the ancient Library of Alexandria's tribute to knowledge

While the ancient Library of Alexandria represents the dream of collecting and sharing knowledge, true information about the library has scarcely survived.  Whether Ptolemy I or Ptolemy II founded the library is highly uncertain.[1] The reign of these rulers spanned from 323 to 246 BGC.  The Library of Alexandria’s destruction is known no better than its founding. Some records indicate that Julius Caesur set fire to the libary in 48 BGC during a battle in Alexandria.  Others indicate that Aurelian destroyed the library in his conquest of Alexandria in 273 GC, that a mob of Christian monks destroyed the library in 391 GC, or that `Amr ibn al-`As had its books burned to fuel public baths after his conquest of Alexandria in 642 GC.[2]

True information about the size of the ancient Library of Alexandria’s book collection is also scarce. By the fourth century GC, ancient writers thought that the Library of Alexandria had been enormous.  One noted, “the unanimous testimony of ancient records declares that 700,000 volumes, brought together by the unremitting energy of the Ptolemaic kings, were burned in the Alexandrine war.”[3]  A variety of ancient and modern works put the size of the libary about 500,000 books.  However, some ancient sources indicate a size about 50,000.  Moreover, different manuscripts of the same ancient work transmit collection sizes that differ by a factor of ten.[4]

Calculations based on ancient Greek authorship suggest that claims of 500,000 or more rolls don’t deserve the credibility that they have received.  Words attributed to 450 authors writing in Greek before the end of the fourth century BGC have survived to the present.  Words attributed to another 175 authors writing in Greek in the third century BGC have also survived.  Assuming that the Library of Alexandria collected on average 25 rolls for each of these authors implies a total of about 16,000 rolls.  Moreover, all the surviving words written in Greek in the second century BGC or earlier would fit on less than 400 rolls.  For ancient Greek authors as they are now generally understood, the existence of more than twenty times as many as those that have survived isn’t plausible.  That such authors authored a thousand times as many words as have survived isn’t plausible.  Ancient Greek authors probably wrote on average less than 25 rolls each.  Claims that the Library of Alexandria held 500,000 rolls don’t add up with the figures of ancient Greek authorship.[5]

Much different figures of ancient Greek authorship are plausible.  An ancient block of granite found near Alexandria has engraved on its face in Greek, “Dioskourides, 3 rolls.”  Dioskourides cannot be plausibly identified.  This unique object, long identified as a book container, is more reasonably interpreted as a sculpture base.[6]  This object suggests that authorship, measured in rolls, carried considerable status.  Authorship measured in rolls is not the same as creative, Romantic authorship.  Genealogical records, records of political events and acts, compilations of quotations from others, corrected, annotated, or excerpted works of others, and commentaries on others’ work probably were the most prevalent forms of authored works in ancient Greece, as they are everywhere else.[7]  Pseudo-Aristeas’ interest in the story of the translation of Hebrew scripture for the Library of Alexandria suggests that having a book included in the Library of Alexandria was a mark of prestige.  How many Greeks would have had the motive and the means to author rolls and seek to have them included in the Library of Alexandria?

From the mid-fifth century to the mid-third century BGC, Greeks seeking authorial status plausibly could have driven the Library of Alexandria’s collection to 100,000 rolls.  Greece in the fourth century BGC encompassed an estimated 1,100 self-governing cities with probably more than 8 million residents. Among those cities, 330 were members of the Delian League and at least 80 had total territory larger than 500 square kilometers.[8] Suppose that, among each generation of adults, the 80 largest cities averaged 5 authors each, the other estimated 250 members of the Delian League averaged 2 authors each, and the remaining 770 cities averaged 1 author each.  Those estimates imply a total of 1670 authors per adult generation.  Two centuries would span about six generations of adults.  That implies about 10,000 authors in total.  If each averaged in the Library of Alexander ten roles under his or her name, that implies 100,000 rolls.[9]

Individual and political status-seeking are central to the production and collection of books.  Elite Greek men engaged intensely in verbal competition.  The creation of libraries in the ancient Islamic world and the enduring knowledge of the ninth-century House of Wisdom in Baghdad, like that of the ancient Library of Alexandria, reflect political aspirations for intellectual eminence.  The best indicator of the size of libraries is the nature of interpersonal and inter-societal verbal competition.

