The Library of Alexandria is founded
“The Ptolemies' library and Museum, set up about 295 BCE to hold every Greek book: the ancient world's research institute, home of Eratosthenes and the editors of Homer, whose loss became a legend.”
About 295 BCE Ptolemy I, the Macedonian general who had made himself king of Egypt after Alexander's death, set up in his new capital of Alexandria a library meant to hold every book written in Greek, and beside it the Museum, a 'shrine of the Muses' where paid scholars lived, ate together and worked at the king's expense. The man usually credited with the plan is Demetrius of Phalerum, a pupil of Aristotle's school who had ruled Athens for ten years, lost power in 307 and found refuge at Ptolemy's court about 297. The library stood in the royal quarter by the Great Harbour, the Brucheion; no one knows exactly where, and nothing of it has been found. The sources for its founding are late and thin: the earliest, the so-called Letter of Aristeas, is a Jewish text of the second century BCE whose author claims to be a courtier of Ptolemy II, and the Byzantine scholar John Tzetzes, writing some 1,400 years later, makes Ptolemy II, not his father, the founder. Most historians think the idea was Ptolemy I's and that his son, who sent Demetrius into exile, carried it out.
The kings bought books in Athens and Rhodes, the great book markets, and the stories of how they got them are famous: every ship that put into Alexandria was searched and its books copied or kept; Ptolemy III borrowed the Athenian state copies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides against a deposit of fifteen talents of silver, sent back copies and forfeited the money. The Letter of Aristeas has Demetrius report 200,000 rolls and aim at 500,000; later writers say 400,000 or 700,000. Such figures are not to be trusted, for all the Greek literature that existed by 200 BCE would have filled only tens of thousands of rolls, but the library was far larger than anything before it. It held Egyptian records too, and the Letter of Aristeas tells how seventy-two Jewish elders, working on the island of Pharos, turned the Law of Moses into Greek in seventy-two days: the beginning of the Septuagint, the Greek Bible that the early Church would use.
The library's real work was scholarship. Its first head, Zenodotus of Ephesus, compared the manuscripts of Homer, cut doubtful lines and divided the Iliad and the Odyssey into twenty-four books each; the poet Callimachus drew up the Pinakes, 120 books of 'tables' of every Greek author and his works, the first bibliography; Eratosthenes, who headed the library from about 245, measured the Earth; Aristophanes of Byzantium and then Aristarchus of Samothrace produced the critical texts of Homer and the lyric poets, with marginal signs for suspect lines, that papyri from about 150 BCE onward follow. Euclid, Archimedes and Apollonius worked in or with Alexandria. In 145 Ptolemy VIII drove the scholars out of the city after a dynastic war, and Aristarchus died in exile in Cyprus; the Museum went on, but the great age of collecting was over.
What happened to the books is a mystery with many suspects. In 48 BCE Julius Caesar, besieged in the palace quarter during the Alexandrian War, burned the Egyptian fleet in the harbour, and Plutarch says the fire spread from the docks and destroyed the great library; yet Strabo found the Museum working a generation later, and the emperor Domitian still sent scribes to Alexandria to copy books. Mark Antony was accused of giving Cleopatra the 200,000 rolls of the rival library of Pergamum. The Brucheion was laid waste when Aurelian retook the city from Zenobia's forces in 273, and the 'daughter library' in the temple of Serapis cannot have outlived the temple's destruction by the patriarch Theophilus's Christians in 391. The story that the caliph's general Amr burned the books to heat the baths in 642 was invented centuries later. Papyrus rots in Alexandria's damp air, and no library survives without copying; the books vanished because no one paid to keep them. What survived was the idea: a universal library, revived in 2002 in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina on the city's seafront.
What happened
- 295 BCE
About now Ptolemy I charges Demetrius of Phalerum, the exiled ruler of Athens who has been at his court since about 297, with founding a library to hold all the books in the world, and with it the Museum, a community of scholars kept at the king's expense in the royal quarter.
The royal quarter (Brucheion) of Alexandria, where the Museum and the Library stood by the Great Harbour: the exact site is unknown, and nothing of the buildings has been found - 284 BCE
Zenodotus of Ephesus becomes the first head of the library. He compares the manuscripts of Homer, strikes out doubtful lines and divides the Iliad and the Odyssey into twenty-four books each, the first critical edition of a Greek text.
