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Amazon.com of Alexandria: The Ancient Information Age
by Mark Havenner
In Middle Ages Europe, if you wanted
to spend an afternoon curled up on
the sofa to read a cozy book you were
probably reading the only book you
own and it was likely written in Greek or Latin.
That book would have been transcribed by a
monk and distributed on horseback or by ship to
your distinguished estate after you’d laid claim to
someone else’s estate or made some international
trade agreement. The book would have been on
two or three scrolls and was probably written by
either Aristotle or Plato. If you were lucky enough
to snag a piece of fiction it would have been a
religious play of sorts, or a collection of poems by
some far off intellectual. Most likely, it would be
a book on astronomy, alchemy, mathematics or other engaging topics. It
would also be one of your most valuable commodities.
The ability to read, in fact, would be a right of your obvious social
stature and by its own virtue put you at the top of an extremely limited
group of people including other monarchs, the Pope, court officials, and
clergy. If you were one of the minority that could not read, yet owned the
book, it would be in your stash of bullion along with jewels, coins, and other
valuables that you hold onto to leverage your power against rival nobles or
the heathens overseas. It is, of course, possible that you are a priest of some
sort and it is your religious duty to read and transcribe this book. Once
transcribed, the book would be placed in the monastery’s storehouse for the
few religious students that would take on the classics.
You could also be a pagan, still dripping with pre-Christian Roman
values and treat the distribution of knowledge with zealotry and reverence.
In that case, you may be a philosopher and intellectual who works on the
next great gnosis. Reading would not be casual, but a lifestyle. A way of
understanding the world and to better develop Aristotilian and Socratic
systems.
It had been this way ever since the destruction of the Great Royal
Library at Alexandria.
Egyptian Influence
The Library of Alexandria was
thought to have been built sometime
in the 3rd Century BC under Ptolemy
II based upon what some guy wrote
about 150 years or so after it was
built. It was a fairly good source
however and so many historians think
it is a good assessment.
It was later thought that Ptolemy
II’s successor, Ptolemy III had a
somewhat . . . eh . . . passionate
approach to his library. It seems he
required anyone who set foot in
Alexandria to give up all of their books
so they could be immediately
transcribed and stored in the library.
The “original” may have been returned.
This along with an assertive campaign to bring books into the library
reportedly maded it the largest storehouse of books in human history.
To help matters, Mark Antony gave his famous lover, Cleopatra,
200,000 scrolls alone just for marrying him.
The Ptolemies clearly appreciated the importance of
knowledge and used it as a commodity and their famous library.
Through their efforts the world held onto the knowledge of Greece
and Rome long into the classical age.
Greek Influence
As much as the Egyptians had an
impact on the operations of the library, it
was the Greeks who were really in
charge. Alexander, after all, founded the
city and left his generals were in charge
after he left. In just a few short years,
Alexandria became the center of the
Hellenistic world and the largest city in
the world next to Rome itself. The city,
and its remarkable library, represented
the fusion of two great civilizations:
Egypt and Greece.
Along with Greek influence came Greek ideology. The library
was set up as a tribute to the Muses and became a research
establishment dedicated to celebrating knowledge and creativity.
Most of their efforts were in editing and transcribing as many works
as possible.
The destruction of the Library of
Alexandria has been romanticized
throughout history and is
considered by many one of the
most tragic losses of human
civilization. Yet no one can exactly
place when or how it happened.
Was it Julius Caeser? He
tromped in just before the
Common Era when he went to
war against the Ptolemies. After
burning his own ships a section of the library caught fire. He paid up
later by helping out Mark Antony with that literary wedding present.
Was it the Christian Emperor Theophilus, who 391 AD ordered
all pagan temples destroyed? The library happened to have a pagan
temple in reverence to the muse’s and it was most certainly
plundered. But the temple was separate from the library in a way and
perhaps the books were left untouched.
Was it Umar’s command to destroy all books that were not in
agreement with the Koran after a Muslim army invaded in 642?
Modern historians think that story was a fabrication, perpetuated as
Crusades propaganda.
Well, then . . . where did all those books go? By the 8th
century it was no longer in operation. The educated answer to that
question is, “Who the hell knows?”
Looking Back
The specifics of the Library of Alexandria are at best, fuzzy.
No one knows really when it was built, what it had in its collection,
how big the collection was and ultimately what happened to the
collection. No one even really knows how it was administered and
what went on in its vast lecture halls and research facilities. All of that
aside, the legend of the library is what history remembers.
The “destruction” of the library is perhaps a historical symbol
of the destruction of knowledge in Europe during and after the Fall of
Rome. It would take hundreds of years for knowledge to once again
be readily distributed throughout Europe and hundreds of years later
for it to be readily available to everyday people. The library remains a
beacon to history that once before knowledge was as important and
widespread as it is now in the age of online bookstores. It shows us
that the information age, in some respect, has always been a part of
human existence. Most importantly, it demonstrates that even
Amazon.com could fade into obscurity as a distant legend and
waning memory.
This work by Mark Havenner is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
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