was between the temples of Castor and Vesta, near the Porticus Julia and the Arcus Fabiorum, but no remains have been discovered. The idea that an irregular circle of travertine blocks, found near the temple of Castor, formed part of the puteal is now abandoned.
See Horace, Sat. ii. 6. 35, Epp. i. 19. 8; Cicero, Pro Sestio, 8; for the well-known coin of L. Scribonius Libo, representing the puteal of Libo, which rather resembles a cippus (sepulchral monument) or an altar, with laurel wreaths, two lyres and a pair of pincers or tongs below the wreaths (perhaps symbolical of Vulcanus as forger of lightning), see C. Hülsen, The Roman Forum (Eng. trans. by J. B. Carter, 1906), p. 150, where a marble imitation found at Veii is also given.
LIBON, a Greek architect, born at Elis, who was employed to build the great temple of Zeus at Olympia (q.v.) about 460 B.C. (Pausanias v. 10. 3).
LIBOURNE, a town of south-western France, capital of an arrondissement of the department of Gironde, situated at the confluence of the Isle with the Dordogne, 22 m. E.N.E. of Bordeaux on the railway to Angoulême. Pop. (1906) town, 15,280; commune, 19,323. The sea is 56 m. distant, but the tide affects the river so as to admit of vessels drawing 14 ft. reaching the town at the highest tides. The Dordogne is here crossed by a stone bridge 492 ft. long, and a suspension bridge across the Isle connects Libourne with Fronsac, built on a hill on which in feudal times stood a powerful fortress. Libourne is regularly built. The Gothic church, restored in the 19th century, has a stone spire 232 ft. high. On the quay there is a machicolated clock-tower which is a survival of the ramparts of the 14th century; and the town-house, containing a small museum and a library, is a quaint relic of the 16th century. There is a statue of the Duc Decazes, who was born in the neighbourhood. The sub-prefecture, tribunals of first instance and of commerce, and a communal college are among the public institutions. The principal articles of commerce are the wines and brandies of the district. Printing and cooperage are among the industries.
Like other sites at the confluence of important rivers, that of Libourne was appropriated at an early period. Under the Romans Condate stood rather more than a mile to the south of the present Libourne; it was destroyed during the troubles of the 5th century. Resuscitated by Charlemagne, it was rebuilt in 1269, under its present name and on the site and plan it still retains, by Roger de Leybourne (of Leybourne in Kent), seneschal of Guienne, acting under the authority of King Edward I. of England. It suffered considerably in the struggles of the French and English for the possession of Guienne in the 14th century.
See R. Guinodie, Hist. de Libourne (2nd ed., 2 vols., Libourne, 1876–1877).
LIBRA (“The Balance”), in astronomy, the 7th sign of the zodiac (q.v.), denoted by the symbol ♎︎, resembling a pair of scales, probably in allusion to the fact that when the sun enters this part of the ecliptic, at the autumnal equinox, the days and nights are equal. It is also a constellation, not mentioned by Eudoxus or Aratus, but by Manetho (3rd century B.C.) and Geminus (1st century B.C.), and included by Ptolemy in his 48 asterisms; Ptolemy catalogued 17 stars, Tycho Brahe 10, and Hevelius 20. δ Librae is an Algol (q.v.) variable, the range of magnitude being 5.0 to 6.2, and the period 2 days 7 hrs. 51 min.; and the cluster M. 5 Librae is a faint globular cluster of which only about one star in eleven is variable.
LIBRARIES. A library (from Lat. liber, book), in the modern
sense, is a collection of printed or written literature. As such, it
implies an advanced and elaborate civilization. If the term be
extended to any considerable collection of written documents,
it must be nearly as old as civilization itself. The earliest
use to which the invention of inscribed or written signs was put
was probably to record important religious and political transactions.
These records would naturally be preserved in sacred
places, and accordingly the earliest libraries of the world were
probably temples, and the earliest librarians priests. And
indeed before the extension of the arts of writing and reading the
priests were the only persons who could perform such work as,
e.g. the compilation of the Annales Maximi, which was the duty
of the pontifices in ancient Rome. The beginnings of literature
proper in the shape of ballads and songs may have continued to
be conveyed orally only from one generation to another, long after
the record of important religious or civil events was regularly
committed to writing. The earliest collections of which we
know anything, therefore, were collections of archives. Of this
character appear to have been such famous collections as that
of the Medians at Ecbatana, the Persians at Susa or the hieroglyphic
archives of Knossos discovered by A. J. Evans (Scripta Minoa,
1909) of a date synchronizing with the XIIth Egyptian
dynasty. It is not until the development of arts and sciences,
and the growth of a considerable written literature, and even of
a distinct literary class, that we find collections of books which
can be called libraries in our modern sense. It is of libraries
in the modern sense, and not, except incidentally, of archives
that we are to speak.
Ancient Libraries
The researches which have followed the discoveries of P. E. Botta and Sir H. Layard have thrown unexpected light not only upon the history but upon the arts, the sciences and the literatures of the ancient civilizations of Babylonia and Assyria. In all these wondrous revelations no Assyria. facts are more interesting than those which show the existence of extensive libraries so many ages ago, and none are more eloquent of the elaborateness of these forgotten civilizations. In the course of his excavations at Nineveh in 1850, Layard came upon some chambers in the south-west palace, the floor of which, as well as the adjoining rooms, was covered to the depth of a foot with tablets of clay, covered with cuneiform characters, in many cases so small as to require a magnifying glass. These varied in size from 1 to 12 in. square. A great number of them were broken, as Layard supposed by the falling in of the roof, but as George Smith thought by having fallen from the upper storey, upon which he believed the collection to have been placed. These tablets formed the library of the great monarch Assur-bani-pal—the Sardanapalus of the Greeks—the greatest patron of literature amongst the Assyrians. It is estimated that this library consisted of some ten thousand distinct works and documents, some of the works extending over several tablets. The tablets appear to have been methodically arranged and catalogued, and the library seems to have been thrown open for the general use of the king’s subjects.[1] A great portion of this library has already been brought to England and deposited in the British museum, but it is calculated that there still remain some 20,000 fragments to be gathered up. For further details as to Assyrian libraries, and the still earlier Babylonian libraries at Tello, the ancient Lagash, and at Niffer, the ancient Nippur, from which the Assyrians drew their science and literature, see Babylonia and Nippur.
Of the libraries of ancient Egypt our knowledge is scattered and imperfect, but at a time extending to more than 6000 years ago we find numerous scribes of many classes who recorded official events in the life of their royal masters or details of their domestic affairs and business transactions. Ancient Egyptian Libraries. Besides this official literature we possess examples of many commentaries on the sacerdotal books, as well as historical treatises, works on moral philosophy and proverbial wisdom, science, collections of medical receipts as well as a great variety of popular novels and humoristic pieces. At an early date Heliopolis was a literary centre of great importance with culture akin to the Babylonian. Attached to every temple were professional scribes whose function was partly religious and partly scientific. The sacred books of Thoth constituted as it were a complete encyclopaedia of religion and science, and on these books was gradually accumulated an immense mass of exposition and commentary. We possess a record relating to “the land of the collected works [library] of Khufu,” a monarch of the IVth dynasty, and a similar inscription relating to the library of Khafra, the builder of the second pyramid. At Edfu
- ↑ See Menant, Bibliothèque du palais de Ninive (Paris, 1880).