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Notes:

[1] Bagnall (2002) pp. 348-51.  The earliest surviving mention of the library occurs in a work dating to the second century BGC, Psuedo-Aristeas, Letter to Philocrates (Letter of Aristeas).

[2] See Al-Qifti’s account and Bar Hebraeus’ account.  The latter is apparently derived from the former.

[3] Ammianus Marcellinus, quoted in Bagnall (2002) p. 352.

[4] Id. pp. 351-2.  Bagnall is a highly knowledgeable, widely respected scholar.  His analysis, however, has hardly been able to move prevailing accounts of the Library of Alexandria. A curious difference between al-Qifti’s account and Bar Hebraeus’ account of the destruction of the Library of Alexandria is that al-Qifti, but not Bar Hebraeus, gives a specific count of the books in the library: 54,120 books.

[5] All the statements and figures in the above paragraph are based on Bagnall (2002) pp. 352-4.  Most of the total number of authors whose words have survived have less than a few sentences surviving.

[6] Id. pp. 354-5. Bagnall (2003), p. 21, notes: “The inscription of the Dioskourides block is unique.”  The underlying social dynamics, however, probably were prevalent.

[7] See, e.g. commonplace books, collections of wise sayings, and contemporary blogs.  Ibn Abi Usaibia’s History of Physicians includes with each physician a list of the titles that the physician authored.  Commentaries are rather common.  In recent years, total print-on-demand titles has jumped to nearly eight times that of traditional print titles. Print-on-demand titles typically have low authorial investment.

[8] Hansen (2008) pp. 260-2.

[9] In Ibn Abi Usaibia’s History of Physicians, which is roughly a prestige-selected set of physicians, the physicians’ distribution of books authored is highly skewed.  The over-all average books listed per author is 25.  Nonetheless, ten books per author in the Library of Alexandria may still be too high.  In England from 1783 to 1819, female-authored novels outnumbered male-authored novels by 42%.  The number of female-authored rolls in classical Greece was probably much small than the number of male-authored rolls, but not negligible.  Persian, Assyrian, and Egyptian books could have further increased the total number of rolls in the library.

References:

Bagnall, Roger S. 2002. “Alexandria: Library of Dreams.”  Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, v. 146 (4) pp. 348-362.

Bagnall, Roger S. 2003 “Dioskourides: Three Rolls.” Bulletin de la Société archéologique d’Alexandrie. v. 47, pp. 5-17.

Hansen, Mogens Herman.  2008. “An Update on the Shotgun Method.” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, v. 48, n. 3, pp. 259–286.

COB-67: Bureaucratic Performance Award

We are very pleased to issue a Bureaucratic Performance Award to Ali Kazma for his outstanding O.K.  With his O.K., he has demonstrated rapid and highly efficient rubber-stamping.  Like Kim Schmahmann’s Bureau of Bureaucracy, Ali Kazma’s work is finely crafted.  His concern for time exceeds even that of Hanne Darboven’s pioneering 27K-No8-No26.  His work connects to the working world in a way that Paul Kelpe’s art never did.  Ali Kazma’s work provides a model of bureaucratic excellence and an outstanding contribution to our organization’s mission.  All his colleagues speak highly of him.  He focuses on his job description, has never failed to attend a meeting, and always answers the phone promptly.  He brings his work home with him and eats his lunch at his desk.  Here’s your award.  Congratulations.  We are very pleased to issue …

In other bureaucratic issues this month, the Canadian Legal Education Annual Review recently published an article entitled, “A Novice Lawyer at the Art Gallery.”  The article “analyzes the new lawyer’s transition from the legal writing genre of office memorandum to the legal writing genre of advocacy brief.”  We believe that such a transition is misguided.  With an appropriate cover sheet, an office memorandum informs as well as any other type of lawyerly document.

