The Mystery of the LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA

Welcome back to Geographics, I'm your host, cosmic horror author Eric Malachite, and today's video was written by JamesCJ, so be sure to show him some love in the comments as you deploy your likes, subscribe to the channel if you're not, and share this video with someone who loves learning about historical places and the people who made them famous. Let's get to it. If you were to explore the world and visit some of the most famous libraries in existence, you'd be amazed not only at their design and grandeur, but also at the sheer amount of knowledge contained within their walls. Which library is worth visiting is subjective and debatable, but in the ancient world, one answer came to the tip of most tongues before any other, the Library of Alexandria. Said to have been a haven of knowledge, the library existed in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, holding vast knowledge collected from around the world. Sources state an accumulation of papyrus scrolls varying from 40,000 to 400,000. Lost to history, time has taken the Library of Alexandria and made it almost mythical. In truth, historical information is scarce and conflicting. Most can agree that it was real. But the scope, scale, and minutia of its existence, formation, and destruction are where things get tricky. Most historians have managed to use the information available to determine certain facts, and the gaps are filled by what-ifs. A mix of fact and fiction, the Library of Alexandria continues to fascinate people to this day, even several millennia after it even existed. In 332 BC, Alexander the Great, at the start of his Persian campaign, looked to Egypt as an ancient settlement known as Raqqotis, between the Mediterranean and a lake. He determined it would be the perfect place for a new city, intended to serve as the capital of his new Egyptian dominion. The location proved valuable strategically, as it would help Alexander further his growing empire by helping him control the Mediterranean. He named his new city Alexandria. In 334 BC, Alexander the Great launched his Global Enterprise, which aimed to expand Alexander's empire. With each conquest, Alexander's generals, companions, and scholars would report back to him everything they found and learned in these newly conquered lands. This campaign was wildly successful in its goals, but also had an unintended benefit, and that was the acquired empirical knowledge of geography, which was noted by Eratosthenes, a Greek mathematician and geographer, and reported by Strabo, another Greek geographer. Alexander the Great's thirst for knowledge led to the collection of thousands of scrolls from across the Greek world, which at the time included places like Persia, Syria, Babylonia, Egypt, and numerous others. Some sources claim Alexander the Great had ambitions to create a library, and even ordered its construction, but it's unclear if that's actually the case. In 323 BC, Alexander the Great died, and with it, his empire began unraveling as a result of infighting and a vacuum of power his death created. Using this to his advantage, Alexander the Great's general, Ptolemy I Soter, named himself king and started the Ptolemaic dynasty. It was under the Macedonian king and Ptolemaic dynasty that Alexandria would transform, becoming a center of knowledge in the ancient world. The rulers of these new empires, born from the remnants of Alexander the Great's empire, all had ambitions both militarily and culturally to position themselves with capital cities to rival each other. The difference was Ptolemy was able to outspend them thanks to the fertility of the Nile. The early Ptolemaic dynasty focused on Alexandria's cultural reputation largely because they themselves were intellectuals. This all starts with Soter, who laid the foundations for what would become the library of Alexandria. There were other reasons why so much effort was put into Alexandria, primarily because Ptolemy named it the new capital, replacing Memphis. He did so in an effort to put distance between himself and the priests and officials in the old capital to avoid their influence. The other reason was that it was the city home to the royal residents. Soter may have had a record of battles, murders, and conquering, but his background as a historian helped him shape his vision for Alexandria. While the other empires that came from the unraveling of Alexander the Great's empire were focused on building war machines and armies, Ptolemy was more focused on creating a city that would have cultural importance in the Hellenistic world. The Alexandria Ptolemy now controlled after claiming the title of king was still relatively new, filled with soldiers, sailors, bureaucrats, clerks, traders, craftsmen, and swindlers. It was a cultural wasteland. Ptolemy's background helped him transform Alexandria into the powerhouse it became. Soter made his intentions of creating a city of knowledge and culture known. He wanted Alexandria to welcome poets and philosophers, while protecting them from the endless wars beyond the city. A safe haven for learning. In the earliest days, Ptolemy garnered the support of a respected philosopher from the which was a philosophy school funded by Aristotle. Theophrastus, Aristotle's student and successor, saw value in Alexandria's mission. While Ptolemy I hoped to lure Theophrastus to the city with Aristotle's collection of works with him, he was left disappointed when the philosopher declined. He sent philosopher Strabo in his place, and he became Ptolemy II Philadelphia's tutor. But it was someone else who became Soter's right-hand man on his mission to transform Alexandria, Demetrius of Phaleron. Demetrius was an Athenian politician before he sought refuge at Soter's court, becoming the king's advisor. In Demetrius, Soter saw the best of both worlds, the statesman and the philosopher. Initially, he was tasked with traveling and collecting texts on Alexander the