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 reference to the regular book exportation to Asia also at least points to private libraries as common in his days.

The earliest mentioned public collections of literary works are those of Pisistratus and Polycrates of Samos, also mentioned by Athenaeus. That of Pisistratus is stated (by Aulus Gellius) to have been free for all, while oriental and later western usage point to the "public" character of any such royal library, at least in the sense of the more restricted modern "public" royal collections. These accounts are spoken of as of "doubtful authenticity" but certainly the doubt is not, in view of the archaeological developments of the last thirty years, on the ground of plausibility. It is natural enough that these should have been royal public libraries.

Whether or not a public library was established by Pisistratus, the founding by his son Hipparchus of a college (