The Decline and Destruction of the Library

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We've got the shows lined up, we've got the topics, the labours of Hercules and also the myth, the story of Romulus and Remus and then delving into what's the historical basis potentially for these famous mythological stories of ancient Greece and Rome. Really hope to see you there if you're in either Australia or New Zealand. Welcome back to today's episode, we are delving into the archive to explore the story of one of the greatest educational buildings ever constructed The Library of Alexandria, this great center of learning particularly during the Hellenistic period. So the time when you have these Greek pharaohs at Greco, Macedonian dynasty ruling over Egypt, the dynasty of the famous Cleopatra and so many others We recorded this episode with Dr. Islam Isa. professor at Birmingham City University, a really lovely guy. We did this interview in person in a studio in London just over two years ago now. It is still one of my favorite episodes of all time and I know it was very, very popular with you. so delighted that we have chosen this episode to rerelease today Enjoy The Library of Alexandria, one of those amazing complexes of the ancient Mediterranean world More than two thousand years ago, this was one of the most celebrated buildings of ancient Alexandria, filled with all sorts of literature that helped define the city as one of the greatest centers of knowledge and culture in the Mediterranean So what's the story behind this great building Why did Alexandria's rulers, the Ptolemies become obsessed and fascinated with adding to its collection? Of course, did it really burn down in a massive fire caused by none other than Julius Caesar. How much information was lost well Listen on, there are a lot of myths to bust Now our guest today is Dr. Islam Missa from Birmingham City University Islam he came down to London to do this interview in person in a studio. I have my Ptolemy shirt to hand And we had a lot of fun recording this chat. I really do hope you enjoy And here's Islam Islam, it is wonderful to have you on the podcast. I'm really happy to be here and I'm even happier with your t shirt. Of course we We're talking about Hellenistic history and the city of Alexandria. Of course we cannot not mention the one and only Ptolemy I. But we're talking about the Great Library and I know it's not one of the official wonders, but this feels like one of those incredible monumental pieces of architecture from the Greco Roman world. Yeah, I mean one of the issues is we don't know much about how it would have looked We have to assume it was grand. We have to assume that it had these colonnades and statues and marbled pillars At the same time, the lighthouse, which was one of the ancient wers of the world, was also as far as I'm concerned, symbolic of the light that was emanating from the city as a result of the knowledge It was gathered and disseminated from the great library It's interesting how you can connect those two great pillars of ancient Alexandria. So let's focus on the library And set the scene first of all with the background. I mean When are we talking with the library's initial construction? What century, what's the context C context is Alexander the Great arriving actually at Feros, which is the little island that's uninhabited off the Mediterranean coast where he founds Alexandria That's the mid fourth century BC And Legend has it and this is an important founding myth for Alexandrians that he gets down on his knees in excitement and ecstasy and scribbles a plan for the city on the sands And among the things that he allegedly scribbles on the sand, So we've got all the you know the square, market, temples, the rooyal palace, We also have a shrine to the muses. Nice still that little phrase, isn't it And the shrine to the Musees is essentially what the library is. I mean we get the term museum from it later The successors of Alexander, who is Tolemy I He was a friend in general of Alexander's is the one who then takes that vision that Alexander had. allegedly, which is this try into the museers and create this library complex or museum complex. So it has this library where they gather the books and adjacent to it in this complex is the museum where they Basically a research center where they do the research and the translation I that trying to thing I'd say the idea for the library is part of Alexandria's founding vision in the sense that, as far as I'm concerned, there are two radical visions about how to create a city here And the library is embedded in that So We might think ordinarily of a city being created as a result of a war or a geographical division. Alexandria, that's not the case. It's pretty empty. There's just scattered fishing villages when Alexander arrives there in the mid fourth century BC and he created a city from scratch It's not organically created. it's an idea And there were two ideas here We'll see how this links to the library. The first idea was gather people from all around the region in this strategic spot at the intersection of Africa, Asia and Europe and you can create an economic cub. That's why invites Greeks and Macedonians and Jews. There's even evidence of people coming from India Llevent teeenens and so on. So Gather these people, give them relative freedom freedom of worship and so