Lists tell us a lot. We know more about ancient libraries 🔖 from lists than from surviving libraries like the one at Herculaneum. My fav. is the red dipinti from the gymnasium at Tauromenium, Sicily (Taormina: pleiades.stoa.org/places/462506). sicily.classics.ox.ac.uk/inscription/... [SEG-26, 1123] - ThreadSky

sarahebond.bsky.social • 12 days ago

Lists tell us a lot. We know more about ancient libraries 🔖 from lists than from surviving libraries like the one at Herculaneum. My fav. is the red dipinti from the gymnasium at Tauromenium, Sicily (Taormina: https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/462506). http://sicily.classics.ox.ac.uk/inscription/ISic000613 [SEG-26, 1123]

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sarahebond.bsky.social•12 days ago

The inscription likely dates to around 130 BCE and focused mostly on Greek historians until we get to Quintus Fabius Pictor.

"Quintus Fabius, called Pictorinos, from Rome, son of Gaius. He recorded the arrival of Heracles in Italy and..." trans. Filippo Battistoni https://www.jstor.org/stable/20191124?seq=1

sarahebond.bsky.social•12 days ago

Anyways, I rarely teach from edited volumes by love Jason König's "Ancient Libraries." https://search.worldcat.org/title/958296212

For the power of the listicle? See Athena Kirk's brilliant work: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/ancient-greek-lists/C7C906CFAEC49520FB063120AB855A52 and @antiquethought.bsky.social: https://search.worldcat.org/title/1089603877

aspencerhall.bsky.social•12 days ago

I was struck by the function of lists as memorials both practical & existential looking at the Syon Martyrology at the British Library "Medieval Women in their own words" exhibition yesterday

aspencerhall.bsky.social•12 days ago

Plus the mortuary roll of Lucy of Hedingham, to all intents & purposes is an annotated list. It memorializes Lucy, but also every house that adds its name to the roll. The roll/list "remembers" its original subject, Lucy, & the ppl who write themselves into being as the list itself

aspencerhall.bsky.social•12 days ago

Final one: Margaret Paston's will really reminded me of bullet-pointed task lists, like I write at the start of a work day. A to-do list for Margaret's afterlife (donations to secure her soul's salvation) & for her heirs more literally, to handle all the logistics

sarahebond.bsky.social•12 days ago

Oh this is splendid! I heard rave reviews about this exhibition. I wish I had seen it!

aspencerhall.bsky.social•12 days ago

It was really excellent, I must say. The exhibition book might be worth a look? Part of the exhibition's impact (for me at least) was having manuscript after manuscript, artefact after artefact (like a materialized, embodied list of women's history???). It was almost too much, in a good way

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