Library of Alexandria

It was only when Alexander dies and Ptolemy I ascended the throne of Egypt that Alexandria became home of the world's first-ever university. Mathematicians and other intellectuals flocked to Ptolemy's city of culture, and although they were certainly drawn by the reputation of the university, the main attraction was the Alexandrian Library.

The Library was the idea of Demetrius Phalaerus, an unpopular orator who had been forced to flee Athens, and who eventually found sanctuary in Alexandria. He persuaded Ptolemy to gather together all the great books, assuring that the great minds would follow. . . .. Even tourists to Alexandria could not escape the voracious appetite of the Library. Upon entering the city, their books were confiscated and taken to the scribes. The books were copied so that while the original was donated to the Library, a duplicate could graciously be given to the original owner. . . . . In 1906 J.L. Heiberg discovered in Constantinople just such a manuscript, "The Method," which contained some of Archimedes' original writings. ~ Page 45

During the centuries between Euclid and Diophantus, Alexandria remained the intellectual capital of the civilized world, but throughout this period the city was continually under threat from foreign armies. The first major attack occurred in 47 B.C., when Julius Ceasar attemptd to overthrow Cleopatra by setting fire to the Alexandrian fleet. The Library, which was located near the harbor, also caught alight, and hundred of thousands of books were destroyed. Fortunately for mathematics Cleopatra appreciated the importance of knowledge and was determined to restore the Library to its former glory. Mark Antony realised that the way to an intellectual's heart is via her library, and so marched to the city of Pergamum. This city had already initiated a library that it hoped would provide it with best collection in the world, but instead Mark Antony transplanted the entire stock to Egypt, restoring the supremacy of Alexandria.

For the next four centuries the Library continued to accumulate books until in A.D., 389 it received the first of two fatal blows, both result of religious bigotry. The Christian Emperor Theodosius order Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, to destroy all pagan monuments. Unfortunately when Cleopatra rebuilt and restocked the Library became caught up in the destruction of icons and altars. The "pagan" scholar attempted to save six centuries' worth of knowledge, but before they could do anything they were butchered by the Christian mob. The descent into the dark Ages had begun.
~ Page 54

There was never anything like he great library and museum before, nor has there been since: the single place on earth where all the knowledge in the entire world was gathered together -- every great play and poem, every book of physics and philosophy, the key to understanding.... simply everything. That institution aimed to accumulate every book written, even from as far afield as India, and at its zenith it was said to contain three-quarters of a million scrolls. Here were not only the works of the brilliant scholars of their own time but also those of their illustrious predecessors -- of Homer, Pythagoras, and Herodotus, of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle -- names that might otherwise be unknown to us. Other libraries since have held more books; indeed, today the Library of Congress in Washington and the British Library in London hold between them nearly every book printed in the last two hundred years and many more besides. But they are not complete, not least because most of the knowledge of the first thousand years of Western civilization is missing. .... xvi (Intro)

~ Excerpt "Alexandria" Authors: Justin Pollard & Howard Reid

. . . . Plato had himself said that "the knowledge of which geometry aims is the knowledge of the eternal (Plato, Republic, book 12, chapter 52)

For Euclid, mathematics was not simply an abstract idea but a method for seeking out the harmonies of shape which revealed the sublime, even divine, from of creation. In his 'Elements' Euclid began to set down method by which Plato's world could be explored and in doing so set Alexandria on a journey of discovery far beyond anything taken by the ships which came and went each day through the Great Harbor.

Euclid's work remained pivotal to the development of the European intellectual tradition for at least two thousand years, and one of the reasons for its longevity was that it was coherent and substantially accurate. For the story of Alexandria this is of critical importance. Here, in the reign of the first Ptolemic pharaoh, his protolibrary and museum were invested with a completely trustworthy compilation of a major science which generations of succeeding scholars could call upon, not just for academic study but as a means of enhancing their own work. Then as now scholars returned again and again to the shelves holding Euclid's work to compute, test and verify their own research, in fields ranging from physics to geography and astronomy. The 'Elements' is, even today, an anchor of mathematics, first dropped over two millennia ago into a sea of ignorance from the ship of Alexandria. ~ Page 66 / 67 (Excerpt: "Alexandria" - Justin Pollard & Howard Reid

Shortly after Alexander’s death, the empire was divided among three of his most trusted generals, Seleucus, Ptolemy, and Antigonus. The dynasties that derived from those three generals were the Seleucids that ruled Central Asia, the Antigonids in Macedonia, and the Ptolemeis in Egypt. (Tit was thanks to the Ptolemaic dynasty that Alexaneria became the major center of trade and culture with an institution called Musaeum, from the Muses, where many thinkers of the ancient world gathered to study. The famous library of Alexandria, which was part of the Museum, contained at height almost 400,00 scrolls)