A Brief Outline of the History of Libraries

_Libraries in Greece, especially those of Pisistratus and Aristotle. That at Byzantium._

Concerning the libraries of Egypt I have given few and unimportant facts, though the collections themselves were perhaps many and of great importance. But history here is dimmed by the mists of time. The same must be said also of the history of the libraries of Greece. Athenaeus incidentally refers to the more important of them when he praises his friend Laurentius for his skill in classifying books, and says that in this art he surpassed Polycrates of Samos, Pisistratus the Tyrant, Euclid the Athenian, Nicocrates the Cyprian, Euripides the poet, and Aristotle the philosopher. I have little of detail to say about any of these men. Of Pisistratus it should be noted that A. Gellius gave to him the honour of being the pioneer in this art of forming a library; though Polycrates had one at about the same time. A. Gellius says, to quote his very words, "Pisistratus the Tyrant is said to have been the first to make for public use in Athens a collection of books on the liberal arts. " Here, then, was indeed a great man, -- he was called the "Tyrant," but the word did not convey at that time the odium it does to-day, -- and to him we owe the text of Homer collected and arranged as we now have it. At that period critical studies, as we now call them, that is, the collation and emendation of texts, were much followed by princes, and even by kings. This library, founded by Pisistratus, was added to from time to time by the Athenians, until Xerxes carried it away when he captured Athens. Many years afterwards Seleucus Nicanor, King of Syria, very generously caused the books of this library to be returned to Athens. They remained there until the time of Sulla, who captured and plundered the city. But even after that, I am sure we must believe the library was again established; for how could a city be, as Athens was, the mother of the arts without the aid of books? Indeed there must have been many libraries there in later years. Hadrian, for example, so Pausanias wrote, erected in Athens a temple to the Panhellenic Jove, and placed in it a library.