jan 1, 48 BC - Julius Caesar Library

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Julius Caesar planned a public library and entrusted the implementation of his plans to an outstanding scholar and writer, Marcus Terentius Varro, also the author of a treatise on libraries, De bibliothecis (which has not survived). Caesar died before his plans were carried out, but a public library was built within five years by the literary patron Asinius Pollio. Describing its foundation in his Natural History, Pliny coined a striking phrase that has application to libraries generally: ingenia hominum rem publicam fecit (“He made men’s talents a public possession”).

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