Ancient Greek and Roman Libraries
Gresham College Lectures
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The History of the Library
The selection or de selection of books for inclusion in a librari's collection was already acknowledged in antiquity to have been a highly political issue. Caligula said that virgil was a writer devoid of literary skill and edition. On the other hand, we may have so much of the historian tacitus certaainly because a third century emperor who accidentally had the same name, ordered all the libraries to make a comprehensive collection of tacitu's works. So the social and political role of the ancient library is arguably of less lasting importance than the actual con t of the library as an institution where the whole constitutes something infinitely greater than the sum of the parts. The scholars at the library of
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