Changes

Jump to: navigation, search

How Did Pergamon Become a Great City

2 bytes removed, 01:06, 11 July 2019
no edit summary
====The Library of Pergamon====
[[File: Dying_gaul_Capoltine_Museum.jpg|300px|thumbnail|rightleft|Roman Reproduction of the Dying Gaul Statue in the Capitoline Museums, Rome]]
Eumenes II is also credited with the construction of another one of Pergamon’s great cultural attractions – the Library of Pergamon. It is believed that Eumenes II received his inspiration to build a great library in Pergamon from the older and better-known Library of Alexandria, but the king of Pergamon actively sought to make his library better. <ref> Thorton, John L. <i>The Chronology of Librarianship.</i> (London: Grafton and Company, 1941), p. 12</ref> According to the first century BC Greek geographer, Strabo, the kings of Pergamon scoured the Hellenic world looking for volumes to add to their library.
“Aristotle bequeathed his own library to Theophrastus, to whom he also left his school; and he is the first man, so far as I know, to have collected books and to have taught the kings in Egypt how to arrange a library. Theophrastus bequeathed it to Neleus; and Neleus took it to Scepsis and bequeathed it to his heirs, ordinary people, who kept the books locked up and not even carefully stored. But when they heard how zealously the Attalic kings to whom the city was subject were searching for books to build up the library in Pergamum, they hid their books underground in a kind of trench.” <ref> Strabo. <i> Geography.</i> Translated by Horace Leonard Jones. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2001), Book XIII, I, 54</ref>
Although the Attalid kings may never have been able to acquire Aristotle’s collection, they were able to bring a complete set of Demosthenes’ work and several other classics to the Library of Pergamon. <ref> Canfora, Luciano. <i>The Vanished Library.</i> Translated by Martin Ryle. (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989), p. 45</ref> The combination of Pergamon’s art and the library truly placed it on the same level as Alexandria as one of the premier cultural centers of the Hellenistic Period.
====Conclusion====

Navigation menu