Tradition's Destruction: On The Library of Alexandria
Tradition's Destruction: On The Library of Alexandria
Tradition's Destruction: On The Library of Alexandria
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Tradition'sDestruction:
On the LibraryofAlexandria
DANIEL HELLER-ROAZEN
Disasters
Recapitulating
"I shall not recapitulate the disastersof the Alexandrian library,"Edward
Gibbonwritesin the fifty-first
chapterof TheHistory
oftheDeclineandFall oftheRoman
The historianresolves,withthesewords,to remainsilentabout thatwhich
Empire.1
distinguishesthe Alexandrianlibraryabove all else: its "disasters."But it would be
rashto conclude thatGibbon,therefore,
simplyfailsto addressthe calamitiesthathe
so clearlyavoids.Withthe characteristically
double gestureof a disavowal,he at once
invokesand distancesthem. His discussionof the institutionand posterityof the
librarycannot but call to mind the destructionsthathe passes over in silence; it
thatitwillnot "recapitulate."
frames,withoutrecounting,thevery"disasters"
Gibbon's words,in thisway,registerthe singularstatusthat the Libraryof
Alexandria still occupies today:that of an institutionin which the conservation
and the destructionof traditioncan hardlybe told apart,an archivethat,in a vertiginous movementof self-abolition,threatensto coincide entirelywithits own
destruction.The pages thatfollowconsiderthe structureand sense of thissingular
archive.The formtheytake is less thatof the modernscholarlyarticle,whichaims
at the formulationand demonstrationof a novel argument,than thatof the "memof antiquity,
ory notices,""textualremarks,"and "commentaries"
(6rrovipaTca)
whichsoughtto recall and explicatecertaindecisiveaspects
of the textsthatpreceded them.2In thiscase, the remarksand commentaries,whichreferto a corpus
of classicaland late ancientworksthatis at once literary,
scienhistoriographical,
tific,and philosophical, recall preciselythat which Gibbon excluded fromhis
monumentalHistory:
the many"disasters"thatthe Libraryof Alexandria,in its life
and afterlife,
remedied,incited,and suffered.
simultaneously
1.
Edward Gibbon, The Historyof theDeclineand Fall of theRomanEmpire,ed. David Womersely
(London: Allen Lane [The Penguin Press], 1994), vol. 5-6, p. 285.
On the 0rropviPV6caa,
2.
see Franz B6mer, "Der Commentarius: Zur Vorgeschichte und literarischen Form der SchriftenCaesars,"Hermes81 (1953), pp. 210-50, esp. pp. 215-26; RudolfPfeiffer,
Historyof Classical Scholarship:FromtheBeginningsto theEnd of theHellenisticAge (Oxford: Oxford
Press,1968), pp. 48-49.
University
OCTOBER 100, Spring2002,pp. 133-153. ? 2002 October
Institute
Magazine,Ltd.and Massachusetts
of
il'iiiii':,~-iik'1~4:~-::::
!1 ............
_,:
..
:I:.
R;?:
o'v
at thetimeat
Map ofancientAlexandria
whichitbecame
a Roman
Destruction:
On theLibrary
Tradition's
ofAlexandria
135
136
OCTOBER
On theLibrary
Destruction:
Tradition's
ofAlexandria
137
scholarship,fromthe purificationof diction to the practice of marginalannotation and the division and ordering of metrical sequences, are invented and
refined.20The historyof the Alexandrian Museum maywell be regarded as the
historyof the developmentof classical scholarshipas such, fromthe time of its
first"learned man," Zenodotus of Ephesus (ca. 285 to ca. 270 B.C.),who was not
only an earlylexicographerof literaryGreek but also the firstcriticaleditor of
Homer, to thatof its last great figure,Aristophanesof Byzantium(ca. 204 to 189
B.C.), who has been called the "founderof Greek punctuation"21and is largely
responsibleforthe fundamentaldefinitionof the metricaland prosodic units of
OT'pOp, VTrioTpopog,and irro86q) accepted by all subsepoetry (rrapayp o,por,
readers
of
classical
literature.22
quent
Not all the contemporaries of the Museum appreciated the activitythat
transpiredbehind itswalls.In twoof the hexametersof his Silloi,Timon of Phlius,
a studentof Pyrrhonthe Skepticwho lived in the thirdcenturyB.C.,expresseda
viewof the institutionthatwas hardlyflattering:
p33PICKOi XPaKiTOI
MouOiwv
6FTIEiplITCO8)qpl6VTEq
:v TahaPW.
