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The Library of Alexandria
Ellen N. Brundige
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Table of Contents
- The Legend of the Library
- Foundation
- Demetrius of Phaleron
- Precedents for the Museum
- The Museum
- The Stacks
- Development of the Library
- The Septuagint
- Acquisition of Books
- The First Librarians
- Organization
- Mathematics
- Astronomy
- Maps of Heaven
- Schemes of the Universe
- Geometry
- Eratosthenes and Spherical Geometry: Calculating the Earth's circumference
- Mechanics: Applied Science
- Medicine
- Conclusion
- Related Sites of Interest
- Bibliography
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.
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]
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]
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 Brucchium (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 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]
Aristeas, writing 100 years after the library's inception, records that Ptolemy
I handed over to Demetrius the job of gathering books and scrolls, as well as
letting him supervise a massive effort to translate other cultures' works into
Greek. This process began with the translation of the Septuagint, the Old Testament, into Greek, for which project
Ptolemy hired and housed 72 rabbis at Demetrius' suggestion. [Letter of
Aristeas 9-10]. [12]
At the time of Demetrius, Greek libraries were usually collections of manuscripts by
private individuals, such as Aristotle's library of his own and other works.
Egypt's temples often had shelves containing an assortment of religious and
official texts, as did certain Museums in the Greek world. It was Ptolemy I's
great ambition to possess all known world literature[13] that pushed these idiosyncratic collections-- the
web sites of the ancient world-- into the realm of a true library. John Tzetzes
records several centuries later that Callimachus cataloged 400,000 "mixed"
scrolls (probably those that contained more than one chapter, work, or even
author, see example in Vatican) and 90,000 "unmixed", plus an additional 42,000 in the Serapeum.[14]
Ptolemy's successors' methods for achieving his goal were certainly unique.
Ptolemy III wrote a letter "to all the world's sovereigns" asking to borrow
their books [Galen 17.1 Kühn p. 601ff][15],
When Athens lent him the texts to Euripides, Aeschylus, and Sophocles, he had
them copied, returned the copies, and kept the originals. Supposedly, all
ships that stopped in the port of Alexandria were searched for books which were
given them same treatment, thus the term "ship libraries" for the collection
housed in the Museum. This unorthodox procedure did at least inspire the first
systematic work in emendation and collation of classical
texts without which none of the authors would have survived.
While Demetrius was a convert of Serapis[16] and
thus probably an official of the new Greco-Egyptian cult invented by Ptolemy, the Serapeum was not yet built at his death and he is remembered neither as librarian of that institution nor at the Museum. The first recorded Librarian was Zenodotus of Ephesus, holding that post from the end of Ptolemy I's reign until 245
B.C.E. His successor Callimachus of Cyrene was perhaps Alexandria's most famous librarian,
creating for the first time a subject catalog in 120,000 scrolls of the
Library's holdings, called the Pinakes or Tables.[17] It was by no means
comprehensive, but was more like a good subject index on the web. Apollonius
of Rhodes, his younger rival and the writer of the notoriously meticulous epic,
Argonautica, seems to have been Callimachus' replacement.[18]
Eratosthenes of Cyrene, Stoic geographer and mathematician, succeeded him in
235, and compiled his "tetagmenos epi teis megaleis bibliothekeis", the "scheme
of the great bookshelves". In 195 Aristophanes, a Homeric scholar of no
relation to the comic playwright, took up the position, and updated
Callimachus' Pinakes. The last recorded librarian was Aristarchus of
Samothrace, the astronomer, who took up the position in 180 B.C.E. and was driven out
during dynastic struggles between two Ptolemies. While the library and Museum
persisted for many centuries afterwards, from that time onward scholars are
simply recorded as Alexandrian, and no Librarians are
mentioned by name.[19]
While it is doubtful the library had a perfectly systematic organization, but
rather tended to house new chests and shelves of papyri in the groups in which
they were acquired, the Alexandrians from Callimachus onwards tried to keep
track of their holdings via a subject catalog. In this they followed
Aristotle's divisions of knowledge, or at least his style of breaking up what
had previously fallen under the umbrella of "philosophy" into subdivisions of
observational and deductive sciences. Since this paper is an overview of the
work and scholarship carried out at Alexandria, I will adhere to the subject
divisions first set forth by Callimachus in his Pinakes, of mathematics,
medicine, astronomy, and geometry, as well as
philology. I have added the Aristotelian category of mechanics for some of the
applied science which grew out of Alexandrian studies.
