Library of Alexandria

“ A stuffed monkey was letting himself down, one-hand, from a thin chain, and regarded the customer with a contemptuous sneer, the dust lying thick on his head and arms and his exquisitely curled tail. And out of an apparently bomb-proof shelter below several tons of books there emerged a little old gentleman in a brilliant tarbush, who looked inquiringly in my direction. For a moment I paused, fascinated by the notion that I had discovered the great Library of Alexandria, reported burnt so many centuries ago. For once within those musty, warped, unpainted walls one forgot the modern world. ”

“ But of all libraries those of Alexandria were the largest and most celebrated, and yet, notwithstanding their eminence, the accounts relating to them are confused and contradictory. Alexandria, which, although situated in Egypt, was a Greek and not an Egyptian city, was founded by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C., and rapidly rose to a high position. Its buildings, its learning, its luxury, and its books, became world-famous. The first library was established by Ptolemy Soter, a ruler of literary tastes, about 300 B.C., and was situated in that part of the city known as the Bruchium. ”

“ In the first century of the Christian era, Egypt passed from the Greek kings to the Roman emperors, and the Alexandrian school continued to be adorned by the first men of the age. This splendor, more Grecian than Egyptian, was extinguished in the seventh century by the Saracens, who conquered the country, and, it is believed, burned the great Alexandrian Library. After the wars of the immediate successors of Mohammed, the Arabian princes protected literature, Alexandria recovered its schools, and other institutions of learning were established ”

“ Gibbon pathetically describes the empty library of Alexandria, after the Christians had destroyed it. "The valuable library of Alexandria was pillaged or destroyed; and near twenty years afterwards the appearance of the empty shelves excited the regret and indignation of every spectator, whose mind was not totally darkened by religious prejudice. The compositions of ancient genius, so many of which have irretrievably perished, might surely have been excepted from the wreck of idolatry, for the amusement and instruction of succeeding ages ”

“ Now, towards A. D. 636, or 640, the troops of the caliph, Omar, headed by his lieutenant, Amrou, took possession of Alexandria. For more than six centuries, nobody in Europe took the trouble of ascertaining what had become of the library of Alexandria. At length, in the year 1660, a learned Oxford scholar, Edward Pococke, who had been twice to the East, and had brought back a number of Arabian manuscripts, first introduced the Oriental history of the physician Abulfarage to the learned world, in a Latin translation. ”

“ If the praise of Alexandria is to be sung, we must not forget the library to which the most precious treasures of knowledge of the East and West are flowing, and which feeds those who thirst for knowledge with the intellectual gains of former ages and other nations. ”

“ He says, to quote him directly, "After the Attalic kings, led by their great interest and delight in literature, established for general enjoyment a superb library at Pergamum, Ptolemy, stirred to a boundless zeal by their example, and rivalling them in activity, endeavoured to establish at Alexandria a library equal to theirs." ”

“ Ptolemy Philadelphus sent to all parts of Egypt, Greece, and Asia to secure the most valuable books; no exertions nor expense were spared to enrich and enlarge the collection in the Library; and he left, it is said, 100,000 volumes therein. Staffs of copyists were gathered in the Museum and search was continually made throughout Greece and Asia Minor for copies and duplicates of existing rolls. Extravagant prices were paid for books by the librarians (page 30) and thus a steady flow of literature was turned toward Alexandria from all parts of the then civilized world. ”

“ Alexander the Great granted to his illustrious teacher, Aristotle, a large sum of money for use in his scientific researches, sent him natural history collections from conquered lands, and put at his service thousands of men to collect specimens, upon which he based his work on natural history; the museum of Alexandria, which included within its keeping the Alexandrian library, was a great university composed of a number of associated colleges; but there was nowhere in all the ancient world an institution which exactly corresponded in its scope and purpose to the modern museum. ”

“ He had been carefully educated by several of the learned men whom the patronage of his father had drawn to the court; and he continued, on a still more liberal scale, that encouragement of science and literature which had already made Alexandria a successful rival of Athens. He so greatly increased the Alexandrian Library that he is often mentioned as its founder. Agents were appointed to search Europe and Asia for every literary work of value, and to secure it at any cost. ”

“ Library, the most famous and the largest collections of books in the world, and the glory of Alexandria. Demetrius Phalereus, after his banishment from Athens, is said to have been its first superintendent, when the number of volumes, or rolls, amounted to 50,000.
If the other Ptolemies were as unscrupulous in obtaining books as Energetes is said to have been, it is no wonder that the library increased in magnitude or value. We are told that he refused to sell corn to the Athenians during a famine unless he received in pledge the original manuscripts of Aschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. ”

“ The President and Directors of the Alexandria Library Company desirous of promoting the influence which they conceive eminently calculated to diffuse useful knowledge, establish the morals of the rising generation, and afford rational entertainment for a vacent hour, earnestly recommend it to the attention and support of their fellow citizens. The utility of a public circulating library is too obvious to need arguments to demonstrate it. The friends of Literature, of Virtue, and refinement of manners, will, no doubt duly appreciate its value, and interest themselves in its advancement. ”

“ Ptolemy, ... prompted, or at least, encouraged, by the celebrated Demetrius of Phalerus, put into execution a plan for the formal endowment of literature and science. The fact indeed of the possession of an immense library seemed sufficient to render Alexandria a University; for what could be a greater attraction to the students of all lands, than the opportunity afforded them of intellectual converse, not only with the living, but with the dead, with all who had anywhere at any time thrown light upon any subject of inquiry? ”