138
OCTOBER
The classicalsourcesprovideonly
the most cursory accounts of the
The auctorto whomwe must
Library.33
turn for a detailed account of the
Alexandrian institution is neither
Hellenistic nor Roman but, rather,
comByzantine, the twelfth-century
mentator and scholiast Johannes
Tzetzes, whom the great philologist
Richard Bentley, anticipating the
judgment of many modern scholars,
once dubbed "a Man of much rambling Learning."34 Two pages of
his introduction
Tztetzes's Prooemium,
to the studyof Aristophanes,contain
the fullest known discussion of the
operation of the Library, which,
although immediatelybased on late
ancient grammaticaltreatisesand literarydigests,is thoughtto reach back
"ultimately to some Alexandrian
sources of the Ptolemaic period."35
The text itselfhas been transmittedto us in three Greek editions,a Humanist
translation,and in the formof a Latin scholiumto Plautus,attributedto a certain
The
"Caecius,"whichwas discoveredin the firsthalfof the nineteenthcentury.36
versionsof the text,broadlyspeaking,concur in all importantmatters.In each
case, the descriptionof the Libraryopens withan account of the scholarlyactivity
withoutwhichit would not have been imaginable."Under the royalpatronageof
PtolemyPhiladephus,"Tzetzes tellsus, "Alexanderof Aetolia edited [8Wlcp6ooav]
the books of tragedy,Lycophronof Chalcis those of comedy,and Zenodotus of
Ephesus those of Homer and the other poets."37The workof "editing"(the verb
to whichTzetzes has recourse,Giop6ouv,indicatesat once textualcomparison,rectification,and edition) thus lay at the foundationof the Alexandriancollection;
the Ptolemaicarchivecollected above all restoredworks,textsassembledforthe
firsttime,farfromthe time and place of theirproduction,in theirtotalityand
purity.At thisstage of its development,the acquisitionand orderingof the books
nV1,
Tug
ThePapyrus
plant.FromF W Hall, A Companion
Clarendon
to ClassicalTexts (Oxford:
Press,
140
OCTOBER
was thereforeoverseenbya directorwho was at once an editorof textsand a bibliographerof works,a "Librarian"whom Tzetzes refersto as 3IRiopi6Ac,,literally,
"guardianof books" (a termthatin PtolemaicEgyptacquired the acceptation of
"keeper of archives"38)and whom the tenth-century
Byzantinelexicon Suda calls
The
the
"director."
