Note 33 — Chapter VI · PLATONIC CANON, AS RECOGNISED BY THRASYLLUS.

Sueton. Jul. Cæs. c. 44. Melissus, one of the Illustres Grammatici of Rome, undertook by order of Augustus, “curam ordinandarum bibliothecarum in Octaviæ porticu”. (Sueton. De Illustr. Grammat. c. 21.)

Cicero replies in the following terms to his brother Quintus, who had written to him, requesting advice and aid in getting together for his own use a collection of Greek and Latin books. “De bibliothecâ tuâ Græcâ supplendâ, libris commutandis, Latinis comparandis — valdé velim ista confici, præsertim cum ad meum quoque usum spectent. Sed ego, mihi ipsi ista per quem agam, non habeo. Neque enim venalia sunt, quæ quidem placeant: et confici nisi per hominem et peritum et diligentem non possunt. Chrysippo tamen imperabo, et cum Tyrannione loquar.” (Cic., Epist. ad Q. Fratr. iii. 4, 5.)

Now the circulation of books was greatly increased, and the book trade far more developed, at Rome when this letter was written (about three centuries after Plato’s decease) than it was at Athens during the time of Demetrius Phalereus (320-300 B.C.). Yet we see the difficulty which the two brothers Cicero had in collecting a mere private library for use of the owner simply. Good books, in a correct and satisfactory condition, were not to be had for money: it was necessary to get access to the best MSS., and to have special copies made, neatly and correctly: and this could not be done, except under the superintendence of a laborious literary man like Tyrannion, by well taught slaves subordinate to him.

We may understand, from this analogy, the far greater obstacles which the collectors of the Alexandrine museum and library must have had to overcome, when they began their work. No one could do it, except a practised literary man such as Demetrius Phalereus: nor even he, except by finding out the best MSS., and causing special copies to be made for the use of the library. Respecting the extent and facility of book-diffusion in the Roman world, information will be found in the late Sir George Cornewall Lewis’s Enquiry into the Credibility of Early Roman History, vol. i. p. 196, seqq.; also, in the fifth chapter of the work of Adolf Schmidt, Geschichte der Denk-und Glaubens-Freiheit im ersten Jahrhunderte der Kaiser-herrschaft, Berlin, 1847; lastly in a valuable review of Adolf Schmidt’s work by Sir George Lewis himself, in Fraser’s Magazine for April, 1862, pp. 432-439. Adolf Schmidt represents the multiplication and cheapness of books in that day as something hardly inferior to what it is now — citing many authorities for this opinion. Sir G. Lewis has shown, in my judgment most satisfactorily, that these authorities are insufficient, and that the opinion is incorrect: this might have been shown even more fully, if the review had been lengthened. I perfectly agree with Sir G. Lewis on the main question: yet I think he narrows the case on his own side too much, and that the number of copies of such authors as Virgil and Horace, in circulation at one time, cannot have been so small as he imagines.