On “Libraries in the Ancient World” by Lionel Casson ****

This work is a short exploration of the development of the earliest libraries. I'd read the first chapter on the tablets that were found of ancient libraries in Mesopotamia some time ago, and I was familiar with much of the material on Roman libraries from another book that focused solely on those and that was much more thorough. But Casson's book is a good introduction to the subject.

As he notes, our knowledge of the Mesopotamian libraries comes from the fact that the societies used clay tablets and the burning of said libraries helped to make such tablets permanent, like clay jars. Most such works are merely archival records of sundry government and market materials, but some literary works also have come down to us this way. The libraries were largely for the government, the king, and the priests—the educated elite who needed the information to run the nation. Our knowledge of Egyptian libraries is less thorough, because the Egyptians wrote on papyrus, which doesn't last so long (despite the dry Egyptian climate, which has helped to preserve some such works—just not much from before the first century).

Another chapter focuses on the Alexandrian library, which started largely because a particular ruler had a desire to prove his intellectual acumen and to make the farily new city a capital for intellectualism. It was a library largely aimed at societal thinkers. The library burned a couple of times; alas, it appears that war was the largest culprit to the destruction of the library.

Another chapter focuses on the Greeks, whose libraries usually featured an open-air collonade that was used for reading. This was different than the later Roman libraries, which were usually all indoors and which generally included both a Greek section and a Roman section.

Some attention is also given to book technology. Papyrus, which was common in Egypt, gave way to more durable parchment, which came to be used elsewhere. And then, in turn, scrolls, around the first century CE, began to give way to codexes (our modern book format). Christians, as has been written elsewhere, played a role in this, as codexes were their preferred format: culturally, not Jewish and not pagan, but also much easier to use and transport. Christian books, as the author brings out, could be purchased much like other books were.

Indeed, attaining books at this time may have involved purchase but also could involve copying. An author who wanted publication generally made the work available by making a number of copies to share. Authorship obviously wasn't about money; it was about reputation and getting one's ideas out there. Only those who actually made the copies (to sell) were likely to make anything off a book.