Maria Thompson Corley at the Board Street Review appropriately urges everyone not to quit their jobs.  She insightfully asks: “when you come right down to it, what job isn’t important?”  Every job is important. Learn how to hang on.

Recent research shows that chimps’ ability to throw shit correlates with brain development.  So instead of complaining that bureaucrats are throwing shit at you, recognize that shit-throwing indicates intelligence.

That’s all for this month’s Carnival of Bureaucrats.  Enjoy previous bureaucratic carnivals here.  Nominations of posts to be considered for inclusion in next month’s carnival should be submitted using Form 376: Application for Bureaucratic Recognition.

struggles over Aristotle's public record in Athens

The Athenians reportedly erected an inscribed column on the Acropolis to honor Aristotle for his favors and services to Athens.  In the ancient world, public communication through such stelae was common:

Suppose for a moment that you are visiting a pan-Hellenic shrine such as Delphi in the third century B.C., or taking a stroll through the agora of a major Greek city such as Athens, or through one of its cemeteries.  What would you see?  In this period, early in the Hellenistic Age, you would in all likelihood see great numbers of inscribed monuments wherever you looked, among other sights.  At the shrine you might — if you were literate — read inscriptions on many of the dedications to the gods, or peruse the honors bestowed on the sanctuary’s special benefactors; you might even glance at temple inventories.  In the city’s agora you might note laws engraved on stelae, decrees, accounts, commemorations of important civic events and prominent individuals.  In cemeteries you would see large numbers of inscriptions adorning the grave markers, often consisting of no more than the deceased’s name and parentage.[1]

Stones gave the public record weight and permanence.  But what was written in stone wasn’t unassailable.  One of Aristotle’s opponents attacked Aristotle’s record by attacking the stela honoring Aristotle:

there was a citizen of Athens named Himeraeus who excluded himself from the community’s decision concerning the inscription and opposed its opinion of Aristotle. After the people had inscribed their words of praise on the pillar and placed it on the tower of the Acropolis, this man ran up and cast it down.[2]

Himeraeus thus rejected interpersonal verbal engagement and instead struck physically the inscribed pillar.  The civic authority and other Athenians responded with a decisive exertion of political power:

{Himeraeus} was seized by Antinus {Antipater} and put to death.  Another Athenian, called Stephanus along with a group of others, erected another pillar and inscribed it with similar words of praise. They also included the name of Himeraeus who had thrown down the first pillar and the description of his foul deed, adding a curse upon him and a vow to his excommunication. [3]

Adding the punishment of Himeraeus to Aristotle’s stela emphasized the Athenians’ determination to secure that public record.  Athens was a highly verbal society.  Verbally attacking Aristotle’s record would have been of relatively little concern.  But not all forms of public communication were equally free.[4]

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Notes:

[1] Bing and Bruss (2007) p. 1.  The inscriptions of laws in stone at Gortyn also points to the importance of public writing.  Inscriptions in the Roman period peak in frequency at the end of the second century GC.  Meyer (1990) associates that peak with status competition, specifically the value of publicly declaring Roman citizenship.

[2] HP p. 110.  Düring (1957)’s translation of this and the subsequent quote does not differ significantly.  Himeraeus is plausibly identified as the anti-Macedonian older brother of Demetrius of Phalerum. See Fortenbaugh (2000) p. 315.

[3] HP p. 110.  Antipater. one of Alexander the Great’s generals, ruled Greece after Alexander’s death.  Antipater had Himeraeus executed in 322 BGC (after the Lamian War).  Fortenbaugh (2000) p. 315.  In the context of this biographical story, that execution presumably occurred after Himeraeus had been exiled from Athens.

[4] While this biographical story is probably apocryphal (perhaps composed in Greek in the early Hellenistic period), it shows detailed knowledge of Athenian honorifics.  The account of the struggle over the stela is probably realistic even if apocryphal.

References:

Bing, Peter and Jon Steffen Bruss. 2007. “Introduction.”  In Brill’s companion to Hellenistic epigram.  Brill’s companions in classical studies. Leiden: Brill

Düring, Ingemar. 1957.  Aristotle in the ancient biographical tradition.  Göteborg: Almqvist och Wiksell.

