Only at two points in human history has knowledge radically expanded on a global scale. Once during the Renaissance, which still continues to the present, and the other during the 4th B.C.E., when Greece ruled the world.
It was a time three hundred years before Christ, just after the sudden death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C.E. Alexander's generals fought over his grand empire, and eventually the realm was divided among them and the Hellenistic Age, a period of worldwide Greek dominance, began. One of those portions was claimed by a far thinking Macedonian, Ptolemy, who declared himself king of Egypt in 304 B.C.E., founding the Ptolemaic dynasty, capitaled in Alexandria.
The Ptolemies were intellectuals. Ptolemy I was a historian. Ptolemy II a zoologist. Ptolemy III a patron of literature. Ptolemy IV a playwright. Each chose leading scholars and scientists as tutors for their children and encouraged great minds to live in Alexandria.
Ptolemy I founded the museum, a place where learned men could congregate and share their knowledge. To aid their endeavors, he also established the library. By the time of Ptolemy III, in 246 B.C.E., there were two locations-the main library near the royal palace and another, smaller one, headquartered in the sanctuary of the god Serapis, known as the Serapeum.
The Ptolemies were determined book collectors, dispatching agents throughout the known world. Ptolemy II bought Aristotle's entire book collection. Ptolemy III ordered that all ships in the Alexandria harbor be searched. If books were found, they were copied, the copies returned to the owners, the originals stored in the library. Genres varied from poetry and history, to rhetoric, philosophy, religion, medicine, science, and law. Some 43,000 scrolls were eventually housed in the Serapeum, available to the general public, and another 500,000 at the main museum, restricted for scholars.
The library itself was impressive. The architecture decidedly Greek, the whole thing resembling an elegant temple. Two pillared colonnades dominated-both filled with statues, the floors sheathed in rugs, the walls draped in tapestries. In the many seats lining the corridors, members would bicker over the meaning of a word or the cadence of a verse, or engage in some caustic controversy about a new discovery. Both roofed chambers opened into side rooms where papyruses, scrolls, and later codices lay stored in bins, loosely stacked, tagged for indexing, or on shelves. In other rooms, copyists labored to produce replicas which were sold for revenue. Members enjoyed a high salary, exemption from taxes, and were provided dining and lodging. There were lecture halls, laboratories, observatories-even a zoo. Grammarians and poets received the most prestigious posts-physicians, mathematicians, and astronomers the best equipment.
What happened to it?
That's a question no one has been able to answer.
One version holds that it burned when Julius Caesar fought Ptolemy XIII in 48 B.C.E. Caesar ordered the torching of the royal fleet, but the fire spread throughout the city and may have consumed the library. Another version blamed Christians who supposedly destroyed the main library in 272 C.E. and the Serapeum in 391, part of an effort to rid the city of all pagan influences. A final account credits Arabs with the library's destruction, after they conquered Alexandria in 642. The caliph Omar, when asked about books in the imperial treasury, was quoted as saying, If what is written agrees with the Book of God, they are not required. If it disagrees, they are not desired. Destroy them. So for six months scrolls supposedly fueled the baths of Alexandria.
But what really happened?
Certainly, as Egypt was confronted with growing unrest and foreign aggression, the library became victim to persecution, mob violence, and military occupation, no longer enjoying special privileges.
But when, exactly, did it finally disappeared?
No one knows.
Which makes for a great mystery.
