History of the ancient library of Alexandria

The Library of Alexandria is famous as a repository of ancient knowledge.

According to legend, the library was founded in the 3rd century BC and destroyed around the end of the Roman period, containing millions of cataloged texts. Scholars still debate whether this library really existed and when it was destroyed.

The birth of the great library

Alexander the Great (356 - 323 BC) is famous for building a vast empire in just over a decade, from his succession to the Macedonian throne in 336 BC, to his early death in 323 BC. Alexander's enduring legacy is rooted in the dozens of cities he founded, including about 15 cities named after Alexandria.

But no city was more important than Egypt's Alexandria, founded in 330 BC. Alexandria is a land located in the western Nile Delta, near the fishing village of Rhakotis, a prosperous new city that amazes visitors with its wealth.

Designed by Alexander's architect Dinocrates, Alexandria features massive architecture, a large harbor, Pharos lighthouse, Museum and most famously the great library, once considered the intellectual capital of the world. ancient greek.

A world-renowned city-state, Alexandria is Greek-influenced in language, culture and political orientation, but global in population. The Greeks coexisted with the Egyptians, Persians, Jews, Indians, and eventually the Romans.

Painting depicting the ancient library of Alexandria by an artist.

The first written evidence of a great library comes from the Library of Aristeas in the 2nd century BC. However, some historians consider the text to be a forged source, believed to have been written by an official from the court of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (309 - 246 BC).

Later Roman authors, Strabo and Plutarch, place the library's origins in the reign of Ptolemy ISoter. Plutarch writing of Demetrius of Athens, who was exiled, proposed building a museum, or temple of the Muses and accompanying library at Ptolemy I's palace in Alexandria. Ptolemy I wanted to systematize the diary and personal history of Alexander the Great, his general.

Demetrius' plan is a solution to this end. By the end of his reign, Ptolemy I is said to have collected more than 50,000 texts that lay cluttered in the chambers of the palace and form the main part of the archive proposed by Demetrius.

Ptolemy III Eugertes (280 - 222 BC) continued the work of building the great library, expanding the collections. According to the documents, he sent men across the Mediterranean to scour bookstores and buy prints of classic works.

Even before Ptolemy III expanded the collection, a second library or sub-library was established, perhaps at the Temple of Serapis, to house the growing collection. Private libraries were very common in the ancient world, but the public library, especially given the ambitious size of Alexandria, was an innovation. Like a university, the Museum and Library in Alexandria is a place to store books and work for scholars.

Alexandria's greatest librarian was the poet Callimachus of Cyrene (310 - 240 BC). He innovated the index system, including 120 separate volumes, recording eight types of texts preserved in Alexandria. Categories, which Callimachus called Pinakes, or lists, include biographical and bibliographic details on each source.

His work is said to include references to all known classical literary works of his day. In addition, he arranged the library's texts by genre, then alphabetically.

'At its height, the library held about half a million separate written works. The subject matter of these papyrus scrolls contains the entire knowledge of the ancient [Western] world, from works of literature, philosophy, scientific interpretation to religion, mythology and medicine', Willeke Wendrich, a professor of archeology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Prominent among them are the works of famous Greek philosophers of antiquity such as Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras; poets and playwrights (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Sappho, Pindar, Hesiod), medical books of Hippocrates; scientific studies of Thales, Democritus and Anaximander…

In addition to Greek culture, the library's librarians also collect works from many other cultures, including Ancient Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Assyria, and India. In addition, the library is also a place to store documents related to Judaism, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism.

The rulers of the Ptolemaic dynasty sent people around to collect and document nearly all the documents in the world. They will buy any manuscript they can find, favoring the oldest and most original. They are willing to pay large sums for quality manuscripts. Even during the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes, all ships calling into the city's harbor were required to surrender any documents on board. A group of people will be tasked with making copies, keeping the originals and sending copies back to the ships.

When the papyrus scrolls became too numerous to contain them in a single building, the rulers built a second library, called the Serapeum, between 246 – 222 BC.

How is the library destroyed?

The Great Library suffered a series of accidents or was intentionally destroyed. Julius Caesar is often blamed for the first fire at the library. After his victory at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC, Julius Caesar pursued his defeated opponent, Pompeius Magnus, as far as Egypt. Caesar arrived in Alexandria at the time of the outbreak of civil war between the young king Ptolemy XIII (62 - 47 BC) and his sister Cleopatra VII (69 - 30 BC).

The 19th-century painter O.Von Corven demonstrated the workings of the Alexandrian library based on archaeological evidence.

While in Egypt, Ptolemy XIII's forces besieged Caesar and his army at the harbor in Alexandria. Caesar commanded his forces to set fire to Ptolemy XIII's fleet. But the summer winds caused the fire to spread from the port to the warehouses and perhaps into the city.

Plutarch reports in The Life of Caesar in the 2nd century AD about the burning of part of the library's possessions, possibly the dockside warehouses but possibly the great library itself. Historians question whether this fire, if it happened, was purely coincidental, or a deliberate act by Caesar to get rid of the library.

As the knowledge capital of Egypt, Alexandria boasts a wealthy and intelligent population. Until 391 C.E., a riot in Alexandria centered on the Temple of Serapis, Serapeum, may have resulted in the burning of both the sub-library and the great library.

The construction of a new library in Alexandria in 2002 is a 'spiritual successor' of ancient knowledge. Although no longer there, the great library of ancient Alexandria remains an intellectual wonder of the world and an inspiration for generations to come.

The Library of Alexandria is said to be a reference site of unprecedented scale. It is estimated that the great library has collections ranging from 40,000 scrolls to 1,000,000 texts. Scrolls, rather than books, are the typical format for texts. Multiple papyrus may contain a single book or volume, which may account for this statistical disparity.