Part 654

"The first of the Ptolemies, Lagus, not only endeavoured to render Alexandria one of the most beautiful and most commercial of cities, he likewise wished her to become the cradle of science and philosophy. By the advice of an Athenian emigrant, Demetrius of Phaleros, this prince established a society of learned and scientific men, the prototype of our academies and modern institutions. He caused that celebrated museum to be raised, that became an ornament to the Bruchion; and here was deposited the noble library, 'a collection,' says Titus Livius, 'at once a proof of the magnificence of those kings, and of their love of science.' Philadelphos, the successor of Lagus, finding that the library of the Bruchion already numbered 400,000 volumes, and either thinking that the edifice could not well make room for any more, or being desirous, from motives of jealousy, to render his name equally famous by the construction of a similar monument, founded a second library in the temple of Serapis, called the Serapeum, situated at some distance from the Bruchion, in another part of the town. These two libraries were denominated, for a length of time, the Mother and the Daughter. During the war with Egypt, Cæsar, having set fire to the king's fleet, which happened to be anchored in the great port, it communicated with the Bruchion; the parent library was consumed, and, if any remains were rescued from the flames, they were, in all probability, conveyed to the Serapeum. Consequently, ever after, there can be no question but of the latter. Euergetes and the other Ptolemies enlarged it successively; and Cleopatra added 200,000 manuscripts at once from the library of King Pergamos, given her by Mark Antony. … Aulus Gellius and Ammianus Marcellus seem to insinuate that the whole of the Alexandrian library had been destroyed by fire in the time of Cæsar. … But both are mistaken on this point. Ammianus, in the rest of his narrative, evidently confounds Serapeum and Bruchion. … Suetonius (in his life of Domitian) mentions that this emperor sent some amanuenses to Alexandria, for the purpose of copying a quantity of books that were wanting in his library; consequently a library existed in Alexandria a long while after Cæsar. Besides, we know that the Serapeum was only destroyed A. D. 301, by the order of Theodosius. Doubtless the library suffered considerably on this last-mentioned occasion; but that it still partly existed is beyond a doubt, according to the testimony of Oroses, who, twenty-four years later, made a voyage to Alexandria, and assures us that he 'saw, in several temples, presses full of books,' the remains of ancient libraries. … The trustworthy Oroses, in 415, is the last witness we have of the existence of a library at Alexandria. The numerous Christian writers of the fifth and sixth centuries, who have handed down to us so many trifling facts, have not said a word upon this important subject. We, therefore, have no certain documents upon the fate of our library from 415 to 636, or, according to others, 640, when the Arabs took possession of Alexandria—a period of ignorance and barbarism, of war and revolutions, and vain disputes between a hundred different sects. 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. In it we read the following passage:—'In those days flourished John of Alexandria, whom we have surnamed the Grammarian, and who adopted the tenets of the Christian Jacobites. … He lived to the time when Amrou Ebno'l-As took Alexandria. He went to visit the conqueror; and Amrou, who was aware of the height of learning and science that John had attained, treated him with every distinction, and listened eagerly, to his lectures on philosophy, which were quite new to the Arabians. Amrou was himself a man of intellect and discernment, and very clear-headed. He retained the learned man about his person. John one day said to him, "You have visited all the stores of Alexandria, and you have put your seal on all the different things you found there. I say nothing about those treasures which have any value for you; but, in good sooth, you might leave us those of which you make no use." "What then is it that you want?" interrupted Amrou. "The books of philosophy that are to be found in the royal treasury," answered John. "I can dispose of nothing," Amrou then said, "without the permission of the lord of all true believers, Omar Ebno'l-Chattab." He therefore wrote to Omar, informing him of John's request. He received an answer from Omar in these words. "As to the books you mention, either, they agree with God's holy book, and then God's book is all-sufficient without them; or they disagree with God's book, in which case they ought not to be preserved." And, in consequence, Amrou Ebno'l-As caused them to be distributed amongst the different baths of the city, to serve as fuel. In this manner they were consumed in half-a-year.' When this account of Abulfarage's was made known in Europe, it was at once admitted as a fact, without the least question. … Since Pococke, another Arab historian, likewise a physician, was discovered, who gave pretty nearly the same account. This was Abdollatif, who wrote towards 1200, and consequently prior to Abulfarage. … Abdollatif does not relate any of the circumstances accessory to the destruction of the library. But what faith can we put in a writer who tells us that he has actually seen what could no longer have been in existence in his time? 