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Ancient Libraries

£120.00

Greg Woolf, Kim Ryholt, Eleanor Robson, Christian Jacob, Massimo Pinto, Annette Harder, Gaelle Coqueugniot, Mike Affleck, Daniel Hogg, Fabio Tutrone, Myrto Hatzimichali, George W. Houston, T. Keith Dix, Ewen Bowie, Matthew Nicholls, Pier Luigi Tucci, Richard Neudecker, David Petrain, William A. Johnson, Michael W. Handis, Alexei V. Zadorojnyi, Victor Martinez, Megan Finn Senseney
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  • Date Published: April 2013
  • availability: Available
  • format: Hardback
  • isbn: 9781107012561

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About the Authors
  • The circulation of books was the motor of classical civilization. However, books were both expensive and rare, and so libraries - private and public, royal and civic - played key roles in articulating intellectual life. This collection, written by an international team of scholars, presents a fundamental reassessment of how ancient libraries came into being, how they were organized and how they were used. Drawing on papyrology and archaeology, and on accounts written by those who read and wrote in them, it presents new research on reading cultures, on book collecting and on the origins of monumental library buildings. Many of the traditional stories told about ancient libraries are challenged. Few were really enormous, none were designed as research centres, and occasional conflagrations do not explain the loss of most ancient texts. But the central place of libraries in Greco-Roman culture emerges more clearly than ever.

    • Gathers together the latest research into libraries from Mesopotamia to the Roman Empire
    • Challenges accepted stories on ancient libraries which have not changed from the Middle Ages until the present day
    • Sets ancient libraries within a broad cultural context
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    Reviews & endorsements

    '[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

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    Product details

    • Date Published: April 2013
    • format: Hardback
    • isbn: 9781107012561
    • length: 500 pages
    • dimensions: 244 x 170 x 27 mm
    • weight: 0.99kg
    • contains: 27 b/w illus.
    • availability: Available
  • Table of Contents

    Introduction: 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.

  • Editors

    Jason König, University of St Andrews, Scotland
    Jason König is Senior Lecturer in Greek at the University of St Andrews. He works broadly on the Greek literature and culture of the Roman Empire. He is author of Athletics and Literature in the Roman Empire (2005) and Saints and Symposiasts: The Literature of Food and the Symposium in Greco-Roman and Early Christian Culture (2012), and editor, jointly with Tim Whitmarsh, of Ordering Knowledge in the Roman Empire (2007).

    Katerina Oikonomopoulou, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
    Katerina Oikonomopoulou is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow for the programme 'Medicine of the Mind, Philosophy of the Body: Discourses of Health and Well-Being in the Ancient World' at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. She is co-editor, with Frieda Klotz, of The Philosopher's Banquet: Plutarch's 'Table Talk' in the Intellectual Culture of the Roman Empire (2011).

    Greg Woolf, University of St Andrews, Scotland
    Greg Woolf is Professor of Ancient History at the University of St Andrews. He currently holds a Major Leverhulme Research Fellowship and is editor of the Journal of Roman Studies. His books include Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul (1998), Et tu Brute: The Murder of Julius Caesar and Political Assassination (2006), Tales of the Barbarians: Ethnography and Empire in the Roman West (2011) and Rome: An Empire's Story (2012). He has also edited volumes on literacy, on the city of Rome and on Roman religion, and has published widely on ancient history and Roman archaeology.

    Contributors

    Greg Woolf, Kim Ryholt, Eleanor Robson, Christian Jacob, Massimo Pinto, Annette Harder, Gaelle Coqueugniot, Mike Affleck, Daniel Hogg, Fabio Tutrone, Myrto Hatzimichali, George W. Houston, T. Keith Dix, Ewen Bowie, Matthew Nicholls, Pier Luigi Tucci, Richard Neudecker, David Petrain, William A. Johnson, Michael W. Handis, Alexei V. Zadorojnyi, Victor Martinez, Megan Finn Senseney

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