4. The Library of Pergamum was second only to the legendary Library of Alexandria – until the Romans came and Mark Anthony stole its collections for his bride-to-be.
Under the enlightened guidance of King Eumenes II, the city of Pergamum (in modern-day Turkey) was transformed from a small town into a thriving, cosmopolitan metropolis. At its peak, it was home to 200,000 people, making it one of the largest cities in the whole of the ancient world. And at the centre of it all was the library. Commissioned by the King himself in around 170BC, it soon became the second most important library in the world, second only to that found in Alexandria. Scholars estimate that the library housed as many as 200,000 volumes.
Works brought by visitors to Pergamum were copied by the library’s own team of translators and scribes, ensuring the collection was kept up-to-date and included knowledge from across the known world. But while the priceless papyrus rolls may well have been protected from the elements, the library itself was still vulnerable to the forces of history. When the Kingdom of Pergamon fell to the Romans in the year 133BC, the library was plundered. According to one account, in 43BC, Mark Antony took the whole collection of 200,000 manuscripts and gave them to Cleopatra as a wedding gift.