on and they can turn this place into an economic and trading hub The second vision is that knowledge equals power. It's that if you gather the world's knowledge And then you also Guard it disseminated then you will Soft power That's essentially the idea. So the library fromom the very outset is part of the Alexandrian vision It's also a state endeavour It's also got political and economic purposes. What I also find really interesting there is how you highlight that the library is founded very near the start of Alexandria's existence and that's so different to some of the other great monumental pieces of architecture in the ancient world, isn't it? like Pantheon or the Colosseum in Rome created hundreds of years after Rome is first founded they, the Parthenon in Athens, for instance, But the library, as you say,'s almost quite unique that eat has its, you know, it's aligned with the very, very early stages of Alexandria as a city That's right, Alexander doesn't see a single building go up in the city He's oververexcited and rushes off to his next adventure But the city begins to be built And then within within a few years, Alexander has died. There's a real rush for power and Tolemy The first takes a nice slice of the cake, which is Egypt Plyomy manages to create a kind of cult around Alexandria to make it his capital. relatively quickly One way of doing so was hijacking the tomb Alexander the Great and building a Mausoleum in the city. So you have that kind of cult. He also created an amalgamated Greekco Egyptian god in Serapis. so that both the Greeks and Egyptians had a common God and he was the Divine protector of Alexandria's therapists. So it's all very well planned and that really paves the way for the next project which is the library and as you say, it's just within a couple of decades of the city's founding. And absolutely told me very, very cunning fig, as you highlighted, nicking the corpse over Alexander the Great and so on, setting Alexandria as his new capital But come on then. Who is this figure Ptolemy instructs for this next great building project, which is the library Well, his name is Demetrius and Demetrius is a governor in Athens for some time. So Alexander's successors the opposite of what Alexander wanted in terms of fighting for power One of those was Cassanda Cassander trusts Demetrius, who's only in his early thirties to be governor Athens and Cassandra sort of got the Macon Macedon emmpire, if you like. and Demetrius has been taught in the Aristotleian school, possibly by Aristotle, but certainly by Aristotle's successor That's important because Philip Alexander the Great's father had hired Aristotle. teach Alexander So I mean, this is also part of the greatness of the city, if you like The founder and the creator of the city, Alexander and then Ptolemy, were both taught by Aristotle And Aristotle is taught by Plato and Plato is taught by Socrates. I mean, that's a great line, isn't it So it makes sense theoretically for Alexandria to be a knowledge capital. So Demetrius is taught in the Aristotlean school Aristotle was actually a spy for Alexander and his father as well. So there was tension between the Athenians and the Macedons and Aristotle is on the Macedonian rather than Athenian side So once Demetrius is made governor of Athens, you know he knows where his loyalties lie, which is to Macedon and to the Aristotleans school He's disliked by many of the Athenian people He said Probably an exageration, but he's said to have created three hundred and sixty statues of himself around the city And then around three hundred seven BC, Athens changes hands and They turned these statues into urinals. they thought he was wasting their money, that he was excessively spending on drinking and women and so on But he did do some quite good things in Athens like A census So he managed the census there And he did some legal reforms as well Those are things that attracted Ptolemy But the reason Demetrius has to leave Athens is because He's going to get killed. and where better than Alexandria, a place that's in its vision is supposed to be a liberal place where even over history, right until World War two peopleeople are fleeing there because of its relative freedoms and he ends up in Alexandria Ptolemy sees this is a great opportunity because he can tutor his s to a second He can create some legal reforms there, help him conduct the census offer him counsel And there's a story where Demetrius tells Ptolemy that Books are your best friend really because They'll tell you things how they are that they're not the yes men that are around royalty that hide the truth from you and so on, a book will never Do that That might be an indication of why Ptolemy entrusted him with this task of creating a library Ptolemy entrusts Demetrius with this great task of knowledge gathering How does he go about gathering these books to create this library? The letter of Aristeas, which is the earliest mention of the library Second century BC by a Jewish scholar who worked in the library. I mean It's got a really interesting detail. It says that Demetrius was given substantial budget quote is to gather all the books in the world. That's quite the job description a big to ye So Demetrius has to gather all the books in the world. and so he has to use his contacts initially. from the Aristotlean schools from Athens and the Hellenistic