of
history
Library,as Tzetzes presentsit, is
simplyrrpoo-r6T-l,
tale
the
succession
of
the
of
its
from
directors,
Zenodotus,at the beginning
largely
of the thirdcenturyB.C.,to Aristarchusof Samothrace,who is thoughtto have
resignedfromhis positionin 145 B.C.39In mostcases,littleis knownof the librarians
thatdoes not concernthe Alexandriancollectionitself.Vitruviusleftus the following portraitof Aristophanesof Byzantium,in whichthe lifeof the man can hardly
be separatedfromthatof his archive:"Everyday,"Vitruviuswrites,"he did nothing
otherthanread and rereadall the books of the Library,forthe whole day,examinthe orderin whichtheywereshelved."40
ing and readingthrough[perlegere]
Tzetzes relatesthatthe Alexandrianholdingswere collectedin two separate
Libraries,one outsidethePalace and theotherwithinit.41Epiphanius,a sourcefrom
the fourthcenturyA.D.,tellsus more: the firstLibrary,he writes,was situatedin the
Brucheionand was thelargerand moreimportantof the two;the "outerlibrary"
was
foundedlater,locatedin the templeof Serapis,and called the "daughter"(Ouy-rqlp)
of the principal collection.42Accordingto Tzetzes, the "outer library"contained
42,800papyrusrolls,whichhe simplycalls"books"(3iphol).He is moreprecisein his
descriptionof the holdingsof the royalcollection,which,he reports,consistedof
and 90,000"singlerolls"(6&plyEqi
400,000"compositerolls"(ouppl~yEq)
).43Everything,
of course, depends on the sense of the bibliographicaltermsemployedhere. The
mostlikelyinterpretation
of the Hellenisticexpressionsis thatthe "composite"books
(oupplydq) were rolls containing several works, while the "single" books (&6piyEq)
Destruction:
On theLibrary
Tradition's
ofAlexandria
141
the oldest
explainsthe Letter
ofAristeas,
KOTO T6V
13Aio1),48
document that bears witnessto the
existence of the Library.The explanations
offeredbythe latersourcesare, in some sense,onlyechoes: the Librarywas meant
"to collect all the books of the inhabitedworld,"writesFlaviusJosephus,in the
firstcenturyA.D.;49it soughtto constitute"a collectionof all men's writings,"
aiming to "assemblethe writingsof all men,"recountJustinand Irenaeus,a hundred
Saint CyrilofJerusalemin the
yearslater;its creatorswantednothingelse, affirms
fourthcentury,than "to collectbooks thatwerein everyplace."50
irrOVTOaT6
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
r
OiKOUp`VfV
In Schmidt,Die PinakesdesKallimachos,
pp. 9-10.
Comm.in Hipp.Epidem.iii (xviia 606-7) (=Corpusmedicorum
vol. 10, 2, 1, pp. 78ff.).
Graecorum,
In Hpp. deNaturaHominisI, 44-105 (=Corpusmedicorum
vol. 5, 9, 1, p. 55).
Graecorum,
Aristeas
toPhilocrates,
p. 9.
XII, 12, 14.
AntiquitatesJudaicae,
Adv.Haer.,III, 21,
142
OCTOBER
On theLibrary
Tradition's
Destruction:
ofAlexandria
143
lchax~JyVTwV
KOi GV OuviypayOv,
iv
pl4AiOS
aToro,
rOalbEi,
and less reliableaccountof the Pinakesis thatof Tzetzes,who informsus
ond,
later,
that,aftera thorough"criticalrevision"(6v6p0woilq)of the books in the Library,
Callimachusmade "Tables"ofthem.59
Scatteredremarksamongclassicalsources,howtraitsof the genre createdbyCallimachus;
ever,allowus to definethe characteristic
and here we mayalso make use of thosefragments
fromthe Pinakestransmitted
in
textsoflaterGreekand Romanauthors.60
The "Tables" appear to have been divided into sections,defined by genre,
and subsections,composed of listsofworksof individualauthors.Withineach sec-
56.
Dio Chrysost.,Or XXXVI, sec. 37 (=von Arnim,ed., Stoicorum
Veterum
vol. 2, fr.1129).
Fragmenta,
57.
Strabo,XVII, 3, 22.
58.
a
See Suda, Kc~
(= Call. test.1).
acXoXc
59.
Comicorum
Pb. 19, section20. On Tzetzes'sremarkson the
Tzetzes,in Kaibel,
Graecorum
Frgamenta,
Pinakesand the variousversionsin whichtheyare preserved,see Pfeiffer,
History
ofClassicalScholarship,
pp.
127-28.
60.