'I have seen;' says he, 'the portico and the college that Alexander the Great caused to be built, and which contained the splendid library,' &c. Now, these buildings were situated within the Bruchion; and since the reign of Aurelian, who had destroyed it—that is to say, at least nine hundred years before Abdollatif—the Bruchion was a deserted spot, covered with ruins and rubbish. {2004} Abulfarage, on the other hand, places the library in the Royal Treasury; and the anachronism is just as bad. The royal edifices were all contained within the walls of the Bruchion; and not one of them could then be left. … As a fact is not necessarily incontestable because advanced as such by one or even two historians, several persons of learning and research have doubted the truth of this assertion. Renaudot (Hist. des Patriarches d'Alexandrie) had already questioned its authenticity, by observing: 'This account is rather suspicious, as is frequently the case with the Arabians.' And, lastly, Querci, the two Assemani, Villoison, and Gibbon, completely declared themselves against it. Gibbon at once expresses his astonishment that two historians, both of Egypt, should not have said a word about so remarkable an event. The first of these is Eutychius, patriarch of Alexandria, who lived in that city 500 years after it was taken by the Saracens, and who gives a long and detailed account, in his Annals, both of the siege and the succeeding events; the second is Elmacin, a most veracious writer, the author of a History of the Saracens, and who especially relates the life of Omar, and the taking of Alexandria, with its minutest circumstances. Is it conceivable or to be believed that these two historians should have been ignorant of so important a circumstance? That two learned men who would have been deeply interested in such a loss should have made no mention of it, though living and writing in Alexandria—Eutychius, too, at no distant period from the event? and that we should learn it for the first time from a stranger who wrote, six centuries after, on the frontiers of Media? Besides, as Gibbon observes, why should the Caliph Omar, who was no enemy to science, have acted, in this one instance, in direct opposition to his character. … To these reasons may be added the remark of a German writer, M. Reinhard, who observes that Eutychius (Annals of Eutychius, volume ii. page 316) transcribes the very words of the letter in which Amrou gives the Caliph Omar an account of the taking of Alexandria after a long and obstinate siege. 'I have carried the town by storm,' says he, 'and without any preceding offer of capitulation. I cannot describe all the treasures it contains; suffice it to say, that it numbers 4,000 palaces, 4,000 baths, 40,000 taxable Jews, 400 theatres, 12,000 gardeners who sell vegetables. Your Mussulmans demand the privilege of pillaging the city, and sharing the booty.' Omar, in his reply, disapproves of the request, and expressly forbids all pillage or dilapidation. It is plain that, in his official report, Amrou seeks to exaggerate the value of his conquest, and to magnify its importance, like the diplomatists of our times. He does not overlook a single hovel, nor a Jew, nor a gardener. How then could he have forgotten the library, he who, according to Abulfarage, was a friend to the fine arts and philosophy? … Elmacin in turn gives us Amrou's letter nearly in the same terms, and not one word of the library. … We … run no great risk in drawing the conclusion, from all these premises, that the library of the Ptolemies no longer existed in 640 at the taking of Alexandria by the Saracens. … If it be true, as we have every reason to think, that in 640 … the celebrated library no longer existed, we may inquire in what manner it had been dispersed and destroyed since 415 when Oroses affirms that he saw it? In the first place we must observe that Oroses only mentions some presses which he saw in the temples. It was not, therefore, the library of the Ptolemies as it once existed in the Serapeum. Let us call to mind, moreover, that ever since the first Roman emperors, Egypt had been the theatre of incessant civil warfare, and we shall be surprised that any traces of the library could still exist in later times."