Alexandrian mathematicians concerned themselves for the most part with geometry, but we know of some researches specific to number theory. Prime numbers were a source of fascination from the time of the Pythagoreans onwards. Eratosthenes the Librarian dabbled in numbers along with everything else, and
is reported to have invented the "sieve", a method for finding new ones.[20] Euclid also was known to have studied this tricky subject.
Eudoxis of Cnidus (see biography), Euclid's pupil, probably worked out of Alexandria, and is known for developing an early method of integration, studied the uses of proportions for problem solving, and contributed various formulas for measuring three dimensional figures. Pappus (See biography), a fourth century A.D. scholar, was one of the last of the Greek mathematicians and concentrated on large numbers and constructions in semicircles (See Vatican manuscript), and he was also an important transmitter into European culture of
astrology gleaned from eastern sources.[21] Theon and his daughter Hypatia also continued work in astronomy, geometry, and mathematics, commenting on their predecessors, but none of their works survive.
Astronomy was not merely the projection of three-dimensional geometry into a
fourth, time, although this is how many Greek scientists classified it. The
movements of the stars and sun were essential for determining terrestrial
positions, since they provided universal points of reference. In Egypt, this
was particularly vital for property rights, because the yearly inundation often
altered physical landmarks and boundaries between fields. For Alexandria,
whose lifeblood was export of grain and papyrus to the rest of the
Mediterranean, developments in astronomy allowed sailors to do away with
consultation of oracles, and to risk year-round navigation out of sight of the
coast.[22] Earlier Greek astronomers had
concentrated on theoretical models of the universe; Alexandrians now took up
the task of detailed observations and mathematical systems to develop and
buttress existing ideas.
Eratosthenes, the versatile third librarian, amassed a poetic catalog of 44
constellations complete with background myths, as well as a list of 475 fixed
stars.[23] Hipparchus was credited with inventing longitude and latitude, importing the 360-degree circular system from Babylonia, calculating the length of a year within six minutes accuracy,
amassing sky-chart of constellations and stars, and speculated that stars
might have both births and deaths.[24]
Aristarchus applied Alexandrian trigonometry to estimate the distances and sizes of the sun
and moon, and also postulated a heliocentric universe (biography). A fellow Museum
scholar, the Stoic Cleanthus, accused him of blatant impiety.[25] Hipparchus of Bithynia, during the reign
of Ptolemy VII, discovered and measured the procession of the equinoxes, the
size and trajectory of the sun, and the moon's path.[26] 300 years later Ptolemy (no known relation
to royalty, see biography) worked out mathematically his elegant system of epicycles to
support the geocentric, Aristotelian view,[27]
and wrote a treatise on astrology, both of which were to become the medieval
paradigm.[28] (See Vatican manuscript on astronomy and exhibit on geography.)
