The Library of Alexandria: A Bastion of Knowledge Lost

The Library of Alexandria: A Bastion of Knowledge Lost

by

Kyle Benjamin

November 30, 2015

Figure 1: A map of ancient Alexandria from 50 BCE to 50 CE.1

Ptolemy I Soter, c. 376 BCE—c. 283 BCE, The Library of Alexandria (Comprised of a Museum and its main library and the Serapeum—added later), 4th Century BCE.

Marble, Gold, and Bronze.

Dimensions Unknown.

Location: Alexandria, Egypt (some ruins).

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1 MacLeod et al., The Library of Alexandria, Centre of Learning in the Ancient World (New York: I.B. Taurus & Co Ltd, 2000), x.

     The Internet is quite possibly humankind’s greatest achievement. In a single day, we can read practically any book ever written (and, in fact, any book that ever could be written)2, dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, climb to the top of Mount Everest, break the sound barrier, talk to virtually anyone on the planet in real-time, and even take a look around Mars—all from the unparalleled comfort of our beds. The Internet represents the culmination of our species’ desire to catalogue our interaction with and understanding of the universe. And the technology we have developed in our quest for more knowledge never ceases to astound. There are computer chips now, perhaps no larger than a fingernail, that will hold over 100,000 books in digital format (1s and 0s)! That many books would have taken generations to accumulate 2400 years ago. But, as I learn more about our history, it appears we are uniquely adapted on this planet to be broadly creative; to document the world around us through that creativity; to have a sort of analytic impulse. And, since that time so many centuries ago, we have developed increasingly creative ways to document this experience of life. However, we’re also uniquely gullible—a veritable albatross—and will believe almost anything. So, in discussing the Library of Alexandria, I will argue that, as a whole, the institution represented a center of analysis, learning, and information sharing—the mainspring of knowledge in the ancient world at the time. But, there is a particular element of the institution, the Serapeum, that was devoted to the reverence of the Ptolemy-created god Serapis.3 And, while the idea of the Greek Mouseion was focused at the outset on adoration of the Muses, incorporating an Egyptian tradition of using religious temples as libraries into Greek intellectualism manifested in what can be described as one of the first research institutes focused predominately on knowledge expansion.4 Therefore, this work falls mostly under the analytic impulse with only a sprinkling of the believing impulse.*

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2 https://libraryofbabel.info
* The Art History class this was written for categorized the artwork studied into seven impulses. Figure 3 shows an explanation of each impulse.

     Much of what we now know about the Library of Alexandria has been developed piecemeal from various ancient writings. One of the most prominent, called The Letter of Aristeas (c180-145 BC), indicates a high probability of The Ptolemeic Mouseion Academy (Mouseion hereafter) and its Library having been built under Ptolemy II Philadelphius but commissioned by his father, Ptolemy I Soter.5 Demitrius of Phaleron, a student of Aristotle, was chosen by Soter as the first librarian; having been noted for utilizing both an Aristotelian and a Platonic model before when designing a school for Theophrastus.6 The idea behind the entire institution was heavily influenced by both Greek and Egyptian tradition—a sort of synergy of religious and intellectual pursuits. The Mouseion and its Library, thought to have been a rameseseum consisting of a palace, museum, and shrine, essentially functioned as an academic research center where scholars were encouraged to live and work by the Ptolemies who offered a number of enticing amenities.7

     The first three Ptolemies went through what can be described as a kind of bibliomania; i.e. an almost insatiable desire to own every book ever written. It is said that anyone entering Alexandria would have their books seized and copied and then have the copies returned to them; the originals, of course, being kept by the Library and translated to Greek, if necessary.8 The Library is estimated to have had between 400,000 and 700,000 texts and roughly 40,000 of those