world. and he has to bring as many books as he can into the city Demetrius probably bought in, you know of a hundred thousand sccrolls in the early hours of the library. It's not a selective task at this stage All the bs in the world is highly unselective And it's open to problems as well, but job description Do we know much about how all those pieces of literature and information are then in Alexandre Initially, they would have just been taken as they are. I think some of them would have been copies if they had to be borrowed and returned Alexandria reaches a stage it's almost obsessive where It no longer matters. people want their books back. You know, by the time of the Ptolemy IId They borrow the books of borrow the books of the Greek traragedians from Athens and these alike possessions and they give us sort of deposit M than money is about three hundred thousand pounds then they copy the books. but return the copies to Athens and keep the originals. So at the start, it wasn't very selective. so It didn't really matter whether they were copies or originals Later on, they begin to realize that an original is worth more. They begin to realize that some writers are worth more than others as well So how does Demetrius fare in this very early stage of the library story as he's gathering these first scrolls Like I said, he's offering counsel to Ptolemy the first and Toley the first We have sort of records of reports to Ptolemy and letters from Ptolemy where he says gathering going. How many books do we have? And he replies, you know, we've furnished the library with this many books, that many books I might have mentioned that the library is in the Royal quuarter, so Alexander sllit into quarters the rooyal quarters on the harbor, the libraryies within the Royal quQarter it's such a state endeavour because so much money is being put into it, but also because the librarian beginning from Dometrius, but the librarians will then double as the royal tutors as well for the prince and the prrincess. So he's in direct contact, It's almost like a ministerial position. in direct contact with Ptolemy in the early ear. And so how does it end for Demetrius, however, I mean, It looks all good at the moment he's got the ear of Ptolemy the first I've got a feeling because it happens so often in Hellenistic courts that these prominent figures they aren't prominent for very long and can easily fall from growth. Yeah, in many ways, he has forgotten, Demetrius. the story really is that Tldy the first was tryrying to set his son up. I mean, they were all called Ptolemy. They're not very inventive with the names. Ptolemy and Cleopatras, but Ptolemy II is being set up to co rule It was the end of Tony the first's life Ptolemy first has two sons who, both of whom could be the next King Demetrius appears to support the wrong son in that sort of succession debate. And that's not appreciated by Ptolemyin I. who exiles him southwards I would assume they exiled him somewhere. Relatively nice with a comfortable pension I don't assume that it was, you know a horrible exile A few years later He dies of a snake bite on his right wrist. And that's where we can't be sure whether this was you know, an accident a suicide or perhaps an assassination whichich probably, if we have to guess, would be Pomy the second, now wielding more power and unappreciative that Demetrius didn't support him during the Sccession debate So we're now in the third century BC, Ptolemy I's reign is done and dusted and Demetrius is out of the way, but he's laid the foundations for the library and what it will become. As we get to the reign of the next Ptolemies like Ptolemy II How does the book gathering process? How does it pick up the pace Well, now they have agents doing the work rather than, you know, single Demetrius so they send these agents all around the region trying to gather any book and they're giing quite a budget to do so At the start, it's not selective again. They just gather whatever they can and return with it As the decades pass, they begin to be given instruction to gather originals because the copies could be forgeries and so on. So that's one way of doing it another way is actually writing to the other Heads of state So Ptolemy, the d especially wrote far and wide to different rulers asking them to send any books And sometimes that would be a decision based on foreign relations, let's say. Should we keep the book should we copy it? It depends on how much or how little you can afford to damage your foreign relations at that stage. So those are some of the ways of doing it. They also introduced some really interesting policies So if you dock on a ship docks into Alexandria's harbour It's searched but not for contrabound. It's searched for books If any book is found, it's confiscated And when it's confiscated, it's taken, you know rapidly to the library. where an expert will look at it determine whether it's valuable the large part that make a copy that send the copy back to the to the ship and keep the original and often they give some monetary compensation as well to the owner of the book. So there were those kinds of policies. You couldn't take a book out of the city as well. So people did want souvenirs from the library city These would be pre approved that were copies obviously You know, I can imagine that they'd be searched on their way out to check which books