Libraries in the Ancient World

Lionel Casson (1914-2009) was Professor of Classics at New York University 1961-1979. He is the author of several books about ancient history, including Travel in the Ancient World (hardcover 1974, paperback 1994). His book about libraries in the ancient world was published by Yale University Press in 2001 (hardcover) and 2002 (paperback).

The main text is divided into nine chapters, which follow a chronological line, from the third millennium BC to the fourth and fifth centuries AD. At the end of the book there are notes (with references) and an index, which is incomplete (several persons and places mentioned in the text are not listed). Sadly, there is no separate bibliography.

Two maps in the beginning of the book show the western and the eastern part of the Roman Empire. In addition, there are 30 illustrations (photos or drawings). While they are well-chosen, I have to raise two objections: why are they so small? And why are they only in black-and-white?

Illustrations # 2.2 (page 22) and # 6.4 (page 86) also appear on the front cover, where they are in colour and where they look much better than they do in black-and-white. The illustrations in the book should have been in colour.

All the famous libraries of the ancient world are presented in this book, including the following:

** The library of Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria 668-627 BC (chapter 1)

** The library of Alexander (chapter 3)

** The library of Pergamum (chapter 4)

** The libraries in the city of Rome (chapter 6)

** The library of Ephesus (chapter 7)

Casson got some good reviews. On the back cover of the paperback version and on the frontispiece there are excerpts from several positive reviews of the hardcover version. Unfortunately, I cannot agree with them.

This book is not as great as the reviewers claim, because there are many flaws (which other reviewers failed to notice or decided to ignore). For reasons of space I can only present some of them here:

(1) On page 38 we hear about Callimachus of Cyrene, whose birthplace is described as "a seaport on the coast of Lybia [sic!] west of Alexandria." But Cyrene is located inland, some 20 km from the coast; and Libya is misspelled.

(2) Aristophanes of Byzantium, chief librarian of the Alexandrian library, appears several times. On page 38 we are told he held the position "from ca. 200 to 185 BC." But three pages further down we are told it was "from ca. 205 to 185 BC." Why change the first date? Why not use the same date?

(3) On page 45 Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon is placed in 50 BC. But it was in 49 BC. We do not know the exact date, but it was probably in the night between 10 and 11 January 49 BC.

[See Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus (2006) page 458.]

(4) On page 67 the Second Punic War is said to last from 218 to 202 BC. While the last battle of this war took place in 202 BC, the war did not end until the following year, 201 BC.

(5) On page 71 Illyria is defined as "roughly Yugoslavia today." But in 2001, when this book was published, Yugoslavia did not exist anymore; Casson should have compared Illyria to the former Yugoslavia.

(6) On pp. 118-120 Casson describes the library in Timgad (ancient Thamugadi), but he fails to give us the name of the local man, who donated this library to the town: Marcus Julius Quintianus Flavius Rogatianus (who paid 400,000 sesterces for the honour).

(7) Some of the secondary works cited in the notes are rather old. Here are a few examples:

* The Care of Books (1901)
* Hellenistic Civilisation (1952)
* The Nature of Roman Comedy (1952)
* The Hittites (1952)
* An Introduction to Greek and Latin Paleography (1912)

(8) On page 78 several Roman women are mentioned, because they were highly educated. In the notes (page 157) there are references to several ancient sources (which is fine), but there is no reference to a book, which focuses on this topic: Matrona Docta: Educated Women in the Roman Elite from Cornelia to Julia Domna  by Emily Hemelrijk (published by Routledge in 1999).

(9) Hemelrijk's book includes a brief (but very informative) section about private and public libraries (pp. 53-57), which is based on several ancient sources and a few modern works, including two books, both of which were published in the middle of the 20th century:

** H. L. Pinner, The World of Books in Classical Antiquity (1948, second edition 1958)

** James Westfall Thompson, Ancient Libraries (1940, second edition 1962)

Casson must have known about these books (Thompson's book The Medieval Library from 1939 is cited). I am sure he used them, but decided not to mention them. Why not? A likely explanation can be found in his preface, which begins with the following words:

"This book is the first full-scale study of libraries in the ancient world."

If Pinner's and Thompson's books had been cited, their titles would have revealed the truth and refuted the false statement in the preface.

Items # 1-4 show that Casson was getting careless with the details.

Item # 5 shows that he was not quite up-to-date on current events.

Item # 6 shows that he does not always give us the whole story.

Items # 7-8 show that he was not quite up-to-date on modern scholarship about the ancient world.

Item # 9 shows that he was prepared to use a devious trick in order to be able to claim that his book was "the first full-scale study" of the topic at hand.

Libraries in the Ancient World was Casson's last book, but not his best. There are many flaws, and the most disturbing is the false statement in the preface. Without it I might have given the book four stars. Because it is there, I can only give it three stars.

PS. In 2013 Cambridge University Press published a book entitled Ancient Libraries edited by three classical scholars. With more than 450 pages this volume must be the most comprehensive modern account ever published on this topic.

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Lionel Casson,

Libraries in the Ancient World,

Yale University Press, hardcover 2001, paperback 2002, 192 pages

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