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BIBLICAL LIBRARIES

to the Council chamber, and the market place (agora) and the number of Keepers of the laws was increased to seven. It was still an Archive (one of several) rather than the central archive but later, perhaps about the time of Alexander, the Metroon, the temple of the Great Mother, which was in the market place adjoining the Council chamber, was fitted up for and organized into a central archive, and remained such in that place for five centuries. It contained all the usual kinds of general public documents, including among others the lists of ephebes and as before said copies at least of some of the great dramatists. For the most part of the time it was under the direction of a "scribe" (chancellor) a sub-chancellor and scribes and the archival work was done by "public slaves." Documents were loaned out to departments and were copied for any one on demand.

This central archive did not however do

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