they've taken and whether they their books they're allowed to leave the city with quickly tight in the rules around. Don't they? It's absolutely astonishing. And I love that idea. Ptolemaic agents scouring the known world. You know, the Hellenistic world after Alexander the Great, maybe going as far as I don't know maybe the Indus River Valley or Bactria or Thrace or maybe even further into the western Mediterranean, looking for copies of books to add to this ever growing library. I mean Does that also emphasize the might, the power of the Ptolemies that they are able to oversee such a huge web of agents finding these books. In many ways, libraries and books are Microcosms the symbolic of the government So where you see Library cuts, for example you know that there's something happening in that particular government that their priorities are different or they're in a sort of more austere situation Far from the case for the Ptolemies, their power is increasing as their power increases, they want more books and books become a more valuable commodity as well to the extent that districts in Alexandria begin to change, you know, ones that previously sold different things artisans and merchants and so on begin to realize that books are a valuable commodity books are right up there at that time, probably with grain and oil. So it is a valuable commodity that stage and there's stalls and stalls of books and people trying of course to benefit from the obsession? Absolutely an obsession and he's hit up there with olive oil and stuff like that, isn't it so interesting? I mean, You mentioned the value and how valuable some of these books are and you kind of hinted it earlier, but Did the Ptolemy see certain pieces of literature as certain works being more valuable than others? Well yes, I mean, there are two sort founding gofathers or something of the city. L it. I wouldn't say Alexander and Polemy. I think they're like the founders But the ones I'm thinking are Aristotle, because Aristotle teaches Alexander and Ptolemy has a huge influence on them but also because Aristotle's idea of how to create a city is taken into account So Aristotle loved Hippotamus, the architect and the way that the city is set up in terms of the grid system, until today, the promenade facing in a particular direction so that it can have a good sea breeze That's all stuff that Aristotle influenced on top of the idea that he influenced Alexander Ptolemy into seeking knowledge and gathering knowledge So books by Aristotle And then the other side is Homer Now home is part of the founding myth of Alexandria in that Alexander is taught Homer by Aristotle that Alexander romances and all these kinds of legendary texts tell us that Alexander loved Homer's literature and actually styled himself on Achilles. So when he arrives at the shore and founds Alexandria, he's got his locks like Achilles The Homeric hero So Alexander is taught Homer, but he is also gifted a copy of Homer's poetry I say poetry. att this time, I don't think it would have been seen as just poetry. It would have been seen as history and to some extent as theology because there's an absence of like a single scripture So He is gifted an annotated copy of Homer. by Aristotle, he puts it in a golden casket that he finds in Persia and he put it under his pillow. We're told when when he goes to sleep next to his dagger So Homer comes to Alexander in a dream or a venerable Bearded manand does, but he narrates some lines from home about Paros, this island where loud the billows roar, On the Egyptian shore where loud the billows roar And Plutarch writes that Alexander gets up startled and rushes to Thos. Theros is The little island which he connects with a causeway to the Mediterranean coast to create Alexandria. It's where the lighthouse once stood and where the Citadel stands today And so Homer is an integral part of the Alexandrian Fing myth And it subverts our ideas of literature and cities and spaces So for example, Shakespeare, we associate with trarafford upon Avven because he's from there, right Alexandria, we associate with Homer because Homer instigated the creation of Alexandria, That was a long way of saying, Aristotle and Homer are the key texts that the Alexandrians want to have in the library Howdy Howdy Ho and welome Fantasy Fan Fellas. I'm Hayden, producer of the Fantasy Fan Girls podcast and your resident lover of all things Sanderson. And I'm Stehven, your bookish internet goofball, but you can call me the Smash Daddy. And we are currently deep diving Brandon Sanderson's fantasy epic Missborn. But here's the catch. Stehven here has not read Missborn before. That's right, Hey, Hey. So each week, you'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every single chap. And along the way, we'll do character deep dives, magic explainers, and Stehven will even try to guess what's next Spoiler alert, you'll be wrong. News Flash, I'm never wrong. Episodes come out every Wednesday and you can find fantasy fan feellllowas wherever you get your podcasts. in a world where swords were sharp. and hygiene was A actuallyually probably better than you think it is Two fearless historians. M, Matt Lewis, and me, Dr. Eleanor Yanga dive head first into the mud, blood and very strange customs of the Middle Ages. So for plagues, crusades and Viking raids and plenty of other things that don't