Library of Samuel Teleki: Part One

XXI

adorned libraries filled with volumes in every kind, among the number of which are celebrated even today in speech the Pisistratean, Aristotelian, Alexandrian, Attalic or Pergamene, to say nothing of the Apamean, Cnidian, Smyrnian, and finally the Constantinopolitan and several others, which indeed consisted for the most part of books written in the Greek language. Now, indeed, regarding the Romans, the leading people of the earth, who has not read, or at least heard of, the outstanding zeal for books of the bravest and most famous citizens among the Romans, Aemilius Paulus, Lucius Lucullus, and even Sulla himself, who are remembered as the very first to have founded private libraries in Rome from the spoils of the nations they defeated, which were then followed by those established for public use and filled with monuments of talents for those speaking both languages, of which kind were the library of Asinius Pollio in the Atrium of Liberty, and also the Palatine, Octavian, Ulpian, Capitoline, and Gordian libraries, besides those made public property in the colonies and municipalities. But also in our own times, the culture and humanity of the most flourishing nations are measured by these shrines of the Muses, as experience is the witness.