The fact that, for hundreds of years, Alexandria held the preëminence
as the center and source of literary achievement--down to the
culmination of her distinguishing history in 642 A. D.--will not blind
our eyes to the recognition of the earlier and narrower centers and
sources of intellectual activity. The fact must not be overlooked that,
long before the imperial City was founded at the northern extremity of
Egypt in 332 B. C., there were other important centers of learning and
well-known depositories of written records.
Perhaps the very earliest extensive depository of written documents
of any character which have survived for millenniums of years was at
ancient _Nippur_, in the region of Babylon and between the Euphrates
and the Tigris. This Nippur, or the modern _Nuffar_, is spoken of in
the old Sumerian legends as the oldest city of the earth, and the
influence of which has been felt by all classes of Babylonian peoples
for fully four thousand years. Through explorations, patiently and
hazardously prosecuted--at Nippur and elsewhere in Babylonia--a
long-forgotten world has slowly risen from its sealed entombment for
multiplied centuries into resurrection life and reality. The Babylonian
Expedition, organized and equipped for the purpose by the University
of Pennsylvania, has carried on a succession of expeditions, with
some interruptions, from 1889, forward, on the site of this ancient
forgotten city. As part results of its excavations, there have been
unearthed, not only temple walls with their contents of sarcophagi,
bas-relief, vases, playthings, weapons, objects and ornaments in
gold, silver, bronze, iron, clay, and stone, together with human
bones, but also more than 32,000 cuneiform tablets. These tablets, the
first-fruits of the vast literary deposits of this ancient city, are of
a manifold character and consist of syllabaries, letters, chronological
lists, historical fragments, religious texts, and the like. The tablets
already examined indicate the probable value of many of these records
from that far-off age. The oldest of them, according to Professor
Hilprecht, have an antiquity of about 2800 years B. C.,--one particular
fragment, containing a part of the deluge story more ancient by a
thousand years than any yet found, antedates Abraham's leaving Ur of
the Chaldees full two hundred years. The story as inscribed thereon,
being deciphered by Professor Hilprecht, not only tallies with the
Bible record but adds minute details and clarifies in some particulars
the inspired narrative contained in Genesis.[65] The newspapers of the
time of this "find" contain this account of the difficulty in the way
of the tablet's decipherment: "Because of its long period in the earth
the tablet was incrusted with crystals of nitre, which filled up the
characters of the ancient text. Besides, the clay was in a state of
decomposition and exceedingly difficult to handle without destroying
the tablet and losing the precious writing on it. For weeks Professor
Hilprecht worked several hours a day to remove the crystals and to put
the tablet into a state in which it could be deciphered. Then he set
about the work of translating the writing."
The chief library of ancient Assyria--and the one of which we have
the most definite knowledge--was that of _Assur-bani-pal_ at Nineveh.
This distinguished king of Assyria, successor of Sargon, Sennacherib,
and Esar-haddon, and the conqueror of Babylon, greatly enlarged the
library of which his predecessors had made beginnings, bringing into
it the plundered books of Babylonia and otherwise greatly developing
its resources. The date of this library at Nineveh is fixed at about
670 B. C., and is accredited to have contained in its archives more
than thirty thousand tablets and a large collection of hexagonal and
octagonal cylinders, seals, and other valuable archæological treasures,
including clay sarcophagi. Assur-bani-pal sent his scribes to copy the
vocabularies of foreigners wherever accessible and added thus to the
treasures of his library by the extensive transcription of tablets and
cylinders. Professor Sayce tells us that "a whole army of scribes
were employed in it, busily engaged in writing and editing old texts."
In the library, too, the study of the Accadian tongue was revived
and the language and literature of the primitive progenitors of the
Assyrio-Babylonians was written, not only with Babylonian translations
but also with their Assyrian equivalents. Sir Henry Layard, as long ago
as in 1850, in the course of his explorations unearthed on the site of
this old library more than twenty thousand clay tablets, which were
brought, later, to the British Museum. It was estimated that as many
more tablets remained as had been carried away. These tablets vary in
dimensions, the largest measuring from nine inches by six and a half
while the smallest in some cases are not more than an inch long and
with but one or two lines of writing on them. These tablets are covered
over with cuneiform characters. These characters are so small on some
of the cylinders and tablets that, according to Professor George
Rawlinson, five or six lines have been traced within the space of an
inch. The delicate character of the writing on some of the tablets has
led some of the archæologists to conclude that the inscriptions thereon
must have been written with the aid of a magnifying glass;--indeed, a
magnifying lens of crystal, now exhibited in the British Museum, was
found on the site of this library at Nineveh. These tablets, like those
at Nippur, cover a wide range of subjects: historical, mythological,
linguistic, mathematical, geographical, and astronomical.
The next in point of time among the great libraries of the ancient
world was that at Pergamos in Asia Minor. Eumenes II. (197-159 B. C.)
and other kings of Pergamos established a library in this city of
ancient Mysia in which was stored a vast collection of manuscript
books, approximating 200,000 rolls, written on papyrus and parchment.
This library at Pergamos flourished for a period of one hundred and
fifty years, or from its establishment on until it was given to
Cleopatra by Antony, and transferred by his authority to Alexandria
in order to replace one of the libraries which was said to have been
destroyed by fire in the wars of Cæsar; and so, thenceforward, became
incorporated in the Alexandrian Library and shared its fateful history.
