This library in the buried city was chiefly made up of philosophical works, some of which were quite unknown to the modern world until discovered there.
But this find, interesting as it was from an archaeological stand-point, had no very important bearing on our knowledge of the literature of antiquity.

Our chief dependence for our knowledge of that literature must still be placed in such copies of books as were made in the successive generations.

Comparatively few of the extant manuscripts are older than the tenth century of our era.

It requires but a momentary consideration of the conditions under which ancient books were produced to realize how slow and difficult the process was before the invention of printing.

The taste of the book-buying public demanded a clearly written text, and in the Middle Ages it became customary to produce a richly ornamented text as well.