noticed, so far as I know, and what is particularly interesting about the
lists in table 10.1, is that these inventories allow us to move beyond this
general principle and observe the system at work, as ancient compilers
dealt not with theory but with actual books in real collections. We find
clear reflections of the genre/author organization,^32 but there are vari-
ations and idiosyncrasies as well.^33 We will consider several examples, at
varying levels of detail.
Small collections, of course, need no organization. You simply riffle
through your volumes until you find what you want. Thus, in all likeli-
hood, nos. 4 and 8, and perhaps no. 1, where the owner might keep all of
the volumes of theIliadin onecapsa(carrying case) or on one shelf, and
other works or authors each in its own case or shelf, as a kind of informal
and practical organization. In no. 1, the owner was interested in (or at least
owned) standard, widely read poetry,
34
and the fact that he groups four
poets who wrote in three different genres together, rather than organizing
by genre, probably means that he did not own a wide selection of poetry,
perhaps no more than we have here: this was not an extensive or sophis-
ticated collection. List no. 2 is a particularly interesting example, in part
because it is probably complete or nearly so.^35 There is an obvious distinc-
tion between poetry and prose, and an awareness of genre is implicit in line
14, in which we have the phrase ’ ̄ªºïªÆd‘ÑÅô½üæøí, followed by works
that all seem to deal with rhetoric or oratory, first probably reference
works, then titles of speeches by Aeschines and Demosthenes.^36 This
- Obviously, we must be careful to avoid circular reasoning at this point. Otranto
claimed some of her lists as probable library booklists precisely because they seem to have
been arranged by genre and author: Otranto 2000, XXX, citing her nos. 8, 9, and 10.
In assembling table 10.1, I included only lists that can be classed as booklists of actual
collections on the basis of other criteria duplicate copies, omissions, opisthographs,
length, and particular details in the list in order to avoid circularity insofar as possible. - The lists may or may not be organized exactly as the physical books were. Certainly
the easiest way to inventory a collection would be to go along your cabinets and shelves,
listing items as you came to them, and in that case the written list would reflect the physical
arrangement. But even if in some instances the books themselves were arranged in a manner
different from the way they are presented in the lists, the latter still help us see how the
ancients conceptualized collections and chose to organize them on paper. - He owned Homer, Hesiod, Callimachus, and Pindar. These authors rank first,
second, third, and eleventh in order of frequency of attestation among the papyri from
Oxyrhynchus: Kru ̈ger 1990, 214. - To the left of it is an open space of 20 cm, so that no column of titles seems to have
preceded what we have; we thus have the beginning (though it is fragmentary). At the
bottom of list no. 2 is a third, completely unrelated, text. It apparently was written in an
open space below the list, so that our list probably came to an end at this point. - Exactly what is meant by ̄ªºïªÆd ÑÅô½üæøí, how to fill the lacuna, and how to
interpret the lines that follow immediately, cannot be determined with certainty. See Puglia
1998, 81 2; he posits, among other things, a lexicon in line 15. What is clear is that this
part of the list consists of works in prose, and that they are all either certainly or probably
related to rhetoric or oratory.
244 Institutions and Communities