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3 MacLeod et al., The Library of Alexandria, Centre of Learning in the Ancient World, 5.
4 Heather Phillips, “The Great Library of Alexandria?,” Library Philosophy and Practice, August, 2010: 2.
5 Heather Phillips, “The Great Library of Alexandria?,” Library Philosophy and Practice, August, 2010: 2.
6 MacLeod et al., The Library of Alexandria, Centre of Learning in the Ancient World, 3.
7 Heather Phillips, “The Great Library of Alexandria?,” Library Philosophy and Practice, August, 2010: 3.
8 Heather Phillips, “The Great Library of Alexandria?,” Library Philosophy and Practice, August, 2010: 4.

scrolls were held in a “daughter” library inside the Serapeum.9 Saying that these people were interested in mapping and documenting the physical and social worlds is an understatement.

     Historian P.M. Fraser proposes that according to Strabo, a Greek geographer, philosopher, and historian: “The Mouseion is part of the royal quarter and it has a cloister and an arcade and a large house in which is provided the common meal of the men of learning who share the Mouseion.”10 Statements made by both Rufinas of Aquileia and Aphthonius suggest a grammatical argument that can be made about their descriptions of the Serapeum being past tense, meaning they both had likely been to the site before 391 AD but wrote the descriptions after its destruction that year—part of Rufinus’ cursory description of the Serapeum being:

                    On the upper level there extended habitations in which temple staff and those whom they called hagneuontes, meaning those who are pure, normally resided.... In the middle of the entire area, there was the sanctuary distinguished by its precious columns, in it was a statue of Serapis, so large that its right hand touched one wall and its left, the other. That monster was said to have been made of all kinds of metal and wood. The interior walls of the sanctuary were believed to have been covered first with gold plate, overlaid with silver and finally with bronze, the last as a protection for the more precious metals.11

          Other than the scarce statements mentioned, very little is known about the physical structure of the Mouseion itself since none of it survived into the 21st century. The only ruins

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9 Heather Phillips, “The Great Library of Alexandria?,” Library Philosophy and Practice, August, 2010: 4.
10 El-Abbadi et al., What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria? (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2008), 53.
11 El-Abbadi et al., What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria?, 90-91.

existing today are those of the Serapeum (see Figure 2). As with practically any ancient situation, centuries since have heard many stories of the unfortunate destruction of this most wondrous place. There was even an elaborate story popularized in the West by a professor at Oxford named Edward Pococke in 1663 about how an Arab general once ordered the destruction of all of the books.12 This story has been, among a few others, debunked as a myth with no clear intention. Nevertheless, while no number is absolutely certain, anywhere from 40,000 to 400,000 books are thought to have been burned in 48 BC in a last-ditch military effort by Julius Caesar that caused fires to rapidly spread through Alexandria.13 And there are so many varied, unconfirmed stories of how the Mouseion and its Library were destroyed that offering the details of all of them here would be time-consuming and ultimately futile. I will say that the Serapeum is generally thought to have been destroyed in 391 AD by Theophilus.14 In any case, it can surely be remarked that an unbelievable amount of information and history was lost.

     Humans are unparalleled in our ability to create—at least on this planet. But if there is one thing that we are even better at, it would have to be destroying all of the things that we’ve created and even some of the things that we didn’t. The Great Library of Ancient Alexandria stands (no pun intended) as a testament to our tentative veneration of knowledge. Even after centuries of experimentation, cataloguing, and advancing our understanding of the world through some of the greatest thinkers in history, our penchant for unbridled arrogance and hostility eventually reduced another marvel of the ages to dirt: a bastion of knowledge lost. One might ask, to what end? Did we learn from it? We’ve reached, what I consider, the most pivotal point in humankind’s history. Access to information is not only light-speed, but quite literally at the tips of our fingers now, we

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12 El-Abbadi et al., What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria?, 213.
13 MacLeod et al., The Library of Alexandria, Centre of Learning in the Ancient World, 70. 
14 El-Abbadi et al., What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria?, 89.

