar design in their synagogues to contain the rolls of the law.

[101] The original of this picture is 18 in. high by 9-3/4 in. broad, including the border. It could not be photographed, and therefore, through the kind offices of Miss G. Dixon, and Signor Biagi, Librarian of the Laurentian Library, the services of a thoroughly capable artist, Professor Attilio Formilli, were secured to make an exact copy in water colours. This he has done with singular taste and skill. My figure has been reduced from this copy. The press has also been figured in outline by Garrucci, _Arte Christiana_, Vol. III., Pl. 126.

[102] The romantic story of the _Codex Amiatinus_ is fully narrated by Mr H. J. White in _Studia Biblica et Ecclesiastica_, 8vo. Oxf. 1890, II. pp. 273-308.

[103] The _Octateuch_, or, the five books of Moses, with the addition of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth.

[104] _Consol. Philosoph._, Book I. Ch. 5. Nec bibliothecae potius comptos ebore ac vitro parietes quam tuae mentis sedem requiro.

[105] _Origines_, Book VI. Ch. ii. Cum peritiores architecti neque aurea lacunaria ponenda in bibliothecis putent neque pavimenta alia quam a Carysteo marmore, quod auri fulgor hebetat et Carystei viriditas reficiat oculos.

[106] _Apol. adv. Rufinum_, ii. 20: Opera, ed. Vallarsi, II. 549.

[107] _De Origine Historia Indicibus scrinii et bibliothecae Sedis Apostolicae commentatio Ioannis Baptistae de Rossi...._ 4to. Romae, 1886,