The ensemble described in the previous lecture seems too disparate, both in terms of literary genres and the quality of the works, to reveal the profile of a single reader. The presence of Coptic doesn't help us much : by the 6thcentury , this language had spread to cultivated urban circles. The importance of the medical papyri may suggest that Johnson had unearthed the library of a professor of medicine, or even of a school specializing in this field, but this is an unprovable conjecture.
Rather than a reader, with his tastes and habits, what emerges behind this library is the cultural milieu specific to the city of Antinoopolis : its status as capital of the Thebaid region encouraged the spread of Latin and the practice of tachography, the teaching of which has been well documented since Protogenes, a disciple of the Arian Eunomus, was exiled to the city in the 4thcentury , where he opened a school ; in addition, medicine, under the patronage of the holy healer Kollouthos, became one of the city's specialties, with specific lectures that influenced the textual tradition of the great medical authors on whom it was based (notably Hippocrates). One of the virtues of the " Byzantine library of Antinoopolis " is to make us aware of the phenomenon of the regionalization of culture, drawing our attention to the specific local characteristics of each city in terms of culture, literature and book production.
