Archaeologists overseeing the site of the so-called VILLA dei Papyri in Herculaneum find themselves facing a dilemma. Should they allow excavation of more of the site, buried, like nearby Pompeii, by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79, to see what other material might be unearthed? Or should they try to conserve and decipher the papyri that have already been found?
American academic monies and bodies are available for the former, which may produce glamorous finds, while the latter objective is time-consuming and less attractive to funding organisations.
What kind of collection is under there anyway? What sort of information, indeed, lies within the thus-far-unexcavated three-quarters of the town of Pompeii itself?
Alexandra Bounia's book, which is developed from her recent PhD thesis, explores the nature of collecting over a 200-year period in the classical era on either side of the year zero.
After an introduction, Bounia, who is now an assistant professor at the University of the Aegean, sets out her book in two sections, Notions of Collecting in the Ancient World, and Classical Collectors and Collections, followed by a short conclusion.
Since no intact collection survives from antiquity, Bounia's inquiry is based entirely on ancient texts, specifically Cicero, Martial, Petronius Arbiter, and Pliny. In essence, therefore, her book is a kind of meta-study - approaching the subject through a survey of other work on the topic.
Through her wide reading of ancient sources, Bounia gets to grips with some fundamental questions. What exactly is a collection? What constitutes a museum? Did the ancients collect as, say, the Getty Museum does today? What precisely are collections for? Do contemporary museums embody some kind of secular power, as collections of reliquaries once manifested a religious power? And just what are museums for?
In the late 1980s, the Victoria and Albert Museum briefly advertised itself as 'an ace caff with quite a nice museum attached', a description some distance apart from the didactic purpose of the 19th-century founders of the South Kensington institution. Bounia looks into archaic Athenian notions of gift-giving and exchange.
Anthropologically, such exchanges mirror the gift-giving between mankind and the gods. Libations or temple-offerings would be reciprocated by the gods thus propitiated: a plentiful harvest, deliverance from illness, or a safe voyage would result from such transactions.
A powerful man in society would thereby accumulate quantities of gifts, whether he deliberately sought them or not. What then to do with such treasures?
She also covers the ancient art market and early art thieves, as discussed by Cicero in relation to the case of Gaius Verres, the governor of the province of Sicily. Verres 'carried off the holy images of the gods and their most sacred shrines', as well as behaving disgracefully in every other way imaginable.
Despite powerful allies in Rome, he saw the weight of Cicero's case against him and fled to Marseilles. This proved a dangerous sanctuary: Verres was later murdered there for his possessions.
Bounia points out that he was not alone in his cupidity; many others at the time were captivated by things ancient, beautiful and valuable, though not all descended to plunder.
The book is in part a discussion of this relationship between (mere) collections and museums, dwelling places of the muses, surely only one step down from temples themselves. After all, a person who amasses 10,000 clipped tram-tickets or empty yogurt pots might well be diagnosed as psychotic, unless he is rich enough to endow a mighty museum devoted to whatever object he collects.
Bounia's other long peroration concerns Pliny the Elder's Historia Naturalis. Treating it as a 'culture text', she tries to clarify anachronistic blurring of ideas of collection, exhibition and museum as discussed in Pliny's sole surviving book.
She expends some effort on Pliny's complex moral position on marvellous things that are also useless. Pliny records the cost of the 'marvels' he lists, in an attempt to demonstrate that he knows the price, as well as the 'value', of absolutely everything.
Unfortunately, this book is hidebound with the stunted language of theory. Readers seeking the perfectly impenetrable self-reflexive sentence will find a rewarding hunting-ground here.
Thinking further about the Villa dei Papyri: what might archaeologists uncover if they are permitted to delve further into the site? Is it perhaps the villa and 'book' collection of a nouveau riche Roman? Are the contents just unread literary furniture, amassed by clearing the shelves at the ancient Roman equivalent of antiquarian bookshops?
Alternatively, the owner of the villa might have been a literary figure himself, his library stuffed with presentation copies of his friends' works, complete with lavish dedications.
It is not impossible that the villa may contain unique source material that bears on the questions raised by Bounia in her book; maybe even some of Pliny's lost works... As in scientific investigation, historical inquiry often produces more questions than answers.
