DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14564#0208
ALEXANDRIA.
191
great dining-hall, which was the common room of the
professors, their theatre for public disputations, their
columned corridor for peripatetic lectures, and their
private apartments.
It is so usual to speak of the Library of Alexandria,
that we need to be reminded that it was twofold. The
Library proper was attached to the Museum, but a second
great collection was housed, probably for want of room,
far away in the Temple of Sarapis. Of the extent of the
collections as a whole various accounts are given, perhaps
owing to the usual confusion between books and volumes,
perhaps with reference to different times. One estimate
is 500,000 volumes ; and it is said that the library of the
Temple of Sarapis was by a single addition augmented
to the extent of 200,000 volumes, when the collection of
the kings of Pergamus was given by Mark Antony to
Cleopatra. If we take a low estimate, a library wholly
of manuscripts would not have been insignificant beside
its greatest modern successors of the earlier half of this
century, though in these recent libraries manuscripts are
but a small item beside the vast array of printed books.
But number is no test of value. That which sharpens our
regret is the quality of the books, of which the loss has
191
great dining-hall, which was the common room of the
professors, their theatre for public disputations, their
columned corridor for peripatetic lectures, and their
private apartments.
It is so usual to speak of the Library of Alexandria,
that we need to be reminded that it was twofold. The
Library proper was attached to the Museum, but a second
great collection was housed, probably for want of room,
far away in the Temple of Sarapis. Of the extent of the
collections as a whole various accounts are given, perhaps
owing to the usual confusion between books and volumes,
perhaps with reference to different times. One estimate
is 500,000 volumes ; and it is said that the library of the
Temple of Sarapis was by a single addition augmented
to the extent of 200,000 volumes, when the collection of
the kings of Pergamus was given by Mark Antony to
Cleopatra. If we take a low estimate, a library wholly
of manuscripts would not have been insignificant beside
its greatest modern successors of the earlier half of this
century, though in these recent libraries manuscripts are
but a small item beside the vast array of printed books.
But number is no test of value. That which sharpens our
regret is the quality of the books, of which the loss has