Tradition's Destruction: On the Library of Alexandria

MIT Press Tradition's Destruction: On the Library of Alexandria Author(s): Daniel Heller-Roazen Source: October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence (Spring, 2002), pp. 133-153

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Tradition'sDestruction: On the LibraryofAlexandria

DANIEL HELLER-ROAZEN

Disasters Recapitulating "I shall not recapitulate the disastersof the Alexandrian library,"Edward Gibbonwritesin the fifty-first chapterof TheHistory oftheDeclineandFall oftheRoman The historianresolves,withthesewords,to remainsilentabout thatwhich Empire.1 distinguishesthe Alexandrianlibraryabove all else: its "disasters."But it would be rashto conclude thatGibbon,therefore, simplyfailsto addressthe calamitiesthathe so clearlyavoids.Withthe characteristically double gestureof a disavowal,he at once invokesand distancesthem. His discussionof the institutionand posterityof the librarycannot but call to mind the destructionsthathe passes over in silence; it thatitwillnot "recapitulate." frames,withoutrecounting,thevery"disasters" Gibbon's words,in thisway,registerthe singularstatusthat the Libraryof Alexandria still occupies today:that of an institutionin which the conservation and the destructionof traditioncan hardlybe told apart,an archivethat,in a vertiginous movementof self-abolition,threatensto coincide entirelywithits own destruction.The pages thatfollowconsiderthe structureand sense of thissingular archive.The formtheytake is less thatof the modernscholarlyarticle,whichaims at the formulationand demonstrationof a novel argument,than thatof the "memof antiquity, ory notices,""textualremarks,"and "commentaries" (6rrovipaTca) whichsoughtto recall and explicatecertaindecisiveaspects of the textsthatpreceded them.2In thiscase, the remarksand commentaries,whichreferto a corpus of classicaland late ancientworksthatis at once literary, scienhistoriographical, tific,and philosophical, recall preciselythat which Gibbon excluded fromhis monumentalHistory: the many"disasters"thatthe Libraryof Alexandria,in its life and afterlife, remedied,incited,and suffered. simultaneously 1. Edward Gibbon, The Historyof theDeclineand Fall of theRomanEmpire,ed. David Womersely (London: Allen Lane [The Penguin Press], 1994), vol. 5-6, p. 285. On the 0rropviPV6caa, 2. see Franz B6mer, "Der Commentarius: Zur Vorgeschichte und literarischen Form der SchriftenCaesars,"Hermes81 (1953), pp. 210-50, esp. pp. 215-26; RudolfPfeiffer, Historyof Classical Scholarship:FromtheBeginningsto theEnd of theHellenisticAge (Oxford: Oxford Press,1968), pp. 48-49. University OCTOBER 100, Spring2002,pp. 133-153. ? 2002 October Institute Magazine,Ltd.and Massachusetts of

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The Cage oftheMuses

Ancient visitorsto Alexandria often remarkedthat it bore the formof a chlamys,the mantlewornbyMacedonianand Thessalianhuntersand soldiersand, later,Greek and Roman warriors.3Like the chlamys,whose lengthwas double its width,the cityfoundedbyAlexanderin 331 B.C.was roughlyrectangularin shape, borderedbythe Mediterraneanto the northand byLake Mareotisto thesouth.Any reconstruction of the topographyof the citymustrelyprincipallyon Strabo,who arrivedin Egypton a military campaignin the entourageof PrefectAuliusGallusin 24 B.C.,remainingin Alexandria,as he tellsus, for"a long time,"beforedescribing the Ptolemaiccenterin detailin the seventeenth book of his Geography.4 The "long sides"of Alexandria,Straboexplains,"are those thatare bathed by the twowaters, each stadia,and the shortsidesare the isthmuses, havinga diameterof about thirty being sevenor eightstadiawide and pinchedin on one side bythe sea and on the otherbythe lake."5Alongsidethe GreatHarbour,whichstretchedacrossthe northeasterncoastfromthe promontory of Lochias to the causewaythatjoined the cityto the island of Pharos, lay the region Strabo calls "the Palaces" (T x 3aolIaEl), which

acquiredthe name "Brucheion"in Roman times.Composinga thirdor fourthof the ancientcity,thisarea housed the royalgroundsand gardensas wellas the officesof It was also home to the mostcelebratedof all and public institutions.6 government 3. Plutarch,Alexander, 5-11; Strabo,Geography, XVII, 1, 8. 4. P. M. FraserreckonsStrabo's stayin Alexandriato have lasted fouryears.See Fraser,Ptolemaic Alexandria(Oxford:OxfordUniversity Press,1972), vol. 2, pp. 12-13, n. 23. 5. trans.Horace LeonardJones,vol. XVII, 1, 8; the textcited here is thatof TheGeography ofStrabo, Press,1932), p. 33. 1 (Cambridge:HarvardUniversity 6. Strabo, XVII, 1, 8. On Strabo's account and the topographyof the city,see Fraser,Ptolemaic

at thetimeat Map ofancientAlexandria whichitbecame a Roman

Destruction: On theLibrary Tradition's ofAlexandria

135

Alexandrian inventions, the Ptolemaic MouoaEov, "shrine of the Muses," or "Museum,"whichconstitutedthelargestcenteroflearningin theancientworld. Among classical sources there exist two accounts of the foundationof the Ptolemaic Museum. One tradition, whose earliest source lies in the Letterto Philocrates of the second centuryB.c.,7 identifiesit as the creation of the second Ptolemaic monarch,PtolemyPhiladephus,who ruled in Alexandria from285 to 246 B.C.8This explanation of the origin of the Museum can be found again in a numberof laterwriters,such as Philo,Josephus,Athenaeus,Epiphanius,and the ByzantinescholiastTzetzes.9A second traditioninsteadattributesthe foundation of the Museum to PtolemySoter,"the firstof the Macedonians to establishthe wealthofEgypt,"as Tacituscallshim.10The sole documentsupportingthistradition dates fromthe second centuryA.D.,when Irenaeus offersthe followingaccount of the institutionof the librarywithintheAlexandrianMuseum:"Ptolemythe song of Lagos [thatis, PtolemyI] had the ambitionto equip the libraryestablishedbyhim in Alexandria with the writingsof all men as far as theywere worth serious attention."11Since the classical authors who attribute the foundation of the Museum to PtolemyPhiladephuserrin theiraccountsof the administrative history of Alexandria,relatingthatthe second Ptolemaickingwas counseled by a scholar who in facthad been exiled at the startof the king'sreign,it is generallyaccepted todaythatIreneaus's account is the mostprobable,and thatthe fabled "shrineof the Muses" of Alexandriadates back to the timeof itsfirstrulerafterthe death of Alexander,at theverybeginningof the thirdcenturyB.C.12 Strabodevotestwosentencesto the workingsof the Museumin his accountof Alexandria,and theyfurnishus withthe fullestand most detailed account of its natureand organization."The Museum,"he writes,"isa partofthePalaces," has a walkway[rrEpirraTov], an arcade [[iF8poav],and a large house, in which there is the eating hall for the men of learning [cptoh,6ycov whosharetheMuseum.Theyforma community with in &v8bp