I began with one of the most well known libraries of the ancient world but I will be delving into more of the less famous but just as incredible libraries now. Whenever someone newer to the pagan faith ask me for advice about the practice, I always say research research research! It is so important to continue researching, learning, and expanding your knowledge, views, and practice. You will find things that work, things that make sense, and things that you will immediately connect with that enhance your practice. Where does all this knowledge come from? Books. Libraries have been there for humanity for thousands of years, instilling knowledge and skills in those who seek it. Today, we have book stores everywhere. Brick and mortar, online, second hand stores, we have a lot of resources that people even 100 years ago did not have.
Throughout history, books have been a highly prized commodity. Their trade goes back many centuries to the invention of materials such as papyrus and parchment, and the creation of libraries by accumulating and copying books gave rise to collections as famous as that of Alexandria.
The Library of Pergamum
Constructed in the third century B.C. by members of the Attalid dynasty, the Library of Pergamum, located in what is now Turkey, was once home to a treasure-trove of some 200,000 scrolls. It was housed in a temple complex devoted to Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, and is believed to have comprised four rooms—three for the library’s contents and another that served as a meeting space for banquets and academic conferences. According to the ancient chronicler Pliny the Elder, the Library of Pergamum eventually became so famous that it was considered to be in “keen competition” with the Library of Alexandria. Both sites sought to amass the most complete collections of texts, and they developed rival schools of thought and criticism. There is even a legend that Egypt’s Ptolemaic dynasty halted shipments of papyrus to Pergamum in the hope of slowing its growth. As a result, the city may have later become a leading production center for parchment paper.
Pergamum was a wealthy, developing city with a population of over 200,000 people. Culturally it was rivaled only by the cities of Alexandria and Antioch. Many important works of sculpture and architecture were produced at this time, including the Great Altar of Pergamon. Upon the death of Attalus III, son of Eumenes II, in 133 BC, Pergamum was bequeathed to the Roman Republic.
Pergamum was also an important city in the New Testament and was explicitly mentioned by St. John as one of the Seven Churches of Revelation in the Book of Revelation. The ruins of Pergamum and its library are now major archaeological sites in Turkey. Flavia Melitene, who was a distinguished citizen of Pergamum and wife of a town councillor, was instrumental in supplying the library. She also presented a statue of Hadrian to the library as a gift.
No index or catalog of the holdings at Pergamum exists today, making it impossible to know the true size or scope of this collection. The library consisted of four rooms, the largest of which was the main reading room (44.5 feet x 50 feet), lined with many shelves. An empty space of approximately 20 in was left between the outer walls and the shelves to allow for air circulation, intending to prevent the library from becoming overly humid in the warm climate of Anatolia, an early attempt at library preservation. A 10 foot statue of Athena, modeled after her statue in the Parthenon, stood in the main reading room.
Although the library of Pergamum was built roughly a century after the library of Alexandria, the two had a fierce rivalry, as libraries were often used to reflect wealth and culture. The two libraries competed for parchment, books, and even literary interpretation. Pergamum also hired some Homeric scholars, who studied the Iliad and the Odyssey. This resulted in a fierce rivalry in which each library tried to obtain copies of Homer’s works, striving to have the most accurate and oldest works. They also tried to attract better scholars by offering competitive pay. Ultimately, this rivalry forced both libraries to innovate and improve.
The Library of Aristotle
The library of Aristotle is the library which was named after its founder Aristotle who was a great philosopher and inventor of his time. Aristotle, perhaps the most famous classical philosopher along with his master Plato, was born in Stagira (now Stavros), in the Macedonian Chalcidic peninsula, in 384 BC. At the age of 17 he was sent by his tutor to study in Athens, at Plato’s Academy, where he remained for 20 years.
At Plato’s death in 347 B.C. he began a journey through several cities in Asia Minor, until in 343 B.C. he was called by King Philip II of Macedonia to become the mentor of his son, the future Alexander the Great, who at that time was 13 years old.
In 335 B.C. he returned to Athens to found his own free public philosophical school, the Lyceum. It was during this period that he began to accumulate copies, both his own and those of other philosophers, forming a large personal library.
During a 1996 excavation to clear space for Athens’ new Museum of Modern Art, the remains of Aristotle’s Lyceum were uncovered. When functional this library had more than 10000 papyrus which included both Theophrastus and Aristotle’s work as well as student research, philosophical historical texts, and histories of philosophy.
When Sulla attacked Athens, the books were shipped to Rome. Throughout their travels, one-fifth of Aristotle’s works were lost and thus are not a part of the modern Aristotelian collection. Still, what did remain of Aristotle’s works and the rest of the library were arranged, edited, translated, and widely distributed, providing much of the modern knowledge of ancient Western philosophy.
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