rhyme, subscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts And is it also important to highlight because we've been focusing on a bit on like the Greek literature that they are wanting to bring into their library in Alexandria. But of course, as you highlighted, that open ended mission of Demetrius and the following Ptolemies is to get books from all across the world. So can we imagine that they are not just getting Greek texts, they're looking at Mesopotamian texts, Jewish texts and so on They are. I mean, it's an institution of no one religion and no one language does, I think, contain the entire corpse of Greek literature at some stage, and the translation activities into Greek but they hire or get Egyptian priests to write about Egyptian religion, for example. in Greek as well. They translate the Zoroastrian texts there they translate the Hebrew Bible there. And what's even more fascinating about Alexandria is that becausecause it's bringing all these diverse people together They need a common language. So we begin to get common Greek. It's a kind of Alexandrian dialect of Greek Proably the kind of Greek Jesus would have spoke, right? So they translate into Alexandrian Greek That was a really momentous moment translating the Hebrew Bible into Alexandri in Greek because by then you've got a second, third generations of Jews who no longer speak Hebrew who were able to understand the text in their own language. But again, it's not all like an idealistic endeavor. It's also because now the Jews of the city have no excuse but to integrate You're learning the Tragedians and Homer and Aristotle at school And you can have your Bible in the know your nativereek Alexandrian Greek language. So you've no excuse but to integrate into this kind of Alexandrian way of life Wh I think it was neither Hellenistic nor Egyptian, but a kind of combination It is such an incredible thought to think that maybe you could enter this building And on one shelf or two, there would be copies of, let's say Eescolus, and then the next shelf you've got I said, a Greek translation of the Bible or maybe another Greek translation of something like the Epic of Gilgamesh too, which is absolutely amazing just to potentially think about I must ask though, because we were talking earlier about the value, the great value that these books gain How and I love this part. How does this lead to a black market of books emerging We've mentioned the way in which you the books become a commodity and in which even the landscape of the city changes because people want to benefit from this commodity So If you're gathering all the books in the world Anyone who can write anything half decent is going to write something, right? Because you know that they're not being selective, they'll buy it So that's one thing that happens is people start writing If you can write, you write Now the issue is where people then begin to write forgeries So writing forgeries of, for example, something by Aristotle or some other philosopher be easy to spotter what do they do? They they say heard him speak, so they don't claim that they are the philosopher writing it. They say well we heard this philosopher speaking And we wrote this while they were speaking. this is what they said. So it's authored by me, but I'm kind of quoting everything the philosopher said So you begin to have these kind of fakes, if you like, and then people trying to pretend that they've got original copies when they're actually forgeries. You also have people taking, you know agents, maybe corrupt agents taking things out of the library to scribes to copy or to make versions that look like they're original You have people selling books to one another hoping that they can make a profit from selling it to the library. So if it costs, you know one talent or whatever and I sell it to you for then you might be able to sell it to the library for five and so on. So it creates that kind of underground activity. as well. So it's a real mess actually. It's a real mess. I mean, do we know how they try to untangle it or is this just something that they have to live with and they have to hire staff almost whose main role perhaps was to try and identify what's the real scrolls and more of other forgeries. Yeah, I mean there are more staff hired. you know, the library begins to have a a whole load of stuff beginning with people who take the books from the harbour, stockists, bookbinders popists they would have k them stripes transranslators, obviously were in house as well. So you have a whole load of staff there as well, but also paying the library staff handsome amount of money so that they don't get bribed. was one way of doing it. And actually some of the population were quite upset at how much schcholars and library staff especially the higher up ones would be getting the best example being the librarian who was on a ridiculously high salary and exempted from tax and so on There was an aspect of trying to ensure that bribery didn't take place. It sounds quite weird to say today, but these first librarians of this library, they almost kind of became celebrities. Yeah. I mean, there was a school exercise from Ely Alexandria found only in nineteen fourteen, in the last century or so And it has a school exercise where they're testing the children on the names of the first six Alexandrian librarians So they were celebrities and you had to learn about