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Culture and Power in Ptolemaic Egypt: the Museum and Library of Alexandria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Andrew Erskine
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Extract

Within the palace complex in Alexandria, the city founded by Alexander in Egypt, a community of scholars was established in what was known as the Museum (or Mouseion); linked to this was a library, the Great Library of Alexandria. These two institutions are often celebrated for their role in the history of scholarship, but they were also the products of the Hellenistic age and of the competition which arose between the successors of Alexander. In many ways these two institutions encapsulate the ideology and policy of the early Ptolemies. It is the purpose of this paper to explore this aspect and set them in a wider context.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , April 1995 , pp. 38 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1995

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References

Notes

1. Fraser, P. M., Ptolemaic Alexandria (Oxford, 1972), i. 321–2Google Scholar, 469 n. 69, 475 n. 13, Pfeiffer, R., History of Classical Scholarship (Oxford, 1968), pp. 95–102Google Scholar.

2. In addition to Fraser and Pfeiffer, note recentlyCanfora, L., The Vanished Library (London, 1989, originally published in Italian, Palermo 1987)Google Scholar, Blum, R., Kallimachus: the Alexandrian Library and the Origins of Bibliography (Madison, Wisconsin, 1991Google Scholar, originally published in German, Frankfurt, 1977), El-Abbadi, M., The Life and Fate of the Ancient Library of Alexandria (Unesco, Paris, 1990)Google Scholar, Weber, G., Dichtung und höfische Gesellschaft: die Rezeption von Zeitgeschichte an Hof der ersten drei Ptolemäer (Stuttgart, 1993), pp. 56–101Google Scholar.

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4. Timon Fr. 60 W (Diels 12), Athen. 1.22d.

5. Strabo 17.793–4.

6. P. Oxy. 1241; Fraser, , op. cit. (n. 1), i. 322–3Google Scholar.

7. Athen. 1.3b.

8. Galen, Comm. in Hipp. Epid. iii, CMG 5.10.2.1, pp. 78–9, quoted in Fraser, , op. cit. (n. 1), i. 480 n. 147Google Scholar. Galen's views may have been coloured by the fact that he was a native of Alexandria's erstwhile rival Pergamum.

9. In general, Ps. Aristeas, 9–10, followed by Tzetzes, John in Kaibel, G., Com. Graec. Frag., p.19fGoogle Scholar. (Pb), on which Blum, , op. cit. (n. 2), pp. 104–13Google Scholar. Pfeiffer, , op. cit. (n. 1), pp. 99–102Google Scholar. Texts included the Pentateuch (Ps. Aristeas), probably also Zoroaster (Pliny, N.H. 30.4), and Egyptian texts translated by Manetho, on all of which Fraser, , op. cit., i. 329–30, 505–11Google Scholar.

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11. Library, Strabo 13.608–9; the will of Theophrastus (head of school 322-C.286) refers to the Museum and emphasizes the communal nature of the school, D.L. 5.51–7; Fraser, , op. cit. (n. 1), i. 312–16Google Scholar stresses the similarities though Lynch, J. P., Aristotle's School (Berkeley/Los Angeles, 1974), pp. 121–3Google Scholar, would minimize them.

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13. D.L. 5.75–85.

14. Ps. Aristeas, 9–10, followed by Tzetzes, John in Kaibel, G., Com. Graec. Frag., p. 19fGoogle Scholar. (Pb).

15. On these, Weber, , op. cit. (n. 2), pp. 33–53Google Scholar.

16. This is not to diminish Alexandrian poetry, but it is only part of more extensive Ptolemaic patronage.

17. John Tzetzes, op. cit. (n. 9), gives almost half a million, while Aul. Gell. 7.17.3 gives c. 700,000.

18. Kidnapping and sarcophagus: Strabo 17.794, Diod. 18.26–8, Arrian FGH 156 F.9.25,10.1, Paus. 1.6.3. Octavian visited the body and accidentally knocked off part of the nose, Dio 51.16.

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21. Fraser, , op. cit. (n. 1), i. 45, iiGoogle Scholar. 123 n.62.

22. Pausanias, 1.6.2.

23. Plut. Alex. 7–8; Vatai, F. L., Intellectuals in Politics in the Greek World (London, 1984), pp. 112–16Google Scholar.

