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THE GREEK PERIOD

(poems of Aristomache, hymns to Dionysus, hymns to Apollo, Aristotle), Lindus (Pindar), Epidaurus (Thrasyllus).

There must have been private libraries long before the works of the dramatists were put in the public archives but the references to such libraries whether before or for some time after are few, and one of the very earliest of these, if royal libraries are excepted, is that of one of those very dramatists—Euripides. This is mentioned by Athenaeus but also and more famously by Aristophanes, who makes Aeschylus boast that a couple of his verses are worth more than everything belonging to Euripides "His wife, his children, his Caphisphoron His books and everything, himself to boot."

Xenophon refers to the library of Euthydemus, and many later writers speak of the library of Aristotle. Xenophon's

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