them in school as well they also did some really interesting things to the library, you know, they introduced Cat looging So the second librarian introduced cataloging with a huge scroll that had all the different types of books. so he would have had medicine alone, he would have had literature and then he had sub genres of literature, that even had a you category called miscellaneous where you'd find the cookbook. So they did introduce really important practices, library practices. They put a clay tag on the scroll so you don't have to unfuril the scroll to know what's in it that would have, you know the title and the author, but also where the author's from thenen the librarians then introduced alphabetization been used in that way before. So you'd go straight to Hate if you want Homer But they only introduced alphabetization of the first letter So you know, a Homer could come before somebody starts with HA. Yeah, they introduced alphtization as well. So they did quite a few important things in the LEAS. Of course, when doing all of this cataloging and getting all of these books and writing it down and creating these scrolls, you need a lot of material for that, don't you? We of course have our A four paper today and it's easy. we've got printers But I'd like to go on a quick tangent and talk about this material of papyrus because What is this and why is it so important for the whole library project? First and foremost, it's a plant that grows in abundance in Egypt, so that's very useful And it's a plant that's used for all sorts of things. So for centuries, the ancient Egyptians used papyrus to make household products Oouses Boats They even eat papyrus stalks So papyrus is a really important plant for the Egyptians and it's seen as a kind of blessing from the gods, it's linked to the Nile, you know, it grows because it's in close proximity to the Nile, which is just seen as you know something really important and holy. to the Egyptians virus is also the best material to write on in that period worldwide The virus is also exported. and it's the material that's used for books N just in Egypt, but elsewhere as well And that's what leads to some problems, let's say, with the idea that papyrus is exported. and sort the early second century, There's an embargo and exported papyrus out of Egypt by the Ptolemies in order to stop rival libraries from gathering books and creating books Bmost monopolize the use of pirrus. and I mean so were there rival libraries in the Greco Roman world or even further that did try and rival Alexandria's prominence I mean, they're called rival libraries, but I don't think they rival. I mean, we know from the second librarians quoted as saying that there's half a million scrolls in Alexandria's library probably reached a million scrolls Pergamen would have been the rival libraries and modern day Turkey. would have had maybe two hundred thousand scrolls So yeah, it's a rival potentially And they're the ones that are most affected by the embargo on the papyrus. Pgament, what they end up doing is using animal hides and that's where we get the time parchment. as powers the world's best potra. H's a show that we recommend. If you've ever dreamed of quitting your job to take your side hustle full time, listen up This is Nikla Matthews Aomee, host of Side Hustle Pro, a podcast that helps you build and grow from passion project to profitable business. Every week, you'll hear from guests just like you who wanted to start a business on the side. If If you can't run a side hustle, you can't run a business. They share real tips. And so I started connecting with all these people on LinkedIn and I saw Target suppulier diversity was having office hours. Real advice. Procrastination is the easiest form of resistance and the actual strategies they use to turn their side hustle into their main hustle. Getting back in touch with your tangible cash and sitting down and learning to give your money a job like it changes something. Check out Side Hustle Pro every week on your favorite podcast app and YouTube ACast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere Aast. com in a world where swords were sharp. and hygiene was A actually probably better than you think it is Two fearless historians. M, Matt Lewis, and me, Dr. Eleanor Yaniga dive head first into the mud, blood and very strange customs of the Middle Ages. So for plagues, crusades and Viking raids and plenty of other things that don't rhyme, subscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts It is quite interesting because of course, Pergamam also becomes this Aelid center and other of these great intellectual educational centers of the Hellenistic world And does that therefore go hand in hand with Alexandra? is one of the reasons why Alexandria gains this status as being an intellectual of the Mediterranean throughout the Hellenistic period. Do you think one of the main reasons why is because of this everlasting mission for so many of the rulers to get more and more books to make sure that this library remains the great library, the biggest in the known world I don't think it would have been the capital of knowowledge without the museum adjacent to it, which is where the research happens. and where more books were written. But you see you wouldn't get these scholars coming to the place unless there were books. So it's a kind of like cyclical