10
Papyrological Evidence for Book
Collections and Libraries in the
Roman Empire
George W. Houston
Working primarily with literary, archaeological, and epigraphical evi-
dence, modern scholars have recovered a great deal of information
about Roman libraries and book collections. From Ephesus, Timgad,
and other sites, we have an idea of their physical appearance; inscriptions
and literature provide information on staffing and management; and we
know something of the existence, building history, or both, of dozens of
libraries in Rome, Italy, and the provinces of the Roman Empire.^1 From
the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, we have the actual contents of a
private library, and some (not very helpful) information about its physical
arrangement.^2 Apart from the collection of volumes in the Villa of the
Papyri, however, our knowledge of the contents of Roman book collec-
tions—what exactly was in them, how they were organized, and how they
came to be—is, so far, very limited.^3 In this chapter, I will set out and
analyze various types of papyrological evidence—materials not previously
exploited in this context—in an attempt to shed further light on the
question of the contents and organization of Roman book collections.
As we will see, the evidence pertains largely to personal, rather than to
more or less public collections, and the nature of the evidence imposes a
- The literature is vast, but there is no need here for an extended bibliography. A good
recent study of these questions, with earlier bibliography, is Blanck 1992, 190 222. On staff,
see Houston 2002 (public libraries), and Dix 1986, 133 7 (private libraries). For the physical
appearance, see, for example, Strocka 1981, 322 9 (Ephesus) or Pfeiffer 1931 (Timgad).
Many particulars remain in doubt. - Cavallo 1983 provides an analysis of the collection in the Villa of the Papyri, Gigante
1979 a catalogue of the papyri found in the Villa, and Longo Auricchio and Capasso 1987 a
description of what can be known at present about the physical arrangement of the books. - It is largely limited to chance references to specific items in particular libraries. For
some examples, see Blanck 1992, 215 22.