The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Alexandrian Library

ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY, a remarkablecollection of books, the largest of theancient world, was founded by the first Ptolemyand fostered by his son. It quickly grew and,already in the time of the first Ptolemy,Demetrius Phalereus had 50,000 volumes or rollsunder his care. During its most flourishingperiod, under the direction of Zenodotus,Aristarchus of Byzantium, Callimachus, ApolloniusRhodius and others, it is said to have contained490,000, or, according to another authority,including all duplicates, as many as 700,000volumes. The greater part of this library, whichembraced the collected literature of Rome,Greece, India and Egypt, was contained in thefamous museum, in the quarter of Alexandriacalled the Brucheion. During the siege ofAlexandria by Julius Cæsar this part of thelibrary was destroyed by fire; but it was afterwardreplaced by the collection of Pergamos,which was presented to Cleopatra by MarkAntony. The other part of the library waskept in the Serapeum, the temple of JupiterSerapis, where it remained till the time ofTheodosius the Great When this emperorpermitted all the heathen temples in the Romanempire to be destroyed, the magnificent templeof Jupiter Serapis was not spared. A mob offanatic Christians, led on by the ArchbishopTheophilus, stormed and destroyed the temple,together, it is most likely, with the greater partof its literary treasures, in 391 A.D. It was atthis time that the destruction of the librarywas begun, and not at the taking of Alexandriaby the Arabs under the Caliph Omar, in 641.There are strong reasons for believing that nolibrary then existed there. Consult Petit-Radel,‘Recherches sur les Bibliothèques Anciennes etModernes’ (1819); Ritschl, ‘Die AlexandrinischeBibtiothek’ (1838); Weniger, ‘DasAlexandrinische Museum’ (1875).