process. So there's books. so the scholars are attracted because they can come and use them The scholars are actually given sort of tenure, like and endless contract They're given accommodation, free food, tax exempt, stipend, which annoys some of the local population actually who are heavily taxed and don't think they're getting paid enough These scholars come in numbers to Alexandria Do the research, read the books invvent, philosophize, debate And all of this is happening like the library complex And I think that's what makes it a knowledge capital Gathering knowledge and being the guardians of knowledge, is seemingly not quite enough. You also have to, if you really want soft power You also have to create knowledge and disseminate knowledge on your terms I say on your terms, I mean, the museum and the research center was like the library, didn't really have one school The Alexandrian school was very liberal, like it was whatever you want and because there was a lack of democracy as well in Alexandria, which actually worked in their favour So in Athens you could get evicted on grounds of impiety if you were voted out, you know to vote on oyster shells And actually the lack of democracy in Alexandria was useful because nobody could vote to evict anyone from the city on grounds of impiety and stuff like that. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. So essentially the scholars were able to kind of do their own thing. But some people, there was a sptical poet at the time who said that you know it's not the shhrine of Musees, it's the cage users that they're there and they have to sort of to the line of the Ptolemy. So as the Ptolemaic dynasty advances, we could say that the library becomes a little bit more political. bluntly political and freedoms do start to decline. V interesting trying to be in the shoes of one of those scholars because I'm trying to think of like ancient Hellenistic book loan from the G Library, but because that museum was right next to the library and as you hinted at there, sometimes they they're alost trapped to do their work there It wasn't the case of you were able to take a scroll or a book out as well further than the nearby museum was it had All of that research, all of that information, it has to stay locked within this rooyal quarter of Alexandria. We'd have to assume so. We'd have to assume that it wasn't a lending library as much as it was a reference library, one in which you could read while you were there read when you're in the complex of the museum complex, but not take the book any further than that. And actually I' go as far as saying some of the scholars probably had their books confiscated when they arrived So they probably had to be careful about what bs they'd bring with them unless of course they wanted to deposit them in the library as well Of course, as the Hellenistic period progresses, you get the rise of Rome and Ptolemic power Oce a big superpower in the easastern Mediterranean world, it does start to decline and its influence over neighbouring peoples and in the Mediterranean declines too How does this affect the ool and the importance of the library of Alexandria. As we get to the time of the late Ptolemies, let's say The second and first centuries BC As I mentioned, there's an element of politicizing the library and also Alexandrians have a habit of they're rebelling by this stage. so if they don't like a leader, they make that known And also with the rise of the library, there was a rise in poetry. so they wrote satirical poetry about their leaders and so on And thethtogamies also, I mean, the Ptogomamies did a lot of great things, but they also did a lot of incest. That leads to all sorts of troubles because it's not normal for the local population And you know, that's for the gods. it's not for humans, for brothers and sisters to marry But also it means there's a lot of rivalries within the Ptolemaic dynasty The people have to pick sides. The Jews would picked aside. the Egyptians would have picked aside, the Greeks would have picked aside So there's a lot of that kind of tension with that rising tension and kind of disappointment in their government. you know Ptolemy the first and second and third really understood the people festivals, all that kind of thing Freedoms get reduced because the Ptolemyies at fear peopleeople will turn against it and so scholarly freedoms reduce. So some of the scholars begin to leave the city and head to Athens Rome is rising, where they think they'll have a better chance of philosophizing and inventing. So there's that aspect to it. There's also the aspect of the library representing kind of high office And so as a result, by the time we get to Ptlemy the eightI, Polemy theI hires a military man as his librarian, who probably knew next to nothing about books and the about scholarly work, he's a spearman So he hires Spearman as the librarian and he's followed by Tony theXIinth who hires know one of his political allies as the librarian. so it loses that kind of role that it had in the past where it was really a schol of the endeavour The last major thing, of course, I'd love to ask you about the library. you know what I'm going to say? It's gott to be It's destruction. How does it all come crashing down quite literally for the Library of Alexandria I'd say it's not the most sensationalist answer, but it's a steady decline.