The royal quarter (Brucheion) of Alexandria, where the Museum and the Library stood by the Great Harbour: the exact site is unknown, and nothing of the buildings has been found - 282 BCE
Ptolemy I dies and Ptolemy II Philadelphus, co-ruler since 285, becomes sole king. He completes his father's projects, dedicating the Museum about now, and sends Demetrius, who had backed his half-brother for the throne, into exile in the country, where he soon dies.
The royal quarter (Brucheion) of Alexandria, where the Museum and the Library stood by the Great Harbour: the exact site is unknown, and nothing of the buildings has been found- 270 BCE
At some time in Ptolemy II's reign, the story goes, seventy-two elders sent by the high priest in Jerusalem translate the Law of Moses into Greek in a house on the island of Pharos, finishing in seventy-two days: the origin of the Septuagint, told in the Letter of Aristeas a century later as a piece of Jewish self-advertisement. The year is the tradition's middle, not a date.
The island of Pharos: the lighthouse stood where the Citadel of Qaitbay now is, and the Letter of Aristeas puts the Septuagint's translators in a house on the island - 260 BCE
Callimachus of Cyrene, the poet, compiles the Pinakes, 'Tables of those who were eminent in every branch of learning, and of their writings', in 120 books: the first bibliography, based on the library's shelves and the model for every catalogue since. The year is approximate; he worked under Ptolemy II and lived into Ptolemy III's reign.
The royal quarter (Brucheion) of Alexandria, where the Museum and the Library stood by the Great Harbour: the exact site is unknown, and nothing of the buildings has been found - 245 BCE
Ptolemy III calls Eratosthenes of Cyrene from Athens to head the library; there he will measure the circumference of the Earth.
The royal quarter (Brucheion) of Alexandria, where the Museum and the Library stood by the Great Harbour: the exact site is unknown, and nothing of the buildings has been found - 240 BCE
The hunt for books at its height, by the stories later told: ships entering the harbour are searched and their books kept and replaced with copies; Ptolemy III borrows Athens's official copies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides against a deposit of fifteen talents, keeps the originals and forfeits the silver. The year is approximate.
The island of Pharos: the lighthouse stood where the Citadel of Qaitbay now is, and the Letter of Aristeas puts the Septuagint's translators in a house on the island - 195 BCE
Aristophanes of Byzantium becomes chief librarian. He edits Homer, Hesiod, Pindar and the dramatists, revises and continues Callimachus's Pinakes, and draws up the lists of the best authors in each kind that become the Alexandrian canon.
The royal quarter (Brucheion) of Alexandria, where the Museum and the Library stood by the Great Harbour: the exact site is unknown, and nothing of the buildings has been found - 153 BCE
Aristarchus of Samothrace, Aristophanes's pupil, becomes chief librarian. His two editions of Homer, with marginal signs against the lines he doubts, become the standard: papyri from about 150 BCE onward follow his text, and every Iliad since descends from it.
The royal quarter (Brucheion) of Alexandria, where the Museum and the Library stood by the Great Harbour: the exact site is unknown, and nothing of the buildings has been found - 145 BCE
After a dynastic war Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II drives most of the Museum's scholars out of Alexandria; Aristarchus withdraws to Cyprus and dies there. The scattered scholars carry Alexandrian learning to Rhodes, Pergamon and Athens, and the library's great age of collecting is over.
The royal quarter (Brucheion) of Alexandria, where the Museum and the Library stood by the Great Harbour: the exact site is unknown, and nothing of the buildings has been found - 48 BCE
Julius Caesar, besieged in the palace quarter during the Alexandrian War, sets fire to the Egyptian ships in the harbour. Plutarch says the flames spread from the docks and destroyed the great library; Caesar's own account mentions only the ships, and the Museum was still at work a generation later. What burned, and how much, is unknown.
The island of Pharos: the lighthouse stood where the Citadel of Qaitbay now is, and the Letter of Aristeas puts the Septuagint's translators in a house on the island - 32 BCE
In the propaganda war before Actium, Calvisius charges Mark Antony with giving Cleopatra the libraries of Pergamum, 'two hundred thousand volumes': if true, the rival collection came to Alexandria to replace what Caesar's fire had cost.
The royal quarter (Brucheion) of Alexandria, where the Museum and the Library stood by the Great Harbour: the exact site is unknown, and nothing of the buildings has been found - 30 BCE
Octavian takes Alexandria and Cleopatra kills herself; Egypt becomes a Roman province. The Museum goes on under the emperors, its priest now appointed by Caesar instead of the kings, but the Ptolemies' library has no royal patron any more.
The royal quarter (Brucheion) of Alexandria, where the Museum and the Library stood by the Great Harbour: the exact site is unknown, and nothing of the buildings has been found