See RudolfBlum'sanalysisof selectedclassicalpassagesin whichthe textof the Pinakesis partially
quoted (Kallimachos,
pp. 152-54). On the principlesof orderingthatcan be attributedto the Pinakeson
the basis of the classicaland medievalsources,see Schmidt,Die PinakesdesKallimachos,
pp. 46-98; Carl
mitderdesVorderen
Wendel,Die griechisch-r6mische
Orients
(Halle: Niemeyer,1949
Buchbeschreibung,
verglichen
[HallenischeMonographien,3]), pp. 24-79; and Pfeiffer,
History
ofClassicalScholarship,
pp.
144
OCTOBER
tion, authors were classifiedalphabetically,and each entryincluded a shortbiographical sketchfollowedby the enumerationof the author's works,defined in
turnby theiropening words,theirtitles (where theyhad them: certainworksof
oratoryand lyricpoetryposed specificproblemshere),61and an estimateof the
numberof lines of whicheach workconsisted(in oTiXol,ifit was in prose, and in
Errq, if it was in verse). Extant sources name as generic sections "oratory"
(0rqTopIK&),"laws" (v6pOli),and "other writings" (rrvToSranr6
but
ouyypvppalaTc);
the referencesto the "Tables" among classical writerssuggest
that the Pinakes
were also composed of classes includingthe worksof epic, lyric,tragic,and comic
The form
poets, as well as the those of philosophers,historians,and physicians.62
of such "Tables," to be sure, inevitablygave rise to certain technicaldifficulties:
where,forexample, to listan author such as Prodicus,who wroteon oratoryand
philosophical subjects,and where to place Theodectes, who was by all accounts
Kai TpayIK6c)?
tations, the "Tables," once composed, proved invaluable; and it was not long
before Callimachus's work was transcribed and disseminated throughout the
Hellenisticworld. Supplements,such as the treatise"On [or Against:nlp6c]the
Pinakesof Callimachus"63by the later scholar,Aristophanesof Byzantium,only
confirmedthe indispensability
of the original.
Hoveringbetween the formswe would todaycall catalogue, biography,and
the "Tables"werewhatno otherworkbeforethemhad been: a single
bibliography,
repertoryof all literature,whichat once introduced,identified,and summarized
the totalityofwritingin the compressedand orderedspace of the index.Its design
was soon imitated:the "Tables"of the holdingsat Pergamon,the anonymous"catalogue ofRhodes"of the firstcenturyB.C.,and the collectionsofancientbiographies,
fromHermippos of Smyrnato Diogenes Laertius, all followin the wake of the
AlexandrianPinakesand would not have been possiblewithoutthem.64The influence of Callimachus's"Tables,"more broadly,has been tracednot onlythroughthe
WesternMiddle Ages,but even to the masterpieceof classicalIslamicliteraturethat
is the Fihrist
of Ibn al-Nadim,the tenth-century
who defineshiswork
Iraqi belletrist,
in termsthat strikingly
recall the formand purpose of the Alexandrian"index":
"thisis a catalogue,"al-Nadimwrites,in his introduction,"of the books of all peoples, Arab and foreign,existingin the language of the Arabs,as well as of their
scripts,dealing withvarioussciences,withaccounts of those who composed them
and the categoriesof theirauthors,togetherwiththeirrelationshipsand recordsof
theirtimesof birth,lengthof life,and timesof death,and also the localitiesof their
cities,theirvirtuesand faults,fromthe beginningoftheformationof each scienceto
thisour time,whichis theyearthreehundredand seventy-seven
afterthe Hijrah."65
61.
See Blum'sremarkson thissubject,Kallimachos,
p. 156.
See Pfeiffer,
62.
Historyof ClassicalScholarship,
pp. 128-29; Schmidt,Die PinakesdesKallimachos,
pp.
49-57.
63.
The Greektitleis ambiguous,as Pfeiffer
has noted (HistoryofClassicalScholarship,
p. 133).
64.
On post-Alexandrian
formsofpinacography,see Blum,Kallimachos,
pp. 182-225.
65.