The city of Alexandria, located on the delta of the Nile, became--and
remained for centuries both prior to and after the Christian Era had
begun--preëminent among the cities of the age we are considering, as a
literary center and source of intellectual virility. Grecian literature
and learning flourished there under the patronage of the Ptolemies; and
there, under Ptolemy I. (Ptolemy "Soter") at about 300 B. C., was begun
the Alexandrian Library and Museum, the largest, most valuable, and the
most renowned of all ancient libraries. While the Alexandrian Library
was begun under the rule of Ptolemy "Soter," a general of Alexander
the Great, it was during the reign of his son and successor, Ptolemy
Philadelphus, that the Library took on organized proportions and
greatly augmented resources. Ptolemy Philadelphus sent to all parts of
Egypt, Greece, and Asia to secure the most valuable books; no exertions
nor expense were spared to enrich and enlarge the collection in the
Library; and he left, it is said, 100,000 volumes therein. Staffs of
copyists were gathered in the Museum and search was continually made
throughout Greece and Asia Minor for copies and duplicates of existing
rolls. Extravagant prices were paid for books by the librarians (page
30) and thus a steady flow of literature was turned toward Alexandria
from all parts of the then civilized world. The Library further grew,
during the Ptolemaic Dynasty, and, as augmented by the collection of
books from Pergamos, to the vast proportions of 700,000 books (all, of
course, in manuscript) in this proud Capital on the Nile.
We must ever bear it in mind, however, while considering the large
number of books treasured in the Alexandrian Library, or in any other
ancient collection, that a manuscript roll--the common form of most
ancient books--was generally written on one side of the parchment or
papyrus only and therefore could contain at most only one-half the
amount of matter embraced within a book of leaves and pages.
We have already called attention (p. 62) to the change in literature
from the roll book to the book of leaves; and would now note the
further change in the roll-book by which the smaller rolls, convenient
for handling, were substituted for the enormous and cumbrous ones often
encountered. The bulkier manuscript rolls, composed as they were of
parchment or papyrus,--chiefly of papyrus at Alexandria--sometimes
having the length of one hundred and twenty feet or even longer, came
to be divided into smaller rolls as making up a given large work,--the
number of which being determined by the size of the respective works,
or, somewhat, as in poetry, by the character of the composition.
The object of this was to facilitate handling and reference, and,
incidentally, the preservation of the manuscript;--the opening portions
of the roll, as also the initial pages of a book of leaves, being most
frequently handled, were subjected to greatest "wear and tear." Under
this change, the History of Herodotus, e. g., was multiplied into nine
and the Iliad of Homer into twenty-four "books" or volumes; and the
entire Bible which, if contained in one roll would prove unwieldly
and almost incapable of use, would require thirty or forty or more
rolls. The size of the Medieval Bibles, when made up in a book with
leaves instead of the roll form, was immense. They were veritable
libraries in themselves--consisting of four or five, in one instance
of fourteen, great folio volumes. The Bible, however, being written by
many different authors and having a great diversity of themes, would,
by reason of this difference in authorship and subject-matter, more
readily lend itself to an arrangement into separate rolls or books than
many of the early classic writings. Indeed, the Bible, while it is
THE BOOK, is, essentially, a large collection of separate books. Not
the Bible alone but other large works, as the Iliad and the Odyssey,
notwithstanding the unity and continuity of their themes, were also
divided into "books" or rolls, and these were numbered or named by the
letters of the Greek alphabet:--"Iliad A" would designate the first
book of Homer's Iliad, and so on unto the end of the composition.
This change to smaller books, and thus to a larger number of separate
volumes, came about or was facilitated and expedited in the Library
at Alexandria. One, Callimachus, the grammarian, seems to have been
greatly instrumental in its furtherance; for, as says Mr. Putnam, "From
his time the cumbrous scrolls began to disappear, and as well for the
editions of the classics as for the literature of the day, the small
rolls came into use."[66]
The method of collecting books (as well as the multiplication of
smaller rolls from a single larger roll by transcription) tended
also to the enlargement of the Alexandrian Library. We are informed
by tradition that, in addition to the _purchase_ of rolls, the books
taken by the authorities from Greeks and other foreigners coming
into Egypt were sent to the Library and there copied by the scribes
in its employ. The copies thus made were delivered to the owners of
the books, while the originals from which the copies were made were
deposited in the Library. If this tradition is to be credited, then,
how absolutely beyond estimate was the importance of the Alexandrian
Library as the chief and the almost exclusive depository of original
manuscripts of both sacred and classic literature--and for a long
period of time. And if this was the fact, then it is highly probable
that the original copies of the New Testament, or of books thereof,
and of the Old Testament entire, were translated into the Greek during
this period of literary activity in Alexandria in order to meet the
needs: First, of the Greek-speaking Jews--later, of the Greek-speaking
apostles and Christian teachers and disciples; and that these books
were among the treasures of this most famous Library of the ancient
world, or, indeed, of all time. On the authority of Tertullian, who
lived in the first quarter of the third century, and of Chrysostom, who
lived in the last half of the fourth century, the original Septuagint
Version of the Old Testament scriptures--reputed to have been made near
Alexandria in the third century B. C.--and, probably, with it autograph
copies of the whole or parts of the New Testament were deposited in the
Library at Alexandria.
[It may not be without its interest while referring to the large
number of books treasured in the Alexandrian Library to mention,
parenthetically, the number of volumes contained in some of the
leading libraries of the United States and of the world:
Johns Hopkins University 220,000
The University of California 240,000
The University of Michigan 252,000
Princeton University 260,000
The University of Pennsylvania 285,000
Cornell University 355,000
Columbia University 430,000
The University of Chicago 480,000
New York State Library (Albany) 500,000
Yale University 550,000
Harvard University 800,000
Boston Public Library, about 1,000,000
New York Consolidated Library, about 1,400,000
Library of United States Congress, about 1,800,000[67]
Strasburg University, France 700,000
Royal Library, Berlin 1,000,000
Imperial Library, Petrograd 1,500,000
British Museum, London 2,000,000
Bibliotheca National, Paris 3,000,000[68]]