Copy 1, Volume 1
An introduction to the study of bibliography. To which is prefixed a memoir on the public libraries of the antients / [T.H. Horne].
- Thomas Hartwell Horne
- Date:
- 1814
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An introduction to the study of bibliography. To which is prefixed a memoir on the public libraries of the antients / [T.H. Horne]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
36/440 page 12
![Thebes and Troy: it would therefore be fruitless to seek for books in that nation before those events. ‘The Lacedemonians had no books: they expressed their meaning so concisely, that writing was considered a superfluous accom- plishment. | LIBRARY AT ATHENS FOUNDED’ BY PISISTRATUS. At Athens, on the contrary, the sciences and literature were diligently cultivated. Pisistratus, the tyrant, is said to have been the first who es- tablished a Library i in that city, [s. c. cir. 562.] and deposited therein, the works of Homer, which he had collected with great difficulty, and at a very considerable expense. After- wards the Athenians themselves, with great care and pains, increased their number: all these books however were seized and carried into Persia by Xerxes, when he obtained possession Ab’ulfaragius, by negative arguments. It should however be considered that the positive evidence of an historian, of such unquestionable credit as Ab’ulfaragius is, caynot be set aside by an argument merely negative. His references (it has well been observed) to Aulus Gellius, (1. 6. c. 17.) Ammianus Marcellinus, (1. 22. c. 15.) and Orosius, (l.. 6. c. 13.) are foreign from the purpose: for these writers only refer to the destruction of the Alexandrian Library in the time of Julius Czsar, which has been noticed in the preceding pages; after which (as already stated) it was renovated and continued to flourish until its utter destruction by the Saracens. eles Hist. of Phil, vol. ii. p. 227, note.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33291949_0001_0036.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
