  Before the mid-18th century, that Philodemus wrote properly philosophical works could, beyond a reference to his Collection of the Philosophers (D[iogenes] L[aertius] 10.3, cf. 10.24, and see Section 2.2.5.5), only be inferred from Cicero’s reference to him as a ‘very learned’ Epicurean, along with Siro (On Moral Ends 2.119). But in 1752 and 1754 a large trove of perhaps about 800 papyrus bookrolls was excavated from an opulent villa in the town of Herculaneum on the Bay of Naples. The eruption of Vesuvius that buried the town and the villa in October of 79 CE was also responsible for the preservation of these carbonized bookrolls, the first papyrus books to become known in Europe. The discovery sent a thrill through learned Europe, although the bookrolls’ extreme fragility, which made them practically impossible to unroll or separate into distinct layers without inflicting grave damage—various early attempts resulted only in the destruction of an unknown number of rolls—was deeply frustrating.