The Care of Books Part 2

It is probable that numerous collections of books had been got together by individuals in Rome, before it occurred to Augustus and his friends to erect public libraries. One such library, that belonging to the rich and luxurious Lucullus, has been noticed as follows by Plutarch[50]:

His procedure in regard to books was interesting and remarkable. He collected fine copies in large numbers; and if he was splendid in their acquisition, he was more so in their use. His libraries were accessible to all, and the adjoining colonnades and reading-rooms were freely open to Greeks, who, gladly escaping from the routine of business, resorted thither for familiar converse, as to a shelter presided over by the Muses.

The Romans were not slow in following the example set by Lucullus; and a library presently became indispensable in every house, whether the owner cared for reading or not. This fashionable craze is denounced by Seneca (writing about A.D. 49) in a vehement outburst of indignation, which contains so many valuable facts about library arrangement, that I will give a free translation of it.

Outlay upon studies, best of all outlays, is reasonable so long only as it is kept within certain limits. What is the use of books and libraries innumerable, if scarce in a lifetime the master reads the t.i.tles? A student is burdened by a crowd of authors, not instructed; and it is far better to devote yourself to a few, than to lose your way among a mult.i.tude.

Forty thousand books were burnt at Alexandria. I leave others to praise this splendid monument of royal opulence, as for example Livy, who regards it as "a n.o.ble work of royal taste and royal thoughtfulness." It was not taste, it was not thoughtfulness, it was learned extravagance--nay not even learned, for they had bought their books for the sake of show, not for the sake of learning--just as with many who are ignorant even of the lowest branches of learning books are not instruments of study, but ornaments of dining-rooms. Procure then as many books as will suffice for use; but not a single one for show. You will reply: "Outlay on such objects is preferable to extravagance on plate or paintings."

Excess in all directions is bad. Why should you excuse a man who wishes to possess book-presses inlaid with _arbor-vitae_ wood or ivory: who gathers together ma.s.ses of authors either unknown or discredited; who yawns among his thousands of books; and who derives his chief delight from their edges and their tickets?

You will find then in the libraries of the most arrant idlers all that orators or historians have written--book-cases built up as high as the ceiling.

Nowadays a library takes rank with a bathroom as a necessary ornament of a house. I could forgive such ideas, if they were due to extravagant desire for learning. As it is, these productions of men whose genius we revere, paid for at a high price, with their portraits ranged in line above them, are got together to adorn and beautify a wall[51].

A library was discovered in Rome by Signor Lanciani in 1883 while excavating a house of the 4th century on the Esquiline in the modern Via dello Statuto. I will narrate the discovery in his own words.

I was struck, one afternoon, with the appearance of a rather s.p.a.cious hall [it was about 23 feet long by 15 feet broad], the walls of which were plain and unornamented up to a certain height, but beautifully decorated above in stucco-work. The decoration consisted of fluted pilasters, five feet apart from centre to centre, enclosing a plain square surface, in the middle of which there were medallions, also in stucco-work, two feet in diameter. As always happens in these cases, the frame was the only well-preserved portion of the medallions. Of the images surrounded by the frames, of the medallions themselves, absolutely nothing was left _in situ_, except a few fragments piled up at the foot of the wall, which, however, could be identified as having been representations of human faces. My hope that, at last, after fifteen years of excavations, I had succeeded in discovering a library, was confirmed beyond any doubt by a legend, written, or rather painted, in bright red colour on one of the frames. There was but one name POLONIVS THYAN ..., but this name told more plainly the purpose of the apartment than if I had discovered there the actual bookshelves and their contents[52].

When I had the pleasure of meeting Signor Lanciani in Rome in April, 1898, he most kindly gave me his own sketch of the pilasters and medallion, taken at the moment of discovery. I am therefore able to reproduce exactly (fig. 6) one compartment of the wall of the library above described. The height of the blank wall below the stucco-work, against which the furniture containing the books stood, has been laid down as about 3 feet 6 inches, on the authority of Professor Middleton[53]. The remains of the medallion are still to be seen in the Museo del Orto Botanico, Rome. The person commemorated is obviously Apollonius Tyaneus, a Pythagorean philosopher and wonderworker, said to have been born about four years before the Christian era.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 6. Elevation of a single compartment of the wall of the Library discovered in Rome, 1883.

From notes and measurements made by Signor Lanciani and Prof. Middleton.]

A similar room was discovered at Herculaneum in 1754. A full account of the discovery was drawn up at once by Signor Paderni, keeper of the Herculaneum Museum, and addressed to Thomas Hollis, Esq., by whom it was submitted to the Royal Society. I will extract, from this and subsequent letters, the pa.s.sages that bear upon my subject.