_Historical Researches on the pretended burning of the Library of Alexandria by the Saracens (Fraser's Magazine. April, 1844)._

"After summing up the evidence we have been able to collect in regard to these libraries, we conclude that almost all the 700,000 volumes of the earlier Alexandrian libraries had been destroyed before the capture of the city by the Arabs; that another of considerable size, but chiefly of Christian literature, had been collected in the 250 years just preceding the Arab occupation; and that Abulpharaj, in a statement that is not literally true, gives, in the main, a correct account of the final destruction of the Alexandrian Library."

_C. W. Super, Alexandria and its Libraries (National Quarterly Review, December, 1875)._

ALSO IN: _E. Edwards, Memoirs of Libraries, book 1, chapter 5 (volume 1)._

_E. Edwards, Libraries and the Founders of Libraries, chapter 1._

See, also, EDUCATION, ANCIENT: ALEXANDRIA; and ALEXANDRIA: B. C. 282-246.

LIBRARIES: Pergamum.

See PERGAMUM.

LIBRARIES: Rome.

Pliny states that C. Asinius Pollio was the first who established a Public Library in Rome. But "Lucullus was undoubtedly before him in this claim upon the gratitude of the lovers of books. Plutarch tells us expressly that not only was the Library of Lucullus remarkable for its extent and for the beauty of the volumes which composed it, but that the use he made of them was even more to his honour than the pains he had taken in their acquisition. The Library, he says, 'was open to all. The Greeks who were at Rome resorted thither, as it were to the retreat of the Muses.' It is important to notice that, according to Pliny, the benefaction of Asinius Pollio to the literate among the Romans was 'ex manubiis.' This expression, conjoined with the fact that the statue of M. Varro was placed in the Library of Pollio, has led a recent distinguished historian of Rome under the Empire, Mr. Merivale, to suggest, that very probably Pollio only made additions to that Library which, as we know from Suetonius, Julius Cæsar had directed to be formed for public use under the care of Varro. These exploits of Pollio, which are most likely to have yielded him the 'spoils of war,' were of a date many years subsequent to the commission given by Cæsar to Varro. It has been usually, and somewhat rashly perhaps, inferred that this project, like many other schemes that were surging in that busy brain, remained a project only. In the absence of proof either way, may it not be reasonably conjectured that Varro's bust was placed in the Library called Pollio's because Varro had in truth carried out Cæsar's plan, with the ultimate concurrence and aid of Pollio? This Library—by whomsoever formed—was probably in the 'atrium libertatis' on the Aventine Mount. {2005} From Suetonius we further learn that Augustus added porticoes to the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine Mount, with (as appears from monumental inscriptions to those who had charge of them) two distinct Libraries of Greek and Latin authors; that Tiberius added to the Public Libraries the works of the Greek poets Euphorion, Rhianus, and Parthenius,—authors whom he especially admired and tried to imitate,—and also their statues; that Caligula (in addition to a scheme for suppressing Homer) had thoughts of banishing both the works and the busts of Virgil and of Livy—characterizing the one as a writer of no genius and of little learning, and the other (not quite so unfortunately) as a careless and verbose historian—from all the Libraries; and that Domitian early in his reign restored at vast expense the Libraries in the Capitol which had been burnt, and to this end both collected MSS. from various countries, and sent scribes to Alexandria expressly to copy or to correct works which were there preserved. In addition to the Libraries mentioned by Suetonius, we read in Plutarch of the Library dedicated by Octavia to the memory of Marcellus; in Aulus Gellius of a Library in the Palace of Tiberius and of another in the Temple of Peace; and in Dion Cassius of the more famous Ulpian Library founded by Trajan. This Library, we are told by Vopiscus, was in his day added, by way of adornment, to the Baths of Diocletian. Of private Libraries amongst the Romans one of the earliest recorded is that which Emilius Paulus found amongst the spoils of Perseus, and which he is said to have shared between his sons. The collection of Tyrunnion, some eighty years later (perhaps), amounted, according to a passage in Suidas, to 30,000 volumes. That of Lucullus—which, some will think, ought to be placed in this category—has been mentioned already. With that—the most famous of all—which was the delight and the pride of Cicero, every reader of his letters has an almost personal familiarity, extending even to the names and services of those who were employed in binding and in placing the books. … Of the Libraries of the long-buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum there is not a scintilla of information extant, other than that which has been gathered from their ruins. At one time great hopes were entertained of important additions to classical learning from remains, the discovery of which has so largely increased our knowledge both of the arts and of the manners of the Romans. But all effort in this direction has hitherto been either fruitless or else only tantalizing, from the fragmentary character of the results attained."

_E. Edwards, Memoirs of Libraries, pages 26-29._

"Most houses had a library, which, according to Vitruvius, ought to face the east in order to admit the light of the morning, and to prevent the books from becoming mouldy. At Herculaneum a library with bookcases containing 1,700 scrolls has been discovered. The grammarian Epaphroditus possessed a library of 30,000, and Sammanicus Serenus, the tutor of the younger Gordian, one of 62,000 books. Seneca ridicules the fashionable folly of illiterate men who adorned their walls with thousands of books, the titles of which were the delight of the yawning owner. According to Publius Victor, Rome possessed twenty-nine public libraries, the first of which was opened by Asinius Polio in the forecourt of the Temple of Peace; two others were founded during the reign of Augustus, viz., the Octavian and the Palatine libraries. Tiberius, Vespasian, Domitian, and Trajan added to their number; the Ulpian library, founded by the last-mentioned emperor, being the most important of all."

_E. Guhl and W. Koner, The Life of the Greeks and Romans, p. 531._

LIBRARIES: Herculaneum.