produce enough to provide food, clothing, and housing to every human on the planet, we’ve walked on the moon, and we have learned more about ourselves and the universe in the past 60 years than in all of humankind’s history combined. Yet, tens of thousands die every day due to hunger and other poverty-related issues while we throw millions of tons of good food away annually, some people’s closets could clothe entire communities, we have enough vacant homes in the United States for every homeless person here to get more than one, we don’t even look up at the moon anymore because we’re too glued to our cell phones to be bothered with the likes of “outside”, and we still have people arguing from debunked positions with misrepresented or blatantly false information despite the ability to settle such arguments with a five-second Google search. So, what did we learn from it? Apparently nothing—we’re even more destructive than ever before. And, with all of its hopes and glorious possibilities of being the ultimate bastion of knowledge in the 21st century, we have successfully turned the Internet into the only thing we seem to be capable of producing with our greatest achievements: dirt.

Bibliography

El-Abbadi, Mostafa, William J. Cherf, Dimitar Y. Dimitrov, Maria Dzielska, Jean-Yves
          Empereur, Fayza M. Haikal, Georges Leroux, et al., What Happened to the Ancient
          Library of Alexandria? (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2008).


MacLeod, Roy, Robert Barnes, Wendy Brazil, J.R. Green, Patricia Cannon Johnson, Samuel
          N.C. Lieu, D.T. Potts, R.G. Tanner, John Vallance, and J.O. Ward. The Library of Alexandria,               
          Centre of Learning in the Ancient World. New York: I.B. Taurus & Co Ltd, 2000.

Phillips, Heather. “The Great Library of Alexandria?,” Library Philosophy and Practice, August, 2010: 2-4.

Figure 2: The remains of the Serapeum in Alexandria, Egypt. Taken from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexandria_-_Pompey%27s_Pillar_- _view_of_ruins.JPG

Figure 3: Artwork explored in the Art History course I took was done so in relation to at least one of these impulses.

Quaestio 2.0

     For centuries, Aristotle’s Function Argument has been one of the most hotly debated ideas in philosophy. In essence, in his Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle develops the idea that humans have a particular function. And, it is within this function that the “good” resides in accordance with virtue. By virtue, Aristotle means a quality that makes one good at performing one’s function. As well, he narrows human function down to three possibilities: 1. the life of nutrition and growth; 2. the life of perception; and, 3. the active life of the element that has a rational principle. After ruling out the first two, he settles on the third as being peculiar to human beings. Essentially, this argument seems to be teleological in that it establishes a baseline for human function as being that which most closely approximates the lives of the gods. Moreover, the language used by Aristotle leads to ambiguity when defining the term function; i.e., it is often conflated with purpose. And, while it may be commonplace to synonymously interpret these terms, it is actually upon these subtle differences that Aristotle’s argument rests. In other words, describing an object’s function, i.e., how something does what it does, is much different than describing its purpose, i.e., what it does. Aristotle essentially spends the first nine chapters of the book fleshing out dismissals of popular conceptions of happiness, elaborate descriptions of human function, and explanations on why human function is important to our sense of moral virtue, only to, almost nonchalantly, wave his hand at all of it in chapter 10 by simply exclaiming that the happy life is “the contemplative life”. What makes the Function Argument itself so appealing to humans, however, is that it attempts not only to define our function but also to separate our function from that of all other forms of life that we know of by saying that it is through our rational activity, i.e., how we do what we do, that we are unique. Hence, the debate continues. So, how does the Function Argument hold up to scrutiny when compared to popular conceptions of happiness?

     One might claim that gaining a lot of money can lead to happiness. For instance, in at least the case of winning the lottery, by Aristotle’s standards the basic supposition is that one is acting in accordance with some rational principle. However, the odds are well known to be stacked so far against an individual as to be almost frivolous. Yet, millions of people still play—some even becoming so entranced by the delusion of the prospect of winning that they can be considered addicted, sometimes selling their houses and cars for it. But, there is no doubt that if they do win, they will be happy. For, they will have access to all of the things they believe will make them happy, even if it is temporary. So, are we to suppose that the purpose of a human being is to try to win and that the function is to try to win well? Is that rational?