_Naples, 27 April, 1754._

... The place where they are digging, at present, is under _Il Bosco di Sant' Agostino_.... All the buildings discover'd in this site are n.o.ble; ... in one there has been found an entire library, compos'd of volumes of the Egyptian Papyrus, of which there have been taken out about 250....[54]

_To the same._

_18 October, 1754._

... As yet we have only entered into one room, the floor of which is formed of mosaic work, not unelegant. It appears to have been a library, adorned with presses, inlaid with different sorts of wood, disposed in rows; at the top of which were cornices, as in our own times.

I was buried in this spot more than twelve days, to carry off the volumes found there; many of which were so perished, that it was impossible to remove them. Those which I took away amounted to the number of three hundred and thirty-seven, all of them at present uncapable of being opened. These are all written in Greek characters. While I was busy in this work I observed a large bundle, which, from the size, I imagined must contain more than a single volume. I tried with the utmost care to get it out, but could not, from the damp and weight of it. However I perceived that it consisted of about 18 volumes, each of which was in length a palm and three Neapolitan inches, being the largest hitherto discovered. They were wrapped about with the bark of a tree and covered at each end with a piece of wood. All these were written in Latin, as appears by a few words which broke off from them. I was in hopes to have got something out of them, but they are in a worse condition than the Greek[55]....

_From Sir J. Gray, Bart._

_29 October, 1754._

... They have lately met with more rolls of Papyri of different lengths and sizes, some with the _Umbilicus_ remaining in them: the greater part are Greek in small capitals.... The Epicurean Philosophy is the subject of another fragment.

A small bust of Epicurus, with his name in Greek characters, was found in the same room, and was possibly the ornament of that part of the library where the writings in favour of his principles were kept; and it may also be supposed that some other heads of philosophers found in the same room were placed with the same taste and propriety[56].

Between 1758 and 1763, the place was visited by Winckelmann, who wrote long letters in Italian, describing what he saw, to Consigliere Bianconi, Physician to the King of Saxony. One of these, dated 1762, gives the following account of the library:

Ii luogo in cui per la prima volta caddero sott' occhio, fu una piccola stanza nella villa d'Ercolano di cui parlammo sopra, la cui lunghezza due uomini colle braccia distese potevano misurare. Tutto all' intorno del muro vi erano degli scaffali quali si vedono ordinariamente negli archivi ad altezza d' uomo, e nel mezzo della stanza v' era un altro scaffale simile o tavola per tenervi scritture, e tale da potervi girare intorno. Il legno di questa tavola era ridotto a carboni, e cadde, come e facile ad imagina.r.s.elo, tutta in pezzi quando si tocc. Alcuni di questi rotoli di papiri si trovarono involti insieme con carta piu grossolana, di quella qualita che gli antichi chiamavano _emporetica_, e questi probabilmente formavano le parti ed i libri d' un' opera intiera[57]....

The place in which they [the rolls] were first seen was a small room in the villa at Herculaneum of which we spoke above, the length of which could be covered by two men with their arms extended. All round the wall there were book-cases such as are commonly seen in record-rooms, of a man's height, and in the middle of the room there was another similar book-case or table to hold writings, of such a size that one could go round it. The wood of this table was reduced to charcoal, and, as may easily be imagined, fell all to pieces when it was touched. Some of these papyrus rolls were found fastened together with paper of coa.r.s.er texture, of that quality which the ancients called _emporetica_, and these probably formed the parts and books of an entire work.

The information which these observers have given us amounts to this: the room was about 12 feet long, with a floor of mosaic. Against the walls stood presses, of a man's height, inlaid with different sorts of wood, disposed in rows, with cornices at the top; and there was also a table, or press, in the centre of the room. Most of the rolls were separate, but a bundle of eighteen was found "wrapped about with the bark of a tree, and covered at each end with a piece of wood." A room so small as this could hardly have been intended for study. It must rather have been the place where the books were put away after they had been read elsewhere.

Before I quit this part of my subject, I should like to mention one other building, as its arrangements throw light on the question of fitting up libraries and record-offices. I allude to the structure built by Vespasian, A.D. 78, to contain the doc.u.ments relating to his restoration of the city of Rome. It stood at the south-west corner of the Forum of Peace, and what now exists of it is known as the Church of SS. Cosma e Damiano.

The general arrangement and relation to adjoining structures will be understood from the plan (fig. 7). The room was about 125 feet long by 65 feet broad, with two entrances, one on the north-west, from the _Forum Pacis_, through a hexastyle portico (fig. 7. 2), the other on the north-east, through a square-headed doorway of travertine which still exists (_ibid._ 1) together with a considerable portion of a ma.s.sive wall of Vespasian's time. After a restoration by Caracalla the building came to be called _Templum Sacrae Urbis_. It was first consecrated as a church by pope Felix IV. (526-530), but he did little more than connect it with the _Heroon Romuli_ (_ibid._ 5), and build the apse (_ibid._ 4).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 7. Plan of the Record-House of Vespasian, with the adjoining structures.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 8. Part of the internal wall of the Record-House of Vespasian.