David Brady teaches at the New York University in London
American academic monies and bodies are available for the former, which may produce glamorous finds, while the latter objective is time-consuming and less attractive to funding organisations.
What kind of collection is under there anyway? What sort of information, indeed, lies within the thus-far-unexcavated three-quarters of the town of Pompeii itself?
Alexandra Bounia's book, which is developed from her recent PhD thesis, explores the nature of collecting over a 200-year period in the classical era on either side of the year zero.
After an introduction, Bounia, who is now an assistant professor at the University of the Aegean, sets out her book in two sections, Notions of Collecting in the Ancient World, and Classical Collectors and Collections, followed by a short conclusion.
Since no intact collection survives from antiquity, Bounia's inquiry is based entirely on ancient texts, specifically Cicero, Martial, Petronius Arbiter, and Pliny. In essence, therefore, her book is a kind of meta-study - approaching the subject through a survey of other work on the topic.
Through her wide reading of ancient sources, Bounia gets to grips with some fundamental questions. What exactly is a collection? What constitutes a museum? Did the ancients collect as, say, the Getty Museum does today? What precisely are collections for? Do contemporary museums embody some kind of secular power, as collections of reliquaries once manifested a religious power? And just what are museums for?
In the late 1980s, the Victoria and Albert Museum briefly advertised itself as 'an ace caff with quite a nice museum attached', a description some distance apart from the didactic purpose of the 19th-century founders of the South Kensington institution. Bounia looks into archaic Athenian notions of gift-giving and exchange.
Anthropologically, such exchanges mirror the gift-giving between mankind and the gods. Libations or temple-offerings would be reciprocated by the gods thus propitiated: a plentiful harvest, deliverance from illness, or a safe voyage would result from such transactions.
A powerful man in society would thereby accumulate quantities of gifts, whether he deliberately sought them or not. What then to do with such treasures?
She also covers the ancient art market and early art thieves, as discussed by Cicero in relation to the case of Gaius Verres, the governor of the province of Sicily. Verres 'carried off the holy images of the gods and their most sacred shrines', as well as behaving disgracefully in every other way imaginable.
Despite powerful allies in Rome, he saw the weight of Cicero's case against him and fled to Marseilles. This proved a dangerous sanctuary: Verres was later murdered there for his possessions.
Bounia points out that he was not alone in his cupidity; many others at the time were captivated by things ancient, beautiful and valuable, though not all descended to plunder.
The book is in part a discussion of this relationship between (mere) collections and museums, dwelling places of the muses, surely only one step down from temples themselves. After all, a person who amasses 10,000 clipped tram-tickets or empty yogurt pots might well be diagnosed as psychotic, unless he is rich enough to endow a mighty museum devoted to whatever object he collects.
Bounia's other long peroration concerns Pliny the Elder's Historia Naturalis. Treating it as a 'culture text', she tries to clarify anachronistic blurring of ideas of collection, exhibition and museum as discussed in Pliny's sole surviving book.
She expends some effort on Pliny's complex moral position on marvellous things that are also useless. Pliny records the cost of the 'marvels' he lists, in an attempt to demonstrate that he knows the price, as well as the 'value', of absolutely everything.
Unfortunately, this book is hidebound with the stunted language of theory. Readers seeking the perfectly impenetrable self-reflexive sentence will find a rewarding hunting-ground here.
Thinking further about the Villa dei Papyri: what might archaeologists uncover if they are permitted to delve further into the site? Is it perhaps the villa and 'book' collection of a nouveau riche Roman? Are the contents just unread literary furniture, amassed by clearing the shelves at the ancient Roman equivalent of antiquarian bookshops?
Alternatively, the owner of the villa might have been a literary figure himself, his library stuffed with presentation copies of his friends' works, complete with lavish dedications.
It is not impossible that the villa may contain unique source material that bears on the questions raised by Bounia in her book; maybe even some of Pliny's lost works... As in scientific investigation, historical inquiry often produces more questions than answers.
David Brady teaches at the New York University in London
By Alexandra Bounia
Ashgate Press, £49.50 (hbk)
ISBN: 0 7546 0012 2
Ashgate Press, £49.50 (hbk)
ISBN: 0 7546 0012 2
