It's collections and where did they come from?

Aristotle, Plato and Socrates





The Library of Alexandria was considered to be the most important in the whole Hellenistic culture (Lerner, F. 1998, pg26) and its existence  had came about during one of the most intellectually creative periods of mankind when the Greeks were writing books that would become the foundations of Western philosophy, mathematics, history, medicine, science and literature(Fortunecity, [online], 9/09/2011).

It contained the greatest collection of scrolls and it’s believed the library held hundreds and thousands of them at one time including an authorative manuscript of the Iliad (Books and Writers, [online], 9/15/2011).

The scrolls in the main library totalled 490,000, in the “daughter library”, there were approximately 42,800 scrolls (Casson, L. 2001, pg 36). The original library’s collection covered over the whole extent of human knowledge as it was in Ancient times and the manuscripts it held where written on papyrus and stored in rolls (Fortunecity, [online], 9/09/2011).

For seven hundred years up until the 4th AD, as many as a hundred scholars at a time came to the library to seek information, to read, talk and write.  They initially wrote on Papyrus, then on parchment, the scrolls were stored in lined or in leather jackets and kept in racks in the hall or in the cloisters.  During Roman times, they wrote manuscripts in codex form, which were then placed in wooden chest where they could be stored (Macleod, R.M. 2004, pg 5-6).

This library collected classic books on Greek Poetry, and its scholars edited and arranged them eg: the master copies of Homer’s poems were edited by the Scholars of Alexandria.  These were made available for copying by the public, and were used as examples for professional scribes who produced copies for the book trade. There were books by native historians on the countries that Alexander had conquered as well as the translations of Hebrew Scriptures.  For example the Septuagint is the Hebrew bible which had been translated into Ancient Greek.  This was because at the time, Alexandria had a large Greek speaking Jewish community (Lerner, F. 1999, pg 27-28).

Also translated were Egyptian chronologies and the religious teachings of the first recorded monotheistic Faith; Zoroastrianism (Lerner, F. 1999, pg 27). This religion was founded in Persia or Modern day Iran as we now know it (Religious Tolerance, [online], 9/16/2011).

Among the libraries treasured possessions was a collection of important works from famous thinkers and scholars of that time; Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, Sophocles, Euripides, Hippocrates and Euclid who were just a few of the geniuses who were either hard at work or not long dead (Fortunecity, [online], 9/09/2011).

In the beginning, the very first problem that the library faced was the acquisition of materials.  It’ first director and librarian; Zenodotos, began an inventory of the scrolls acquired by the Ptolemies for the Museum (Books and Writers, [online], 9/15/2011)

Even though Egypt had many books, they were all in Egyptian. The Ptolemy’s used their wealth to buy Greek books from Athens and Rhodes, and other established areas of Greek Culture (Casson, L. 2001, pg 34). They sent out agents, with money and orders to buy whatever books they could find and on any subject. Because they were so eager to complete their collection, they unfortunately became victims to forgers who found counterfeiting a very lucrative business at that time (Lerner, F. 1999, pg 27).

It’s reported that the Monarch, Ptolemy III borrowed the Athenians official copies of the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.  He gave the owners 15 talents which is the equivalent to over a million dollars in today’s money as security for their safe return.  Instead, he kept the manuscripts, returned copies of them back to Athens and happily forfeited his deposit. This same King ordered that all ships who docked in Alexandria be searched and any scrolls or manuscripts found on board would be brought straight to the library (Macleod, R. 2004, pg 65).

Some of the libraries books were also produced by the library itself as scholars of the museum had written many volumes by using ordinary written and spoken language especially when rewriting commentaries on earlier works, these were then included amongst the libraries collection (Lerner, F. 1999, pg 27-28).

During my research for this blog, i found alot of relevent and interesting information in two books: The Story of Libraries : from the invention of writing to the Computer Age by Fred Lerner, Libraries in the Ancient world by Fred Lerner. I also found them very easy to read and they went into great detail as to what was in the library's collection and how those items were obtained. The third book; The Library of Alexandria : centre of learning in the ancient world, gave me only brief information and i found the language used in this book difficult to follow.

The other two books, i felt were more user friendly.  I was amazed at what lengths the Ptolomies went through to obtain the scrolls for their library and how many the library contained.  I was also impressed at the fact that considering Ptolomy Soter I,  who first started the library was once a General under Alexander the Great.  He was clearly an intelligent man who wanted to not only positively transform the city of Alexandria, but in doing so, he was improving  the lives of the people he was ruling by giving them and opportunity to gain knowledge and become educated.

References:

Lerner, F. 1999, The Story of Libraries : from the invention of writing to the computer age, Continium Publishing Company, NY, USA.

Casson, L. 2001, Libraries in the Ancient World, Yale University Press, New Haven, USA.

MacLeod, R.M. 2004, The Library of Alexandria : centre of learning in the ancient world, I.B. Tauris, London.

Alexander's library rises from the ashes, available from:

http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/alexand.html

Information on the Zoroastrianism religion, available from:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/zoroastr.htm

Information about some of the libraries collection, available from :

http://kirjasto.sci.fi/callimac.htm 

Banerjee, S 2008, 'Socrates, Plato and Aristotle' [image] in soham_pablo's photostream, Flickr, viewed the 9th of September 2011, http://www.flickr.com/photos/soham_pablo/2251562747/