[Carl] Sagan’s roll call of Greek scientists who he claims worked at the Great Library makes it sound like some kind of ancient Mediterranean MIT: Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, Euclid, Dionysius of Thrace, Herophilos, Archimedes, Ptolemy and so on. Unfortunately, only one of these people – Eratosthenes – can definitely be said to be associated with the Great Library. Two others from Sagan’s list – Dionysius and Ptolemy – may have been. And once you take out all the others, that really leaves only Eratosthenes and (maybe) Conon of Samos and, much later, Ptolemy as scholars of the Great Library who did anything like what we would call “science”. We can perhaps shoehorn in Euclid and the physicians and anatomists Herophilos and Erasistratos, depending on when the Mouseion was established, but overall the evidence for the institution as some great centre of scientific research is actually rather thin.
Which means it is perhaps less surprising to learn, on examining the sources, that the Great Library was actually celebrated mainly for a specialisation which is about as far from modern science as possible: the study of poetry. This makes some sense, given that the Mouseion was dedicated to the Muses, four of whom represented forms of verse. The works of Homer, in particular, were a primary focus of study across the Greek world and his poems permeated thought, writing and everyday speech rather like the works of Shakespeare and the texts of the Bible do today. It was the scholars of the Mouseion who, on gathering and comparing copies of the Illiad and Odyssey from across the Greek-speaking world, noticed textual differences large and small and established the kind of textual analysis still used by editors to this day; working to determine the best possible text from the manuscript variants. Other works of Greek poetry, such as the odes of Pindar, were also analysed and studied in a similar way, as were the works of the great Athenian playwrights.
The importance of literary studies at the Mouseion can be seen by analysing the specialisations of the men we know were directors of the institution and therefore “librarians” of the Great Library. […] of these scholars, only Eratosthenes is known for doing anything that we would consider “science”, the others were devoted to literary and textual analysis, poetry and grammar. Of course, these scholars were polymaths and most of them would probably have ranged over many topics including areas of mathematics and natural philosophy; Eratosthenes himself was nicknamed “Beta” because he covered so many disciplines he was something of a jack of all trades and master of none, so his colleagues mocked him as “Number 2” in all subjects. That aside, the idea that the Mouseion was a major centre of scientific speculation is at best an exaggeration and largely yet another fantasy.
Tim O’Neill, “The Great Myths 5: The Destruction Of The Great Library Of Alexandria”, History for Atheists, 2017-07-02.
March 24, 2023
QotD: The academic specializations of the Great Library
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“a specialisation which is about as far from modern science as possible”
Not really. Scientific study of poetry is perfectly possible and unsurprisingly a modern scientific specialization too.
For the rest: thanks. I learned something today.
Comment by FrankB — March 24, 2023 @ 03:20
It’s a very meaty article, but that section was strong enough to stand alone as a QotD without being too out-of-context. Glad you found it useful.
Comment by Nicholas — March 24, 2023 @ 09:33