Fortenbaugh, William W., Eckart Schütrumpf. 2000. Demetrius of Phalerum: text, translation, and discussion. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.

HP: Ibn Abi Usaybi’ah, Ahmad ibn al-Qasim. English translation of History of Physicians (4 v.) Translated by Lothar Kopf. 1971. Located in: Modern Manuscripts Collection, History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD; MS C 294.  Online transcription.

Meyer, Elizabeth A. 1990. “Explaining the Epigraphic Habit in the Roman Empire: The Evidence of Epitaphs.” The Journal of Roman Studies, v. 80, pp. 74-96.

Galen and Paul of Tarsus against the Epicureans

Galen of Pergamon, like Paul of Tarsus, engaged in strenuous, life-long work amidst vicious struggles with personal opponents.  Both Galen and Paul had privileged upbringings and promising opportunities for relatively tranquil and secure lives.  Paul’s life course is readily explained today as resulting from divine intervention, or, alternatively, deep psychosis.  But what explains Galen’s passionate life?

Galen argued that a physician must work hard to excel.  According to Galen, the excellent physician knows geometry, astronomy, anatomy, logic, dietetics, prognostics, and verbal exposition.  Galen described a physician moving beyond the work of Hippocrates’ son and other Hippocratic disciples.  That physician left Hippocrates’ home and the court of the Macedonian King Perdiccas to visit all other places in Greece.  In the course of long, difficult travel, the physician cared for the poor and considered with experience Hippocrates’ writing on the effects of different waters and places on health.[1]  Galen noted:

{the excellent physician} will, necessarily, not only despise money, but also be extremely hard-working.  And one cannot be hard-working if one is continually drinking or eating or indulging in sex: if, to put it briefly, one is a slave to genitals and belly.  The true doctor will be found to be a friend of temperance and a companion of truth.[2]

Arabic literature records Galen writing:

He who is in such a position {the excellent physician} pays little regard not only to riches but also to leisure and relaxation, preferring toil and hardship hand in hand with virtue.[3]

A variety of sources have Hippocrates as the actor in stories about a physician refusing a lucrative call from the Persian King Artaxerxes and a physician leaving the court of Perdiccas.  Galen’s own text on the best doctor has, not Hippocrates, but an excellent physician as the actor in these stories.[4]  Galen considered himself to be an excellent physician.

Galen implicitly contrasted an Epicurean life with his life.  Epicurean doctrines emphasized leisure, relaxation, tranquility, and security (ataraxia).  In Galen’s time, as well as today, Epicurean living tends to be associated with pleasures of drinking, eating, and having sex.  The writings of Epicurus more directly and unequivocally connect ataraxia to being among  friends, being free from fear of death, and being free from concern for one’s place in an afterlife.[5]  Galen rejected the popular counsel associated with Epicureanism, “let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”[6]  Galen instead pursued wide-ranging scholarship, produced a huge body of written work, and engaged in demonstrations and medical practice.  Galen also rejected being among friends in practices such as morning social visits and evening symposia.  Galen instead chose the struggles implicit in being “a friend of temperance and a companion of truth.”  Epicurus encouraged his disciples to disseminate the “true philosophy.”[7]  Epicurus meant Epicurean philosophy.  Galen insisted, in contrast, on being a true doctor.  The true doctor worked hard to extend medical knowledge beyond Hippocrates’ great achievements.

Galen taunted Epicureans and other philosophic schools with the much less prestigious second-century example of Jews and Christians.  Discussing creation and nature, Galen declared:

Is not this Moses’ way of treating Nature and is it not superior to that of Epicurus? The best way, of course, is to follow neither of these … [8]

Elsewhere Galen jeered:

One might more easily teach novelties to the followers of Moses and Christ than to the physicians and philosophers who cling fast to their schools [9]

Using philosophical schools’ central topoi, Galen praised Christians:

