Between 1752 and 1754 the only library to survive from the Roman world complete with its books was discovered in a grand villa in the seaside town of Herculaneum. The talk will serve as an introduction to this remarkable discovery and the treatment of its books, from the 18th to the 20th centuries.

David Blank is a student of ancient philosophy, from the Presocratics to the later Platonists. He has worked especially on philosophy of language and philology in antiquity. He has also worked extensively on the Herculaneum Papyri and is editing several papyri of Philodemus’ On Rhetoric. He is Professor and Chair of the Department of Classics at UCLA.