"Herculaneum remained a subterranean city from the year 79 to the year 1706. In the latter year some labourers who were employed in digging a well came upon a statue, a circumstance which led—not very speedily but in course of time … —to systematic excavations. Almost half a century passed, however, before the first roll of papyrus was discovered, near to Portici at a depth from the surface of about 120 English feet. In the course of a year or two, some 250 rolls—most of them Greek—had been found. … In 1754, further and more careful researches were made by Camillo Paderni, who succeeded in getting together no less than 337 Greek volumes and 18 Latin volumes. The latter were of larger dimensions than the Greek, and in worse condition. Very naturally, great interest was excited by these discoveries amongst scholars in all parts of Europe. In the years 1754 and 1755 the subject was repeatedly brought before the Royal Society by Mr. Locke and other of its fellows, sometimes in the form of communications from Paderni himself; at other times from the notes and observations of travellers. In one of these papers the disinterred rolls are described as appearing at first 'like roots of wood, all black, and seeming to be only of one piece. One of them falling on the ground, it broke in the middle, and many letters were observed, by which it was first known that the rolls were of papyrus. … They were in wooden cases, so much burnt, … that they cannot be recovered.' … At the beginning of the present century the attention of the British government was, to some extent, attracted to this subject. … Leave was at length obtained from the Neapolitan government for a literary mission to Herculaneum, which was entrusted to Mr. Hayter, one of the chaplains to the Prince Regent. But the results were few and unsatisfactory. … The Commission subsequently entrusted to Dr. Sickler of Hildburghausen was still more unfortunate. … In 1818, a committee of the House of Commons was appointed to inquire into the matter. It reported that, after an expenditure of about £1,100, no useful results had been attained. This inquiry and the experiments of Sickler led Sir Humphrey Davy to investigate the subject, and to undertake two successive journeys into Italy for its thorough elucidation. His account of his researches is highly interesting. … 'My experiments,' says Sir Humphrey Davy, … 'soon convinced me that the nature of these MSS. had been generally misunderstood; that they had not, as is usually supposed, been carbonized by the operation of fire, … but were in a state analogous to peat or Bovey coal, the leaves being generally cemented into one mass by a peculiar substance which had formed during the fermentation and chemical change of the vegetable matter comprising them, in a long course of ages. The nature of this substance being known, the destruction of it became a subject of obvious chemical investigation; and I was fortunate enough to find means of accomplishing this, without injuring the characters or destroying the texture of the MSS.' These means Sir Humphrey Davy has described very minutely in his subsequent communications to the Royal Society. {2006} Briefly, they may be said to have consisted in a mixture of a solution of glue with alcohol, enough to gelatinize it, applied by a camel's hair brush, for the separation of the layers. The process was sometimes assisted by the agency of ether, and the layers were dried by the action of a stream of air warmed gradually up to the temperature of boiling water. 'After the chemical operation, the leaves of most of the fragments separated perfectly from each other, and the Greek characters were in a high degree distinct. … The MSS. were probably on shelves of wood, which were broken down when the roofs of the houses yielded to the weight of the superincumbent mass. Hence, many of them were crushed and folded in a moist state, and the leaves of some pressed together in a perpendicular direction … in confused heaps; in these heaps the exterior MSS. … must have been acted on by the water; and as the ancient ink was composed of finely divided charcoal suspended in a solution of glue or gum, wherever the water percolated continuously, the characters were more or less erased.' … Sir Humphrey Davy proceeds to state that, according to the information given him, the number of MSS. and fragments of MSS. originally deposited in the Naples Museum was 1,696; that of these 88 had then been unrolled and found to be legible; that 319 others had been operated upon, and more or less unrolled, but were illegible; that 24 had been sent abroad as presents; and that of the remaining 1,265—which he had carefully examined—the majority were either small fragments, or MSS. so crushed and mutilated as to offer little hope of separation; whilst only from 80 to 120 offered a probability of success (and he elsewhere adds:—'this estimate, as my researches proceeded, appeared much too high'). … 'Of the 88 unrolled MSS. … the great body consists of works of Greek philosophers or sophists; nine are of Epicurus; thirty-two bear the name of Philodemus, three of Demetrius, one of each of these authors:—Colotes, Polystratus, Carneades, Chrysippus; and the subjects of these works, … and of those the authors of which are unknown, are either Natural or Moral Philosophy, Medicine, Criticism, and general observations on Arts, Life, and Manners.'"

_E. Edwards, Memoirs of Libraries, volume 1, book 1, chapter 5._

LIBRARIES: Constantinople.