24. Fraser, , op. cit. (n. 1), i. 38–74Google Scholar.

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26. Cf. Zanker, G., Realism in Alexandrian Poetry (London, 1987), pp. 19–22Google Scholar, who places Alexandrian poetry in the context of a need for cultural continuity. More recently, in Sarajevo, it was the role of the National Library of Bosnia Herzegovina as a cultural symbol that contributed to its destruction in August 1992.

27. Herod. 5.22, Dem. 9.31; Badian, E., ‘Greeks and Macedonians’ in Barr-Shar, B. and Borza, E. N. (edd.), Macedonia and Greece in Late Classical and Hellenistic Times (Washington, 1982), pp. 33–51Google Scholar.

28. Herod, 2.19–27. On Egypt in Alexandrian poetry, Weber, , op. cit. (n. 2), pp. 369–99Google Scholar.

29. Theoc. 15.46–50, a passage played down by Hunter, R. L., ‘Greek and non-Greek in the Argonautica of Apollonius’ in Said, S. (ed.), EΛΛΗΝΙΣΜΟΣ (Leiden, 1991), pp. 81–99Google Scholar. On Greek/Egyptian relations, note also Samuels, A. E., The Shifting Sands of History: Interpretations of Ptolemaic Egypt (Lanham/New York, 1989), pp. 35–49Google Scholar.

30. Athen. 5.197–203, FGH 627 F2; Rice, E.E.The Grand Procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Oxford, 1983) with textGoogle Scholar.

31. On the role of animals, see Coleman, K. M., ‘Ptolemy Philadelphus and the Roman amphitheatre’ in Slater, W. J.(ed.), Roman Theatre and Society (Ann Arbor, forthcoming 1995)Google Scholar.

32. Perhaps reinforced by the presence of a 180 ft gold phallus in the procession, Athen. 5.201e.

33. Athea 5.201d–e; on these statues and their interpretation, Rice, , op. cit. (a 30), pp. 102–10Google Scholar.

34. Diod. 19.62.1–2,20.37.2; Theoc. 17.77–94; SIG 3 390, esp. lines 10–20.

35. SIG 3 434–5, lines 15–20.

36. Blum, , op. cit. (a 2), pp. 124–81Google Scholar, Fraser, , op. cit. (n. 1), i. 452–4Google Scholar, Schmidt, F., Die Pinakes des Kallimachos (Berlin, 1922)Google Scholar.

37. On Alexandrian scholarship, Pfeiffer, , op. cit. (n. 1), pp. 87–233Google Scholar, Fraser, , op. cit, i. 447–79Google Scholar.

38. Plut. Aral. 41, Cleom. 22, Polyb. 2.51.

39. In general, Polyb. 5.106.6–8, Habicht, C., Classical Antiquity 11 (1992), 68–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; gymnasium with library (the Ptolemaion), Paus, . 1.17.2, The Athenian Agora, vol. 3 Literary and Epigraphic Testimonia, ed. Wycherley, R. E. (Princeton, 1957), pp. 142–4Google Scholar, nos. 456–63 (460, 461 on library), Habicht, , Studien zur Geschichte Athens in hellenistischer Zeit (Göttingen, 1982), pp. 112–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40. Polyb. 32.8.5, Livy 42.5.3; Habicht, , CAH2 viii. 331, 376Google Scholar.

41. Achaea, Polyb. 22.1; Athens, , Camp, J. M., The Athenian Agora (London, 1992), pp. 172–5Google Scholar, Vitr.5.9.1.

42. Pfeiffer, , op. cit. (n. 1), pp. 234–51Google Scholar, Hansen, E. V., The Attalids of Pergamum (Ithaca, 1971 2), pp. 390–433Google Scholar. The evidence for the Library is collected in Platthy, J., Sources on the Earliest Greek Libraries (Amsterdam, 1968)Google Scholar. Much of it stresses the rivalry between Pergamum and Alexandria.

43. Vit. Aristoph. (p. 362 West), quoted in Fraser, , op. cit (n. 1), ii. 662Google Scholar. His knowledge of the Library was revealed when he uncovered plagiarism in a poetry competition, Vitr. 7 Pref. 5–7.

44. Pliny, N.H. 13.70.

45. So Galen, , Comm. in Hipp. De Nat Hom., CMG 5.9.1, pp.55,57Google Scholar, quoted in Fraser, , op. cit. (n. 1), ii. 481n. 150Google Scholar.