The mass of the people are not able to follow the thread of an apodictic discourse, wherefore they need allusive sayings, so that they may enjoy instruction thereby.  Of this sort we now see the people who are called Christians deriving their faith from such allusive sayings.  Yet on their part deeds have been produced equal to the deeds of those who are true philosophers.  For example, that they are free from the fear of death is a fact which we all have observed; likewise their abstinence from the unlawful practice of sexual intercourse.  And, indeed, there are some among them, men, and women, also, who during the whole of their natural life refrain altogether from such intercourse.  And some of them have attained to such a degree of severe self-control and to such earnestness in their desire for righteousness, that they do not fall short of those who are true philosophers. [10]

Freedom from fear of death, freedom from bodily desires, self-mastery, and attainment of virtue were primary philosophical goods.  According to Galen, Christians demonstrated in life these goods just as well as did “true philosophers.”  Galen had contempt for the mere assertions of the schools of Moses and Christ.  In his polemics, Galen put forward deeds as trumping words.  Galen’s comparison of Christians to “true philosophers” is a sarcastic attack on philosophical elites.[11]  That attack strikes particularly at Epicureans, whom Epicurus urged to disseminate “true philosophy.”

Galen and Paul passionately pursued great projects.  When Galen criticized being “a slave to genitals and belly,” he echoed Paul’s implicit disparagement of the Epicurian life: “their god is the belly and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.”  Paul wanted Christians to grow up from childish Epicurian slavery:  “when we were children, we were slaves to the elements of the universe.”[12]  The underlying Greek root for slave in these expressions evoked in its time not a person cruelly and unjustly enslaved, but a person completely at a Master’s service.  Paul and Galen put their lives completely at the service of projects much greater than genitals, bellies, and atoms.  Paul worked tirelessly to disseminate the news that Jesus the Christ had fulfilled God’s promise to the Jews and extended salvation to all humankind.  Galen worked tirelessly to demonstrate the rational beauty of biological nature and to have that knowledge applied in medical practice.  In the vibrant intellectual world of ninth-century Baghdad, a prominent, hard-working scholar wrote an epistle presenting himself as a faithful disciple of Galen and Christ.

Galen’s passion in form was much like Paul’s.  What explains both is service to a great project.

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Notes:

[1] Galen, The Best Doctor is Also a Philosopher (Opt. Med.), III, trans. Singer (1997) p. 32-3.  Hippocrates reportedly wrote a text On Airs, Waters, and Places.  HP pp. 53, 62, and Hippocratic corpus.

[2] Opt. Med., trans. Singer (1997) p. 33.  Boudon-Millot (2000) p. 238 suggests that this text dates to 180-192 GC.

[3] HP p. 53.

[4] HP p. 53.  For other sources of these Hippocratic stories, see, e.g. Boudon-Millot (2000) p. 303.  Cf. Opt. Med., trans Singer (1997) p. 32.  Galen wrote a commentary on Hippocrates’ work, On Airs, Waters, and Places.  HP p. 187, Boudon-Millot (2000) p. 238.  Artaxerxes I was a Pesian king reigning 464-424 BGC.  Perdiccas II of Macedonia reigned from about 454 to 413 BGC.  Hippocrates lived from about 450 BGC to 380 BGC.  Hence Hippocrates’ son and disciples are chronologically implausible characters in these stories.

[5] On Epicurean beliefs, see, e.g. Epicurus’ principle doctrines and Epicurus’ Letter to Menoeceus.  Epicureans probably were relatively prevalent in Anatolia, where both Galen and Paul had roots.  De Witt (1954) pp. 59-63.  Epicurus advocated a calculus of bodily advantage, described as pleasure.  Epicurus was thus a forerunner of Jeremy Bentham, utilitarianism, consequential ethics, and contemporary Western economics.

[6] Isiah 22:13, 1 Corinthians 15:32.  Sardanapalus, the seventh-century BGC founder of Tarsus, had engraved on his tomb, “knowing full well that thou art but mortal, indulge thy desire, find joy in thy feasts. Dead, thou shalt have no delight.” Malherbe (1989) p. 85.

[7] Epicurus, Vatican Sayings, 41.

[8] Galen, De usu partium, book 11, chapter 14.  See Ref. 2 in Pearse (2011).

[9] Galen, De differentiis pulsuum, iii, 3.  See Ref. 3 in Pearse (2011).