Great to help Ptolemy's efforts to write the history of Alexander the Great. But Alexandria was about to make good on the promise of attracting scholars with the development of the Mausaeum. By 300 BC, we start to see the concrete steps to the library's existence come into play. The collection of knowledge was progressing, causing the royal residence to begin overflowing with scrolls. This led to work starting on the Mausaeum, which is Greek for Shrine to the Muses. The word over time evolved to mean museum, which is a word we use to this day. While the exact year work on the Mausaeum began is unclear, it's believed to have started in the 3rd century BC, which would be over two decades into Ptolemy I's reign, considering he was king from 323 to 283 BC. The Mausaeum was to be a center of classical learning and research center built in the royal quarter. Strabo described it as a large complex containing large buildings, beautiful gardens, and lecture and banquet halls, all connected by colonnaded walls and porticos. Numerous intellectual sites existed in the Mausaeum, such as laboratories, observatories, and zoological gardens. Scholars, poets, scientists, and noted writers received a handsome salary, free food and accommodation, and a tax exemption. And all this investment in the Mausaeum paid off. The Mausaeum in its early days attracted numerous intellectuals looking for more freedom, especially in medical studies. Across Greece, human dissection was considered disgusting and distasteful to the Greeks, with the study of death itself being taboo in Greece, Rome, and various states in the East. In Egypt, human dissection had been a common practice through mummification practices long before Alexander the Great established Alexandria. This freedom and cultural benefit led young scientists Erasistratus, father of physiology, and Hierophilus, father of anatomy, to study and record every detail of the human body, starting Alexandria's development of our early understanding of anatomy and physiology. The pair employed the existing knowledge of the Egyptian mortuary technicians who practiced mummification practices to refine their abilities and better dissect and study the body. Their successes reshaped Soter's ambitions yet again. As previously mentioned, Ptolemy was crafting a great history of Alexander, possessing Alexander's own campaign diary and the works of other historians. To aid his project, Demetrius was sent to find supplementary work to shed light on the unknowns of his history. When the Mausaeum began showing early signs of success, things changed and goals shifted. Soter and Demetrius were witnessing the expansion of the Mausaeum's scope and their own ambitions. The agenda became the acquisition and proliferation of knowledge in a far more aggressive manner. Demetrius continued acquiring scrolls and also guided Ptolemy to look beyond just Greek works and instead works from around the world, which they'd then translate into Greek. So Ptolemy, hungry for knowledge and to further Alexandria's newly cemented presence and influence in the intellectual world, agreed. Making full use of Ptolemy and Egypt's immense wealth, the expansion of intellectual institutions in Alexandria grew. Ptolemy's ambitions of rivaling Athens' foothold with scholars and philosophers began taking shape. He had proved an effective leader. Taking this city, Alexander the Great began and vastly expanding its already ambitious goals. But nobody lives forever and with his passing, it was up to his son to pick up where he left off while creating his own legacy. History tells us he did just that. The precise aspects of when and how the library truly came into existence are extremely difficult to determine. We know little to nothing about things like the architects, the construction, how long it took to build, etc. It's believed that during Ptolemy II's reign, the library of Alexandria was built and opened as part of the overall Mausean complex. Regardless of who built and opened the library, one thing remained true in the line of succession. Ptolemy II, like his father, would fund and patronize the institution, something true of many of the future Ptolemies. It was the backing of the Ptolemaic dynasty that not only made the library a reality but also kept it relevant for the majority of its existence. Under Ptolemy II, work to expand their collection of knowledge continued with the same aggression, if not more so. Philadelphus provided the funds to ensure the effort's success, sending royal agents to collect and purchase as much as they could. It didn't matter the author or the subject. Older texts were preferred over newer texts as the assumption was that newer texts might be copies of older texts and might deviate slightly from the original text. Additionally, ships that entered the Alexandria harbor were subject to searches to find any books or scrolls on board, which would then be taken to the library and copied. The original owners would get the books back, but it would be the copies, not the originals. Throughout the Ptolemaic period in Egyptian history, some of history's most revered intellectuals either visited briefly or resided in Alexandria for some time. Thanks to the haven of knowledge the early Ptolemies created, they were able to lure some of the most brilliant minds from conventional places like Athens. It makes sense why so many would want to be in Alexandria, particularly at the Great Library and Mausein. Scholars were offered accommodation, generous payment, tax exemptions, free food, access to resources, and, above all, academic freedom. Thanks to a lack of affiliation to any one school of thought, scholars enjoyed a place that gave them freedom to explore. Additionally, the many amenities and workers of the Mausein ensured the scholars didn't have to concern themselves with mundane tasks, allowing for more time for intellectual pursuits. Like any library, it wasn't free reign. There were ways of doing things, and to ensure the library