Reduced from a sketch taken in the 16th century by Pirro Ligorio.]

The whole building was mercilessly mutilated by pope Urban VIII. in 1632; but fortunately a drawing of the interior had been made by Pirro Ligorio in the second half of the sixteenth century, when the original treatment of the walls was practically intact. I give a reduced copy of a small portion of this drawing (fig. 8). As Lanciani says:

The walls were divided into three horizontal bands by finely cut cornices. The upper band was occupied by the windows; the lower was simply lined with marble slabs covered by the bookcases ... which contained the ...

records ...; the middle one was incrusted with tarsia-work of the rarest kinds of marble with panels representing panoplies, the wolf with the infant founders of Rome, and other allegorical scenes[58].

I explained at the beginning of this chapter that my subject is the care of books, not books themselves; but, at the point which we have now reached in regard to Roman libraries, it is necessary to make a few remarks about their contents. It must be remembered, in the first place, that those who fitted them up had to deal with rolls (_volumina_), probably of papyrus, but possibly of parchment; and that a book, as we understand the word, the Latin equivalent for which was _codex_, did not come into general use until long after the Christian era. Some points about these rolls require notice.

The length and the width of the roll depended on the taste or convenience of the writer[59]. The contents were written in columns, the lines of which ran parallel to the long dimension[60], and the reader, holding the roll in both hands, rolled up the part he had finished with his left hand, and unrolled the unread portion with his right. This way of dealing with the roll is well shewn in the accompanying ill.u.s.tration (fig. 9) reduced from a fresco at Pompeii[61]. In most examples the two halves of the roll are turned inwards, as for instance in the well-known statue of Demosthenes in the Vatican[62]. The end of the roll was fastened to a stick (usually referred to as _umbilicus_ or _umbilici_). It is obvious that this word ought properly to denote the ends of the stick only, but it was constantly applied to the whole stick, and not to a part of it, as for instance in the following lines:

... deus nam me vetat Inceptos olim promissum carmen iambos Ad umbilic.u.m adducere[63].

... for heaven forbids me to cover the scroll down to the stick with the iambic lines I had begun a song promised long ago to the world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 9. A reader with a roll: from a fresco at Pompeii.]

These sticks were sometimes painted or gilt, and furnished with projecting k.n.o.bs (_cornua_) similarly decorated, intended to serve both as an ornament, and as a contrivance to keep the ends of the roll even, while it was being rolled up. The sides of the long dimension of the roll (_frontes_) were carefully cut, so as to be perfectly symmetrical, and afterwards smoothed with pumice-stone and coloured. A ticket (_index_ or _t.i.tulus_, in Greek [Greek: sillubos] or [Greek: sittubos]), made of a piece of papyrus or parchment, was fastened to the edge of the roll in such a way that it hung out over one or other of the ends. As Ovid says:

Cetera turba palam t.i.tulos ostendet apertos Et sua detecta nomina fronte geret[64].

The others will flaunt their t.i.tles openly, and carry their names on an uncovered edge.

The roll was kept closed by strings or straps (_lora_), usually of some bright colour[65]; and if it was specially precious, an envelope which the Greeks called a jacket ([Greek: diphthera][66]), made of parchment or some other substance, was provided. Says Martial:

Perfer Atestinae nondum vulgata Sabinae Carmina, purpurea sed modo culta toga[67].

Convey to Sabina at Ateste these verses. They have not yet been published, and have been but lately dressed in a purple garment.

Martial has combined in a single epigram most of the ornaments with which rolls could be decorated. This I will quote next, premising that the oil of cedar, or _arbor-vitae_, mentioned in the second line not only imparted an agreeable yellow colour, but was held to be an antiseptic[68].

Faustini fugis in sinum? sapisti.

Cedro nunc licet ambules perunctus Et frontis gemino decens honore Pictis luxurieris umbilicis, Et te purpura delicata velet, Et cocco rubeat superbus index[69].

His book had selected the bibliomaniac Faustinus as a patron. Now, says the poet, you shall be anointed with oil of cedar; you shall revel in the decoration of both your sets of edges; your sticks shall be painted; your covering shall be purple, and your ticket scarlet.

When a number of rolls had to be carried from one place to another, they were put into a box (_scrinium_ or _capsa_). This receptacle was cylindrical in shape, not unlike a modern hat-box[70]. It was carried by a flexible handle, attached to a ring on each side; and the lid was held down by what looks very like a modern lock. The eighteen rolls, found in a bundle at Herculaneum, had doubtless been kept in a similar receptacle.