The Epigraphy Collection

JOHN DAY
 

FORCEFUL indication of the value of the science of
epigraphy to the student of the ancient world appeared
in the introduction to Volume XII of the Cainbridge
Ancient History, where the editors were at pains to explain that
the history of the period there under review (roughly, the third
century A.D.) was the monument of Gibbon, in his Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire, and that the main advances beyond
his work, such as they are, had been brought about by the advance
in studies in epigraphy and numismatics. The epigraphist, to be
proficient in his science, it may be said, must be a historian, and
the historian must be thoroughly competent in epigraphy. To see
at a quick glance what epigraphy means to the scholar in ancient
history, one needs only to look at the monumental histories of
the Hellenistic world and the Roman Empire by the late Professor
Rostovtzefi^.

The Columbia tradition in this important field has been espe¬
cially strong, owing to the efl^orts of the late James C. F,gbert,
who held the chair of Roman Archaeology and Epigraphy, and
George N. Olcott, also a professor of Roman Archaeology and
Epigraphy, who bequeathed to the University the valuable col¬
lection of antiquities which bears his name.

The Epigraphy Collection of the Columbia Libraries is not a
research collection in the sense that the Papyrus Collection is:
there are no important original documents to be published. It is,
however, in another respect, very important for research. Here
are all the books; it is one of the most complete compilations of
epigraphical books in the \\'estern Hemisphere. Only very rarely
will the epigraphist—or the historian or the linguist concerned
with epigraphical data—fail to find the book or the information