functioned efficiently, the Ptolemies appointed directors, who were essentially what we'd call librarians today. These directors were usually scholars themselves and spent their time, especially the early directors, shaping the way the library operated, organized, and responded to the needs of scholars, allowing the library to move in new and interesting directions. Throughout Ptolemy II's reign, the Library of Alexandria constantly was expanding and collection of knowledge. While we don't definitively know how many scrolls were in the library at any given point, one must assume that the acquisition of knowledge through their various channels meant it was substantial. The Library of Alexandria is assumed to have been a big place, but it simply didn't provide enough space for all the material collected by Ptolemy I and II's aggressive campaigns. This is where the second library came into the equation, the Serapium, also known as the Sister Library. The Serapium was an ancient temple celebrating the Greco-Egyptian god of the sun, Serapis. It was built during Ptolemy I's reign near the palace in Mausean. Under Ptolemy II, it became a secondary library. The ambitions of the Ptolemaic dynasty continued with Ptolemy III Eurigates, who was willing to spend a lot of money and do some shady things to acquire official versions of plays by Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus. To borrow the plays, he was asked to post a bond of 15 talents, which today would be equivalent to millions of dollars to ensure their return. And Eurigates did return them, sort of. As was established practice in Alexandria during the Ptolemaic period, the original texts remained in Alexandria, with copies returned to their owners and made on the finest papyrus. The Athenians were furious, but beyond keeping his 15 talents bond, they knew there was little they could do to get the originals back. He was willing to do anything to have the originals, and in that vein, he succeeded. The library was always guided by a director, today a librarian, who was appointed by the court. The first director was scholar Xenodotus, who was said to have spent his career at the and, most importantly, Homeric poems. It's believed that Xenodotus also played a major role in the library's organization, developing common practices over the years to catalog the texts and organize them. Surnames only became common in the 11th century, which could easily lead to confusion. As a result, texts went through a preliminary assessment procedure, where scrolls had tabs attached to them with the author's name and ethnicity. They also marked the scrolls' provenance and, in the case of numerous versions, made clear where those versions came from to separate them from one another. Following Xenodotus' death or retirement, it's unclear which occurred, Ptolemy II appointed the scholar Apollonius to take over the position while also appointing him as Apollonius is best known as a poet more than a scholar, as he wrote the epic poem Argonautica, which has survived in its entirety. It's considered possible that he fell out of favor with his ex-student and now king Eurigates, which led to his retirement to Rhodes, causing him to be replaced by Greek scientist Eratosthenes. He is most famous for his treatise Geographica, which is said to have been the first instance of mathematics being applied to geography and provided one of the earliest calculations of Earth's circumference, which was remarkably close but ultimately off by a few hundred kilometers. The fourth librarian, Aristophanes, opened the doors for literary criticism, which was arguably absent from the early years of the library. His rise to the position was different from others before him. Originally a judge for a poetry competition that Eurigates hosted, Aristophanes made a damning accusation that all the poets who entered except one had plagiarized. He was asked to prove this, and to do so, he went and retrieved various texts from the library. Not only did he locate them by memory, but he was also able to pick up the plagiarism with little to no effort. Eurigates appointed him to the position as a result of his diligence and memory. During this period, the library matured, considering that many administrative practices had already been formed and refined. This was when literary criticism was at its peak. Aristophanes was an active librarian, even changing the format of poetry to be written in lines and not prose. By all accounts, he was a student of language, dialects, and lexicons. He was perhaps one of the most important librarians for Alexandria since Xenodotus. Under the Ptolemaic Dynasty's leadership, the library was functioning as intended. It welcomed renowned scholars, collected knowledge, and furthered the city's image as a center of knowledge in the Hellenistic world. Of course, family isn't easy, and the infighting for power would have ramifications for everyone, perhaps especially the scholars and in turn, the library and Mausan. Starting with Ptolemy IV, instability in the dynasty became clearer with each king as a fight for power erupted. Things weren't much better beyond the city of Alexandria, with Upper Egypt descending into chaos and uprisings taking place all over the map. Scholars began leaving Alexandria to find places offering safer conditions and more generous patronages, which would have been unheard of, especially during Ptolemy II's reign. The instability within the Ptolemaic Dynasty would eventually have detrimental ramifications for the library of Alexandria and overall the reputation of Alexandria itself. It was during the 6th Librarian's tenure that things essentially collapsed. Aristarchus is most famous for developing commentaries on classical poems and prose like Homer's The Odyssey and The Iliad. During his time as librarian, infighting within the dynasty was getting uglier. Ptolemy VIII Eurigates II once co-ruled with his brother Ptolemy VI Philometer. Then he took the throne, Philometer took it back, and