Page:A Brief Outline of the Histories of Libraries.djvu/63

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CHAPTER IV

The Attalic Library, of which Eumenes was the founder. Certain errors of statement about it made by Pliny and Vitruvius. Its size and the length of time it existed.

THE Attalic or Pergamene library, in Asia, was almost as illustrious as the Alexandrian. When the Attalic kings, minor powers at first, became great and rich through an alliance with the Romans, they adorned their capital city in many ways and erected in it a library. Strabo regarded Eumenes, the son of King Attalus, as the founder of this collection. "Eumenes," he says, "built the city and beautifully adorned it as it now