     Happiness, another might argue, is doing what one loves to do. If one finds ultimate joy in knitting scarfs, but their scarfs are sights of horror to most in society, then, by the Function Argument, that person is not fulfilling their function since they did not knit the scarfs well. But, this is plainly ridiculous by the fact that they are happy irrespective of other people’s opinions. In fact, the knitter likely doesn’t even care about what their presupposed function is. And, it doesn’t matter whether people do like their scarfs; they are happy in any case when knitting them. In other words, the assumed function—to perform the purpose, in this case knitting, well—is irrelevant when determining happiness.

     Still others may offer the idea that the only way one might gain happiness is through their acceptance by others. For example, a guitar virtuoso obviously performs in an almost unparalleled manner; i.e., he plays the guitar well. However, if people ignore him, he may feel distanced, alone, and perhaps even depressed. Despite how well he plays the guitar, in itself, it does not equal happiness for him. Instead, it is only through others listening to his playing, buying his albums, and frequenting his shows, i.e., through their acceptance, that he feels happiness. So, is it reasonable to claim that being accepted well is how this virtuoso fulfills his function? Of course not! That would imply that his purpose is to be accepted by others. And, this leaves a rather large gap in the logic utilized here; i.e., what if he kills someone? Is it still his purpose to be accepted by others? Considering that neither is his function of playing guitar well conducive to happiness, it is obvious that the Function Argument breaks down here.

     The Function Argument, as Aristotle explains it, is fundamentally dependent upon his idea of virtues and how they essentially consist in the rational activity mentioned before. Admittedly, within the framework of Aristotle’s way of viewing virtues, purpose, and function, his Function Argument seems to be applicable in a number of circumstances. However, the entire argument obviously assumes that human beings have a function. Here, an elaborate dismantling of that assumption, i.e., one that could fill an entire book itself, will be forgone for its thesis. That is, I will simply state that there is nothing in nature that indicates humans have to have a purpose or a function, nor is there a wholly objective scale with which we can compare semantically ambiguous, relative, descriptive terminology, such as how well something is done by someone, effectively rendering the argument itself obsolete.

     Regarding money, the current socioeconomic paradigm is inextricably interlinked with a monetary/market system that almost no one bothers to learn about. Instead, we are forced into believing that we need money. Never mind where it comes from, what it represents, or whether it’s even relevant in our digital age. We are told that all we need to know is that we need money. Thus, the edifice of our all of our wants and the rest of our needs becomes a direct outgrowth of this indoctrinated, unsubstantiated claim; i.e., our wants, needs, and conceptions of happiness are artificially imposed. And this unfortunately continues mostly without question and with total obedience. So, can we really claim that when happenstance bestows a large sum of money upon someone that it automatically means they will be happy because they can go out and buy all of the crap that they have been bombarded with their entire lives by advertising agencies telling them that their life sucks unless they buy the latest, greatest whatever? How could it possibly be considered rational to partake in something so unreasonably, yet obviously, unfair?

     It seems reasonable at first to concede that doing what one loves undoubtedly leads to one’s happiness. However, a number of flaws become apparent when examining this claim, two of which will be outlined here. First, what if, as was the case with the lottery winner and perhaps all of society, the conceptions of what one loves as well as what one deems “happiness” have been imposed upon them. In other words, how is one supposed to know, say, without having experienced much in life, that what they view as love and happiness is accurate or objectively (that is, being as objective as we are capable of being) correct? Secondly, and this hinges on the first, what if someone loves to kill and eat babies, as Albert Fish once did?