The Alexandrians compiled and set down many of the geometric principles of earlier Greek mathematicians, and also had access to Babylonian and
Egyptian knowledge on that subject. This is one of the areas in which the
Museum excelled, producing its share of great geometers, right from its
inception. Demetrius of Phaleron is said to have invited the scholar Euclid (biography) to
Alexandria, and his Elements are well-known to be the foundation of
geometry for many centuries. [29] His
successors, notably Apollonius of the second century B.C.E., carried on his research in conics (Vatican manuscript, biography), as did Hipparchus in the second century A.D. Archimedes (biography)is credited with the
discovery of pi.[30]
The third librarian of Alexandria, Eratosthenes (275-194 B.C.E), calculated
the circumference of the earth to within 1%, based on the measured distance
from Aswan to Alexandria and the fraction of the whole arc determined by
differing shadow-lengths at noon in those two locations. He further suggested
that the seas were connected, that Africa might be circumnavigated, and that
"India could be reached by sailing westward from Spain." Finally, probably
drawing on Egyptian and Near Eastern observations, he deduced the length of the
year to 365 1/4 days and first suggested the idea of adding a "leap day" every
four years.[31]
Archimedes (see biography) was one of the early Alexandria-affiliated scholars to apply geometers' and
astronomers' theories of motion to mechanical devices. Among his discoveries
were the lever and-- as an extension of the same principle-- the "Archimedes
screw," a handcranked device for lifting water.[32] He also figures in the tale of the
scientist arising from his tub with the cry of "Eureka" after discovering that
water is displaced by physical objects immersed in it.[33]
Hydraulics was an Alexandria-born science which was the principle behind Hero's
Pneumatics, a long work detailing many machines and "robots" simulating
human actions. The distinction between practical and fanciful probably did not
occur to him in his thought-experiments, which included statues that poured
libations, mixed drinks, drank, and sang (via compressed air). He also
invented a windmill-driven pipe organ, a steam boiler which was later adapted
for Roman baths, a self-trimming lamp, and the candelaria, in which the heat of
candle-flames caused a hoop from which were suspended small figures to spin.[34] His sometimes whimsical application of the
infant sciences are reminiscent of the modern Rube Goldberg's "inventions"
during the technological revolution of this century.
The study of anatomy, tracing its roots to Aristotle (see Andrea's case study on Aristotelian anatomy), was conducted extensively
by many Alexandrians, who may have taken advantage both of the zoological
gardens for animal specimens, and Egyptian burial practices and craft for human
anatomy. One of its first scholars, Herophilus, both collected and compiled the
Hippocratic corpus, and embarked on studies of his own. He first distinguished the
brain and nervous system as a unit, as well as the function of the heart, the
circulation of blood, and probably several other anatomical features. His
successor Eristratos concentrated on the digestive system and the effects of
nutrition, and postulated that nutrition as well as nerves and brain influenced
mental diseases. Finally, in the second century A.D., Galen drew upon
Alexandria's vast researches and his own investigations to compile fifteen
books on anatomy and the art of medicine.[35] (See Vatican manuscript).
The Museum of Alexandria was founded at a unique place and time which allowed its scholars to draw on the deductive techniques of Aristotle and Greek thought, in order to apply these methods to the knowledges of Greece, Egypt, Macedonia, Babylonia, and beyond. The location of Alexandria as a center of trade, and in particular as the major exporter of writing material, offered vast opportunities for the amassing of information from different cultures and schools of thought. Its scholars' deliberate efforts to compile and critically analyze the knowledge of their day allowed for the first systematic, long-term research by dedicated specialists in the new fields of science suggested by Aristotle and Callimachus. Whole new disciplines, such as grammar, manuscript preservation, and trigonometry were established. Moreover, the fortuitious collection of documents in an Egyptian city allowed the transmission and translation of vital classical texts into Arabic and Hebrew, where they might be preserved long after copies were lost during the Middle Ages in Europe. Alexandria and its cousins, the Lyceum, Academy, and the younger Pergamon library, were probably the prototypes both for the medieval monastery and universities. While modern scholars often lament the amount of information lost through the centuries since the Museum's fall, an amazing number of Alexandrian discoveries and theories, especially in mathematics and geometry, still provide the groundwork for modern research in these fields. Finally, the methods of research, study, and information storage and organization developed in the Library are much the same as those used today, but just as the medium of linear scrolls gave way to books in its halls, we now are watching the transformation from books to multilayered documents in the electronic medium.
Bevan, Edwyn. The House of Ptolemy. Argonaut Inc. Chicago: 1968.
Canfora, Luciano. The Vanished Library. trans. Martin Ryle. University
of California Press. Berkely: 1989.
Ellis, Ptolemy of Egypt. Routledge. New York: 1994.
Fraser, P. M. Ptolemaic Alexandria. Volume I of III. Oxford
University Press. Oxford: 1972.
Johnson, Emer D. History of Libraries in the Western World. Scarecrow
Press, Inc. Metuchen: 1970.
Marlowe, John. The Golden Age of Alexandria. Trinity Press. London: 1971.