A Brief Outline of the History of Libraries

_The Attalic Library, of which Eumenes was the founder. Certain errors of statement about it made by Pliny and Vitruvius. Its size and the length of time it existed._

The Attalic or Pergamene library, in Asia, was almost as illustrious as the Alexandrian. When the Attalic kings, minor powers at first, became great and rich through an alliance with the Romans, they adorned their capital city in many ways and erected in it a library. Strabo regarded Eumenes, the son of King Attalus, as the founder of this collection. "Eumenes," he says, "built the city and beautifully adorned it as it now is, with temples and a library. " Pliny says, "According to Varro there was a rivalry over their respective libraries between Ptolemy and Eumenes, and the former forbade the exportation of paper from his kingdom, and the latter of parchment from his. " Jerome, in his letter to Chromatius, and Aelian, made similar statements, though they say it was Attalus who was jealous of Ptolemy, and not Eumenes. Concerning neither of them, however, can the story be true; for, as a comparison of dates will show, they both lived almost a century after Philadelphus. How, then, could there have been between them the jealousy which Pliny speaks of? Unless, indeed, "Ptolemy" is used simply in reference to the kings of Egypt in general, and refers here not to Philadelphus but to Ptolemy the Fifth, generally called Ptolemy Epiphanes, who was a contemporary of Eumenes. He perhaps, though he was not at all distinguished for his zeal in regard to libraries, forbade the exportation of paper, in fear lest another new library should rival his own more ancient one.