     Finally, gaining happiness through the acceptance of others is essentially the same thing as having the concept of happiness imposed. But, this time one is actively seeking this type of imposition outright which seems to indicate they have lost any semblance of self-worth. In other words, they feel as though there is no possible way to bring into fruition self-induced happiness. So, what this amounts to is artificial, presupposed conceptions of happiness being readily accepted from others without question. But, when the fans leave, as in the case of the virtuoso, the happiness leaves with them. And so, he fails to recognize that the most powerful resource on the planet also happens to be the only thing conducive to true happiness—his own mind.

Quaestio

     The current socioeconomic paradigm that our species perpetuates is inextricably linked to technology. Virtually all aspects of our everyday lives in industrialized nations depend upon and are typically a result of the exponential advancements of technology. We are at a point which we can pick up a handheld device, type in a few numbers, and, within seconds, talk face-to-face with anyone else on the planet with a similar device. Our ever-deepening understanding of the universe and our interaction with it has guided us through solving unsolvable problems, curing incurable diseases, and making science fiction science fact. We’ve climbed the highest mountains, dived to the deepest ocean trenches, and even stepped foot on Earth’s moon. Right now, there are people orbiting the planet on a station over 200 kilometers above this majestic world! Think about it: If even a single modern marvel of engineering were to somehow be transported to Aristotle’s time, it would likely be, paraphrasing Arthur C. Clarke, indistinguishable from magic to the people of that period. In fact, one might be revered as a god for possessing and using such technology. Of course, this seems to be characteristic of the ancient method of hasty generalizations for god attributes: If something is not understood, it is often attributed to a particular “god”; a man-made god. And, where there’s a man-made god, something has been anthropomorphized. In Aristotle’s case, the highest form of happiness, a human emotion, has been expressed as a characteristic of gods. As well, according to Aristotle, our contemplative ability is the only way to approximate the gods’ “happiest lives”. But, while all of these speculations and suppositions sound quaint and convincing, we fortunately have discovered phenomena and developed concepts unfathomable in ancient times that, quite frankly, destroy many of the notions put forth in philosophical doctrines of those times. So, the question that arises through this reasoning is this: Considering the fact that we have amassed more knowledge in the past 50 years than in all of humankind’s history before that combined, should we, in 2015, be looking to and applying ancient modes of thought when tackling 21^st century ethical issues?

     One might consider the fact that a number of these modes of thought have been taught in academia for centuries. They have been the foundation of practically all ethical discussion and should still be practiced by tradition. Without such modes, a critical component of the dialogue might be overlooked or lost entirely over time. Therefore, of course it should be considered important to the overall value of a general education. And it should also follow that to rethink and perhaps change this foundation would destroy the edifice of our current cultural climate; our zeitgeist.

     Another proponent would say that most of these people were, even in their own time, venerated as brilliant intellectuals. Some might even claim that they are among the most brilliant minds to have ever lived. And, it is the intellectuals that set social and economic standards. By these standards, we have built the modern industrial civilization we all enjoy and, consequently, continue to flourish. To downplay their brilliance would undermine and nullify virtually all of our social standards.

     And, finally, yet others would offer the idea that every ancient philosopher played an integral role in the evolution of human thought. Without their insight, our civilization would be vastly different and perhaps even underdeveloped. Their thoughts reflect the zeitgeist of each particular historical period and are typically taught within the context of such and in contrast to modern society. So, understanding their work is invaluable to understanding where we come from and why we think the way we do.

