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The Library of Alexandria: Past and Future

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Jean Bingen

Extract

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Papyrus rolls, hundreds of thousands of rolls, carefully stacked in niches or in precious containers, also men, learned librarians or their erudite hosts, men who read books in order to write others, hardly paying heed to the vile rumblings of Alexandria, the unruly city, dreaming rather of tomorrow's lesson with the crown prince, their pupil, or even admiring from afar, protected by the shade of a portico, the silhouette of some queen, Cleopatra or Arsinoe or a Berenice counting her locks… it is now a little over two thousand years since then, men and books, the Library of Alexandria. It did not even lack a dramatic conflagration in 48 B.C. when it found itself on fire by the wind that blew from the burning fleet set ablaze by the foot soldiers of Julius Caesar, general, scholar and old beau of political love. But probably, the Library soon recovered.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 36 , Issue 141 , March 1988 , pp. 38 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © 1988 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

Works to be Consulted

Fraser, Peter M. Ptolemaic Alexandria, 3 vols (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1972) especially I, pp.305–479; II, pp. 462–692.Google Scholar
Pfeiffer, Rudolf. History of Classical Scholarship from the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1968).Google Scholar
Parsons, Edward Alexander. The Alexandrian Library, Glory of the Hellenic World (London, Cleaver Hume Press, 1952).Google Scholar
Preaux, Claire. Le Monde Hellénistique, La Grèce et l'Orient (323-146 av. J.C.) 2 vols. (Collection Nouvelle Clio, Paris, P.U.F., 1978).Google Scholar
”The Hellenistic World” in The Cambridge Ancient History VII 1,2nd ed. (Cambridge University Press, 1984).Google Scholar