Eurigates II was exiled to be the ruler of Cyrenaica, which is part of modern day Libya. When Philometer died, it was assumed the throne would pass on to Ptolemy VII, Gneos Philopater. But he was still a child at the time, so he co-ruled with his mother. Eurigates II used this situation to his advantage, displacing his nephew and taking power before executing his nephew the next year. It's debated over if Philopater ever actually ruled at all. So where does the library come into all of this? Aristarchus, the librarian at the time, advocated for Ptolemy VII to be the king, and this was not forgotten by Eurigates II, who desired revenge. He looked to punish all those who supported Gneos Philopater, forcing Aristarchus to flee. Taking it a step further, all foreign scholars were expelled from Alexandria, although why he did this isn't entirely clear. Instead of scholars being hired to the position of librarian, it went to political cronies, and it marked the start of a decline. But when it comes to the destruction of the library, well, it's complicated. Some pin the end of the Library of Alexandria on one particular event. It's better to describe the library's death as a slow process, a death by a thousand cut situation. It didn't happen with one destruction, because as the dynasty went on, Alexandria started becoming less and less important as the intellectual center. And that really started with Ptolemy VIII's expulsion of scholars. There are three common events considered monumental to the library's demise, starting with Caesar's attack on the harbor. In 48 BC, a civil war had been brewing between Ptolemy XIII, Theos Philopater, and his sister Cleopatra. In order to regain her throne, which her younger brother stole, Cleopatra sought Roman support, specifically Caesar's. For Caesar, he was seeking repayment of debts incurred during the previous king's reign, Ptolemy XII Aletes. In the process of supporting Cleopatra's efforts, the two began a love affair. When Caesar's forces arrived, Ptolemy XIII fled, and is believed to have drowned in the Nile. Within this summary of events that leaves out numerous details and figures, there was an important battle that happened in the Alexandria Harbor, which, if you remember, is close to where the library was believed to have existed. Surrounded by ships, Caesar, wanting to escape, set fire to the enemy fleet's ships. Plutarch, a historian, wrote, Caesar was forced to repel the danger by using fire, which spread from the dockyards and destroyed the great library. Today, it's believed these events were exaggerated, and that the library was either unaffected or not greatly affected. It doesn't help that there are variations of what happened, and later, scholars even talked about the library as if it was still around. So this likely did do some damage, but not to the extent we've been led to believe. When the Romans took over Alexandria and the Ptolemaic dynasty ended its reign in Egypt, things got worse for the city and library. It was 391 AD, and the Romans were now far more Christian than they had been before. So the emperor at the time, Theodosius I, issued a decree calling for the destruction of any pagan temples in his empire. This led to the destruction of the Serapion, which was replaced by a church. However, we still don't have any evidence suggesting the destruction of the main library yet. Finally, in 640 AD, Alexandria was captured by the Arabs. It's believed that many of the conquering Arabs were interested in the contents of the legendary library, but not Caliph Omar, who believed they will either contradict the Quran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous. So he ordered them to be used as fuel for Alexandria's bathhouses, of which there were allegedly over 4,000, with the scrolls keeping them heated for six months. Of course, this history was recorded three centuries later. We don't even know if it was still around by the time they took over. If it is true, it's a truly depressing ending to a marvel of the ancient world. We get to the end of it all wondering if the library was real or just a legend of the ancient world. And this is probably the wrong question to ask. It's generally agreed that there was a library. Where opinions split is what that library looked like. There's no surviving evidence of what that library might have looked like, which has led to some conservative and imaginative interpretations. Most accounts of the Library of Alexandria talk of it after its heyday, and in some cases, after its existence entirely. There are no direct accounts detailing every aspect of the library, how it was conducted, or what ultimately caused its demise. Historians have managed to piece together enough from the fragments of history to tell a compelling account filled with factual information, but with gaps filled by educated guesses and competing ideas. Today, the Bibliotheca Alexandria is considered the new incarnation of the legendary library. First proposed in 1972, efforts and discussions to revive the library continued for a decade before a feasibility study was conducted in 1986 by UNESCO. By 1988, an architectural competition took place and it was won by Snøhetta, a Norwegian architectural firm. Egypt devoted roughly four hectares of land to the library, and then-President Hosni Mubarak took a personal interest in the project. Thanks to UNESCO's involvement and the backing of the president, the project advanced and was completed in 2002. A modern library and cultural center, the Bibliotheca Alexandria is by no means a replica of the great library. But considering the legends, did it ever have a chance? I hope you learned something today, and if you enjoyed today's video, be sure to deploy your likes, comment your favorite ancient piece of architecture, subscribe to the channel if you're not, and share this video with someone who loves learning about historical places and the people that made them famous. I'm Eric Malachite, and I'll see you next time, Space Cowboy.