[10] Abu’l-Fida, Concise History of Humanity, Ch. 3, Bk. 3.  See Ref. 6 in Pearse (2011).  The translation from Sprengling (1917), p. 96, uses the phrase “in truth philosophers.”  Lothar Kopf translates evidently the same Arabic phrase (HP p. 150) as “who profess philosophy in truth.”  The translation above is from Sprengling (1917) p. 96, with the elimination of the recording author’s parentheticals and with “true philosophers” substituted for “in truth philosophers.”  The former expression is within the same zone of meaning as the latter, more concise, and better reflects the over-all tone of the passage.  The frequently quoted translation of Walzer (1949) p. 15 isn’t faithful to Abu’l-Fida’s text.  In particular, the phrase “in matters of food and drink” isn’t in Abu’l-Fida’s text, while “cohabitation” doesn’t indicate the clear sexual implications of the relevant phrase.  Sprengling (1917) p. 106 comments:

Abulfeda’s text is not merely fuller than that of Agapius and Bar-Hebraeus, it is an utterly different text. The Greek is fairly apparent under the Arabic of both, more conspicuous in Abulfeda’s version; but the Greek under the Arabic and Syriac of the Christians is not the Greek of Galen. … But the Greek underlying Abulfeda’s version is Galen’s Greek. … Moreover, the sentiment and thought of Abulfeda’s text is Galen’s.

The inclusion of food and drink within some of the Arabic record of the Galenic text seems to reflect an anti-Epicurean expansion in translation.  Note that the version from Ibn al-Qifti, History of Learned Men, praises the Christians for (in Latin translation) “in cibo, potuque parsimoniam amare.”  This seems to be a contrasting parallel to Sardanapalus’ well-known grave inscription, “eat, drink, and have sex.”  On that inscription, see Malherbe (1989) p. 85, esp. ft. 49.  It has also been transmitted as “eat, drink, and play,”;  “eat, drink, and have sex” is a more specific meaning that seems to me more plausible coming from a powerful male leader.

[11] On the mere assertions of the schools of Moses and the Christians, see References 1, 4, and 5 in Pearse (2011).  On words versus deeds, see, e.g. Galen, On the Power of Cleansing Drugs (Purg. med. fac.) 2,11.328-30K, trans. Mattern (2008) p. 70, and Outline of Empiricism (Subf. Emp.) Ch. XI, trans. Walzer (1985) p. 42.

[12] Galen, Opt. Med., trans. Singer (1997) p. 33; Paul, Philippians 3:19 and Galations 4:3. The concept of elements of the universe or atoms was Epicurean.  On Galations 4:3’s relation to Epicureans, see De Witt (1954) pp. 63-5.  The Greek root for slave in both these expressions is that of doulos.  In the New Testament, doulos is also frequently translated as servant.  For example, doulos is the Greek for servant in Titus 1:1, “Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to further the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth which accords with godliness.”

References:

Boudon-Millot, Véronique, and Jacques Jouanna, trans. 2000. Galien.  t. 1. Paris: Belles lettres.

De Witt, Norman W. 1954. St. Paul and Epicurus. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

HP: Ibn Abi Usaybi’ah, Ahmad ibn al-Qasim. English translation of History of Physicians (4 v.) Translated by Lothar Kopf. 1971. Located in: Modern Manuscripts Collection, History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD; MS C 294.  Online transcription.

Malherbe, Abraham J. 1989. Paul and the popular philosophers. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Mattern, Susan P. 2008. Galen and the rhetoric of healing. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Pearse, Roger. 2011.  Galen on Jews and Christians.

Singer, P. N., trans. 1997. Galen. Selected works. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sprengling, M. 1917. “Galen on the Christians.” The American Journal of Theology, v. 21, n. 1 (Jan.) pp. 94-109.

Walzer, Richard. 1949. Galen on Jews and Christians. London: Oxford University Press.

Walzer, Richard, and Michael Frede, trans. 1985.  Galen. Three treatises on the nature of science: On the sects for beginners, An outline of empiricism, On medical experience. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co.