“ The story told by Athenæus (i. 4) is that the library of Neleus was purchased by Ptolemy Philadelphus. The names of a few other libraries in Greece are barely known to us from inscriptions; of their character and contents we know nothing. If indeed we are to trust Strabo entirely, we must believe that Aristotle was the first person who collected a library, and that he communi cated the taste for collecting to the sovereigns of Egypt. Alexandria.It is at all events certain that the libraries of Alexandria were the most important as they were the most celebrated of the ancient world. ”

“ It is to be borne in mind, however, in this connection, that, with hardly an exception, the manuscripts produced in Alexandria were copies of books accepted as classics, the works of writers long since dead. For the editors of what might be called the Alexandrian editions of Greek classics, compensation was provided in the form of honoraria from the treasury of the Museum library or of salaried positions in the Museum Academy. ”

“ Year after year and age after age it accumulates—this evidence and monument of intellectual activity—piling itself up in vast collections, which it needs a lifetime even to catalogue, and through which the uncultured walk as the idle do through the British Museum, with no very strong indignation against Omar who burned the library at Alexandria. ”

“ It was at Alexandria, that persons in general first possessed the ready means of knowing what others knew and thought, by consulting their writings collected in its stupendous library. How different must have been the state of learning and learned men in ancient and in modern times! ”

“ Nouzha (birthplace of Callimachus) : p. 156 (B) SCHOLARSHIP. In the Mouseion at Alexandria Greece first became aware of her literary heritage, and the works of the past were not only collected in the Library but were codified, amended, and explained. Scholarship dates from Zenodotus, the first Librarian. He turned his attention to Homer, divided the Iliad and Odyssey into “Books,” struck out spurious verses from the text, marked doubtful ones, and introduced new readings. He gave a general impulse to research. Hitherto the Greek language had developed unnoticed. ”

“ This was very unlike Ptolemy, who was a wise, clear-headed man, with much of Alexander’s spirit of teaching and improving people under him, and who ruled so as to make himself much beloved in Egypt, Cyprus, Rhodes, and Palestine. The new city of Alexandria was his capital, and under him and his son Ptolemy Philadelphus it grew to be a great merchant city, and also a school of art, science, and philosophy almost as famous as Athens, and with a library containing all the chief books in the world, including the Old Testament. ”

“ Alexandria was not the only centre of Greek intellectual activity in the third century B.C. There were many other cities that displayed a brilliant intellectual life amidst the disintegrating fragments of the brief empire of Alexander. There was, for example, the Greek city of Syracuse in Sicily, where thought and science flourished for two centuries; there was Pergamum in Asia Minor, which also had a great library. ”

“ If he can neither borrow nor purchase what he desires, he may commission the bookseller to send for it to Alexandria, where there is an unrivalled store of books and many skilled scribes ready to make copies of them.
But it is not easy to estimate with any degree of certainty the quantity of literary material available, say, at the time of the establishment of the first public library in Rome, which was probably about 39 B.C. Books were common and booksellers flourished. ”

“ We must first understand that the nature of the library is changing. Traditionally, libraries have been conceived as protective vessels in a world where information is scarce. Our iconic library stories are romances of destruction, decay, and amnesia. ”

“ This passage from Strabo, however, must be read with care and be properly interpreted; for Aristotle was by no means the first to form a library, and as he lived before the time of Philadelphus, he could not have taught him, save as I have said, by example. Perhaps what Athenaeus says is true, that Aristotle left his books to Theophrastus, he to Neleus, and that from the latter Ptolemy bought them, and transferred them, with others which he purchased in Athens and Rhodes, to fair Alexandria. ”

“ The Persians had a great dislike to the religion of the Phœnicians and the Egyptians, and this was one reason for destroying their books, of which Eusebius says they had a great number.
53The first celebrated library of antiquity was at Alexandria, and called from thence the Alexandrian library; it owed its foundation to Ptolemy Soter, king of Egypt, though his Son Ptolemy Philadelphus enjoys the reputation of being its founder. This was about 284 years before the Christian æra.
The palace of Ptolemy Philadelphus was the asylum of learned men whom he admired and patronized. ”

“ The ILVaKes of Callimachus formed a catalogue of all the principal books arranged in 120 classes. When Cæsar set fire to the fleet in the harbour of Alexandria, the flames accidentally extended to the larger library of the Bruchium, and it was destroyed. [12] Antony endeavoured to repair the loss by presenting to Cleopatra the library from Pergamus. This was very probably placed in the Bruchium, as this continued to be the literary quarter of Alexandria until the time of Aurelian. Thenceforward the Serapeum became the principal library. ”

“ But the library of the Serapeion still remained, and was augmented by subsequent donations, particularly by that of the [Pg 360] Pergamean Library of 200,000 volumes, [19] presented by Mark Antony to Cleopatra, so that it soon equalled the former, both in the number and in the value of its contents. At length, after various revolutions under the Roman Emperors, during which the collection was sometimes plundered and sometimes reëstablished, it was utterly destroyed by the Saracens at the command of the Caliph Omar, when they acquired possession of Alexandria in a. d. ”

“ Imagine that its Second Web capabilities allowed universal researches of the bibliome.
Well, why not imagine this library? Realizing such a dream is no longer a question of technology. Remarkable electronic libraries are already being assembled. Google Books aims to catalogue about 16 million books. The nonprofit Internet Archive already has some 1 million volumes. Public expectations run ahead even of these efforts. To do research, only one in a hundred American college students turn first to their university catalogue. Over 80 percent turn first to Google. ”