Chasing the Idea of Completeness

This book sets out to explore how the Romans appropriated the Hellenistic concept of a complete library collection. Tracing this idea in the Roman world allows us to reconstruct the discourse on cultural transmission between Greece and Rome. The model of a super-library dominated the landscape of the Hellenistic period. The Romans were fascinated by this ideal, but never wholly embraced it and never formed one leading book collection of their own. This book attempts to answer the questions resul