Message #74228

[Raven]

Helios

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Member # 2019

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   posted 08-25-2004 10:45 PM                       
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I have just run across some new information on the development of the Library of Alexandria, seems suitable to post it here..!

quote:
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The Legend of the Library
"And concerning the number of books, the establishment of libraries, and the collection in the
Hall of the the Muses, why need I even speak, since they are all in men's memories?"

-- Athenaeus [1]

The library of Alexandria is a legend. Not a myth, but a legend. The destruction of the library of the ancient world has been retold many times
and attributed to just as many different factions and rulers, not for the purpose of chronicling that ediface of education, but as political slander.
Much ink has been spilled, ancient and modern, over the 40,000 volumes housed in grain depots near the harbor, which were supposedly
incinerated when Julius Caesar torched the fleet of Cleopatra's brother and rival monarch. So says Livy, apparently, in one of his lost books,
which Seneca quotes.[2] The figure of Hypatia, a fifth-century scholar and mathematician of Alexandria, being dragged from her chariot from
an angry Pagan-hating mob of monks who flayed her alive then burned her upon the remnants of the old Library, has found her way into
legend as well, thanks to a few contemporary sources which survived.[3] Yet while we know of many rumors of the destruction of "The
Library" (in fact, there were at least three different libraries coexisting in the city), and know of whole schools of Alexandrian scholars and
scholarship, there is scant data about the whereabouts, layout, holdings, organization, administration, and physical structure of the place.

Foundation

Demetrius of Phaleron

The first mention we have of the library is in The Letter of Aristeas (ca. 180-145 B.C.E.), a Jewish scholar housed at the Library
chronicling the translation of the Septuagint into Greek by seventy-two rabbis. This massive production was commissioned by the Athenian
exile Demetrius of Phaleron under his patron, Ptolemy I, Ptolemy Soter.[4] Demetrius himself was a former ruler, no less than a ten-year
tyrant of Athens, and a first-generation Peripatetic scholar. That is, he was one of the students of Aristotle along with Theophrastus and
Alexander the Great. Demetrius, helped into power in Athens by Alexander's successor Cassander, provided backing for Theophrastus to
found a Lyceum devoted to his master's studies and modelled after Plato's Academy. [5] After Ptolemy I Soter, on of Alexander's successful
generals, secured the kingship for himself of conquered Egypt, Theophrastus turned down the Pharoah's invitation in 297 B.C.E to tutor
Ptolemy's heir, and instead recommended Demetrius, who had recently been driven out from Athens as a result of political fallout from the
conflicts of Alexander's successors [Diog. Laert. 5.37].[6]

Precedents for the Museum

According to Aristeas, Demetrius recommended Ptolemy gather a collection of books on kingship and ruling in the style of Plato's
philosopher-kings, and furthermore to gather books of all the world's people that he might better understand subjects and trade partners.
Demetrius must also have helped inspire the founding of a Museum in Ptolemy's capital, Alexandria, a temple dedicated to the Muses. This
was not the first such temple dedicated to the divine patrons of arts and sciences. However, coming as it did in the half-century after the
establishment of Plato's Academy, Aristotle's Lyceum, Zeno's Stoa and the school of Epicurus,[7] and located in a rich center of international
trade and cultural exchange, the place and time were ripe for such an institution to flower. Scholars were invited there to carry out the
Peripatetic activities of observation and deduction in math, medicine, astronomy, and geometry; and most of the western world's discoveries
were recorded and debated there for the next 500 years.[8]

The Museum

Archaeologists have not uncovered the foundations of the Museum, although they have excavated portions of the "daughter Library" in the
nearby temple of Serapis. From scattered primary sources this much seems relatively clear: it was in the Bruc****m (northeast) sector of the
city, probably in or adjacent to the palace grounds. It was surrounded by courts, gardens, and a zoological park containing exotic animals
from far-flung parts of the Alexandrian empire. According to Strabo [17.1.8], at its heart was a Great Hall and a circular domed dining hall
(perhaps Roman?) with an observatory in its upper terrace; classrooms surrounded it. This is very similar to the layout of the Serapeum,
which was begun by Ptolemy II Philadelphus and completed by his son.[9] An estimated 30-50 scholars were probably permanently housed
there, probably fed and funded first by the royal family, and later, according to an early Roman papyrus, by public money.[10]

The Stacks

The physical shelves of the Library may have been in one of the outlying lecture halls or in the garden, or it may have been housed in the
Great Hall. They consisted of pigeonholes or racks for the scrolls, the best of which were wrapped in linen or leather jackets. Parchment
skins--vellum-- came into vogue after Alexandria stopped exporting papyrus in an attempt to strangle its younger rival library, set up by the
Seleucids in Pergamon. In Roman times, manuscripts started to be written in codex (book) form, and began to be stored in wooden chests
called armaria .[11]


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