I will begin with Assyria, where the record-rooms, or we might almost say the library, in the palace of Assur-bani-pal, King of Nineveh, were discovered by Mr Layard in 1850 at Kouyunjik, on the Tigris, opposite Mosul. The plan ([fig. 1]), taken from Mr Layard's work[1], will shew, better than a long description, the position of these rooms, and their relation to the rest of the building—which is believed to date from about 700 b.c. The long passage (No. xlix) is one of the entrances to the palace. Passing thence along the narrower passage (No. xlii) the explorers soon reached a doorway (E), which led them into a large hall (No. xxix), whence a second doorway (F) brought them into a chamber (No. xxxviii). On the north side of this room were two doorways (G. G), each "formed by two colossal bas-reliefs of Dagon, the fish-god." "The first doorway," says Mr Layard, "guarded by the fish-gods, led into two small chambers opening into each other, and once panelled with bas-reliefs, the greater part of which had been destroyed. I shall call these chambers 'the chambers of records,' for, like 'the house of the rolls' or records, which Darius ordered to be searched for the decree of Cyrus concerning the building of the Temple of Jerusalem[2], they appear to have contained the decrees of the Assyrian kings, as well as the archives of the empire."

Mr Layard was led to this conclusion by finding, in these rooms, enormous quantities of inscribed tablets and cylinders of baked clay. "To a height of a foot or more from the floor they were entirely filled with them; some entire, but the greater part broken into many fragments, probably by the falling in of the upper part of the building.... These documents appear to be of various kinds. Many are historical records of wars, and distant expeditions undertaken by the Assyrians; some seem to be royal decrees, and are stamped with the name of a king, the son of Esarhaddon; others again ... contain lists of the gods, and probably a register of offerings made in their temples[3]."

So far Mr Layard. Subsequent researches have shewn that these two small rooms—they were 27 feet and 23 feet long respectively, with a uniform breadth of 20 feet—contained the literature as well as the official documents of Assyria. The tablets have been sorted under the following heads: History; Law; Science; Magic; Dogma; Legends: and it has been shewn (1) that there was a special functionary to take charge of them; (2) that they were arranged in series, with special precautions for keeping the tablets forming a particular series in their proper sequence; (3) that there was a general catalogue, and probably a class-catalogue as well[4].

Excavations in other parts of Assyria have added valuable information to Layard's first discovery. Dr Wallis Budge, of the British Museum, whom I have to thank for much kind assistance, tells me that "Kouyunjik is hardly a good example of a Mesopotamian library, for it is certain that the tablets were thrown about out of their proper places when the city was captured by the Medes about b.c. 609. The tablets were kept on shelves.... When I was digging at Derr some years ago we found the what I call 'Record Chamber,' and we saw the tablets lying in situ on slate shelves. There were, however, not many literary tablets there, for the chamber was meant to hold the commercial documents relating to the local temple...." Dr Budge concludes his letter with this very important sentence: "We have no definite proof of what I am going to say now, but I believe that the bilingual[5] lists, which Assur-bani-pal had drawn up for his library at Nineveh, were intended 'for the use of students.'"

To this suggestion I would add the following. Does not the position of these two rooms, easily accessible from the entrance to the palace, shew that their contents might be consulted by persons who were denied admission to the more private apartments? And further, does not the presence of the god Dagon at the entrance indicate that the library was under the protection of the deity as well as of the sovereign?

As a pendant to these Assyrian discoveries I may mention the vague rumour echoed by Athenæus of extensive libraries collected in the sixth century before our era by Polycrates[6], tyrant of Samos, and Peisistratus, tyrant of Athens, the latter collection, according to Aulus Gellius[7], having been accessible to all who cared to use it. It must be admitted that these stories are of doubtful authenticity; and further, that we have no details of the way in which books were cared for in Greece during the golden age of her literature. This dearth of information is the more tantalizing as it is obvious that private libraries must have existed in a city so cultivated as Athens; and we do, in fact, find a few notices which tell us that such was the case. Xenophon[8], for instance, speaks of the number of volumes in the possession of Euthydemus, a follower of Socrates; and Athenæus records, in the passage to which I have already alluded, the names of several book-collectors, among whom are Euripides and Aristotle.

An allusion to the poet's bibliographical tastes has been detected in the scene of The Frogs of Aristophanes, where Æschylus and Euripides are weighing verses against each other in the presence of Dionysus. Æschylus exclaims:

[και] μηκετ' εμοιγε κατ' επος, αλλ' ες τον σταθμον
αυτος τα παιδι', ἡ γυνη, κηφισοφων,
εμβας καθησθω συλλαβων τα βιβλια,
εγω δε δυ' επη των εμων ερω μονον.