     I contend that, while it is important to study ancient philosophers’ work within historical context, their work should not be the only scope through which we attempt to view our modern world; the reasons abound. Quantum mechanics, neuroscience, and germ theory are but three of the many topics that have shaped modern understanding in such a way that would seem, aside from obvious language barriers, completely foreign to ancients. Yet, it is quite accurate to state that the only reason that we are capable of sustaining (as terrible as we might actually be at doing so) over 7-billion people on this planet, is because of such modern ideas. Without quantum mechanics, we wouldn’t understand electricity as deeply as we do nor how fundamentally connected we are to the universe by it; without neuroscience, our behavioral reactions to those connections could not be explained to any truly accurate degree; and without germ theory, millions, possibly billions, of people simply would not be here due to what we now know is the contraction of easily preventable diseases and viruses. The knowledge we take for granted today—the knowledge that continues to shape our society—is so far out of the scope of ancient thought that it is not unreasonable to claim that perhaps we would even be viewed as gods in contrast. Assuming that is the case, as Aristotle suggests, in his society, someone’s only similarity to what they consider “gods” is their ability to contemplate. But, just because they contemplate, it does not necessitate that what they contemplate should or does bear any relevance to those gods or others mistaken as gods. In other words, while it is important in the 21^st century to teach and acknowledge such doctrines in their relation to the evolution of human thought, attempting to apply them to modern society is no different than attempting to apply other ancient concepts: some have been built upon or modified and work nowadays, and others do not. Centuries ago, practically everyone believed Earth was flat; that didn’t make it so. And, centuries before that, Democritus and his mentor Leucippus developed what is now considered one of the original atomic theories of the universe. So, without discrediting the strength of particular arguments within the context of the historical period or their relevance in the overall progression of human thought, I say that within the context of knowledge in 2015, such ancient philosophical views about the way the world ought to be are interesting to think and talk about, as well as intellectually stimulating, but ultimately irrelevant to changing or maintaining (whatever we prefer) modern bio-psychosocial patterns. As Buckminster Fuller once stated, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” And that is what we have done. Everything about our society, including the screen you are reading this from, makes those views obsolete.

     Regarding tradition, just because people decide to follow a certain way of thinking because “granddaddy said so” does not mean that granddaddy had all the right answers. It just proves how susceptible we are to groupthink and herd mentality. Be your own leader. Question everything. Learn something new every day. Take nothing I say or anyone else says as “truth” without research. Truth is a biased and subjective notion that only becomes truth when one realizes and accepts it as such. And, with the existence of search engines such as Google, it is wonder that we still argue with broken logic and parroted, unrefined rhetoric. The closest we can get up to now is approximating the truth in our understanding of all of the phenomena we interact with. “In order to know the truth,” Jacque Fresco states, “you would have to know everything—to know what truth is.” It turns out, the more we discover about the universe, the stranger it gets; and the more it diverges from our preconceived notions of it.

     Dimitri Mendeleev would have been incapable of accurately explaining where the elements on the periodic table he designed came from. It is only through modern understanding of astrophysics that our closest approximations tell us that nearly every element comes from stars which are themselves composed mostly of hydrogen and its fusion products. Yet, it is no doubt that Mendeleev was a brilliant man—in that particular time. Today, it is unlikely that, given his understanding at the time, he would be able to get a job as a chemist. So, it becomes clear that if we accept the notion that intellectuals set social standards, and modern intellectuals stagnate their ways of thinking to match historical brilliance, then we should expect to stifle social progress of the degree which we are currently technically capable of. As a result, we should also expect that all of our modern conveniences will amount to nothing but so many tons of useless junk.

     Lastly, I wholly agree that ancient philosophers contributed massively to the progression of the dominant intellectual, cultural, and moral climate of each era since. In fact, I agree that their work should be taught and readily discussed in modern society. But, that does not require application of their work to today’s social construct. It is quite clear what results from the conflict of traditional viewpoints and the discoveries made due to our now-exponential technological progress: utter disharmony with the natural world and aggression toward each other. Case in point, religious fanatics of all types dawn ancient myth and fairy tale but modern weaponry to justify murder; and that weaponry includes bombs that not only destroy human lives but also the environment. Yet, the obvious discord of such absurdity is overlooked or outright neglected because “God told us so. And, He’s on our side!” Ridiculous! It is as though our entire society is suffering from a case of the messiah complex. And, it solves nothing. So, if we are going to address modern problems with any semblance of efficacy, it must be done through modern ways of thinking with modern understanding.