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Papyrus and the First Libraries

posted 10/28/09

Millions of sheets and scrolls of papyrus paper flowed back and forth across the Roman Empire. During its five centuries of rule, Rome created a sea of papyrus paper, a product supplied exclusively by the workers in the papyrus plantations in Egypt. The Romans not only increased the number of scrolls, then the usual form of a book, but they were the first to open a library to the public.

They were not the first to start collecting papyri into a library. That place of honor belongs to the Egyptians who began collections in the temples in places like Heliopolis where scribes were already at hand to record religious and scientific details, as well as to keep the records and correspondence of the Royal family. References exist as to the “collected works” of Cheops, the pyramid-building Pharaoh who reigned from 2551-2528 BC, and later of a library at the Ramessaeum in Western Thebes (1300-1236 BC) and a great collection in Memphis lost during the Persian invasion.

Later still, during the time of Alexander, the libraries of the Greeks, including that of Aristotle, also based on papyri, were considered so valuable that they were passed on to others, or sold or plundered, through the years. The most interesting result of which is that Aristotle is said to have communicated to the Ptolemys the taste for collecting books. Indirectly then, Aristotle helped found the libraries in Alexandria, of which there were two, both large, the great one close to the harbor, and a smaller one at the Serapeum in the west of the city in a temple dedicated to the god Serapis who combined aspects of Osiris and the Greek Apis. Founded at the beginning of the third century BC, the Great Library was the nerve center of Alexandria, an important center of learning.

Despite the Romans great love for the printed word it was Julius Caesar who was responsible for the loss of many papyrus book scrolls in Alexandria. It happened as Caesar in 47 BC was in Alexandria trying to quell a war between king Ptolemy XIII and usurper queen Cleopatra VII. He won the fight by sending fire ships in amongst the Egyptian fleet in the harbor, but the fire spread along the dockside destroying shipyards and warehouses where grain and books were stored. The books involved may have only been account books and ledgers containing records of Alexandria's export goods bound for Rome and other cities throughout the world, but Caesar was tarred with the brush. The first public libraries were in Rome and Caesar himself broached the idea, some said he did this in a fit of remorse for his actions during his invasion of Egypt. But because of his execution by Brutus et al, the honor of building the first public library fell to one of his allies, Gaius Asinius Pollio in 39 BC, who in the words of Pliny was, “the first to make men’s talents public property.”

(Images from Wikimedia Commons)

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