The Fihrist
ed. and trans.BayardDodge, vol.
ofal-Nadim:A Tenth-Century
SurveyofMuslimCulture,
On theLibrary
Tradition's
Destruction:
ofAlexandria
145
146
OCTOBER
On theLibrary
Tradition's
Destruction:
ofAlexandria
147
its effects:by
cause of the Alexandrianacquisitiveness,theyconcur in identifying
virtue of the verystructureof its institution,they make clear, the Library of
of the traditionitaimed to conserve.
Alexandriafacilitatedthe falsification
The destructiveforceof the Museum was so clear to those who lived at the
of the LibrarythatGalen,in a strikingassertion,was able
timeand in the aftermath
and faultyattributionas such in the archivesof
to locate the veryoriginsof forgery
Alexandria and its rival at Pergamon: "Before the monarchs of Alexandria and
Pergamonbegan competingin theirowncollectionsofancientbooks,"he writes,in
decisive terms, "no work had ever been falsely attributed" (rrpiv yap iv
X rri KTflOEI
rroCffalv ,I0IAV (plXoyev~oCeal oohEic
'AXEavspEicv TE Ki nEpy-6apWI
?
TI1l0EVTOra, 08oE&rryEU&SJ nrTEYvpaOrrTO
aoyypappa).76 Scholars have long treated
148
OCTOBER
institution:the firethat,in one stroke,consumedthe monumentto classicallearning.It is,of course,this"disaster"thatGibbon is reluctanteven to name in thebody
of his History
and thathe relegatesinsteadto a footnote,wherehe remarksin passwith
a
tone
of apodictic and emphatic certainty:"The old libraryof the
ing,
Ptolemieswas totally
consumedin Caesar'sAlexandrianwar."80
And yetin the history
of thisarchive,in whichtraditionand itsloss can rarelybe told apart,even the tale
of final destructionis difficultto establishwithany certainty;there is reason to
believe thatit, too, maywellbe somethingof a falsification,
itselfthe perfectexamof
the
of
breach traditionthe archivebothsoughtto remedyand exacerbated.
ple
Caesar relatesin a passage of Cicero's BellumCivilehow he intervenedin an
Egyptian political struggle in 47/48 A.D., siding with Cleopatra against her
youngerbrother,PtolemyXIII. Once in Africa,he soon foundhimself,we read, in
a difficult
position: at land his troops had no access to drinkingwater,and at sea
his shipswere outnumbered.He presentshis strategicsolution to the problem,in
the thirdperson,withgreatpride:
The battle was foughtout withsuch violence as is the case when one
side sees in it a speedyvictory,
the other thatits onlysalvationdepended on it. But Caesar retained the upper hand, and set fireto all those
ships and to those thatlay in the dockyards;forwithhis small fleethe
could not hope to safeguard so wide an area. He then immediately
landed his troopson the island of Pharos.81
In the Pharsalia,Lucan, a contemporary,
offersa fulleraccountof the fire:"itdid not
fallupon the shipsonly,"he writes,"butspreadintothe otherquartersofthe city....
The buildingsclose to thesea caughtfire;thewindleantforceto the powersofdisaster;the flames... ran over the roofslike meteorsthroughthe sky."82
Seneca, who
died in 65 A.D.,reports(basinghimselfon a textofLivy'snowlostto us) thatthe rolls
of the archivecould not be saved: "fortythousandof the books of Alexandria,"he
tellsus, "burned"(quadrigenta
milialibrorum
Alexandriae
At the end of the
arserunt).83
firstcentury,Plutarchwritesof the same eventand identifiesit as the immediate
cause of the destructionof the Libraryitself:"When the enemytriedto cut offhis
[Caesar's] fleet,"he writes,"he was forcedto repel the dangerbyusingfire,and this
spread fromthe dockyardsand destroyedthe great library[6 Ki T-)v pJE&VXa)
und Plagiatim Klassischen
Altertum
Geschichtsschreibung
(Leipzig and Berlin: B. G. Teubner,1911); Kurt
von Fritz, ed., PseudepigraphaI: Pseudepigrapha,
Lettresde Platon, Litterature
pseudipigraphique
juive,
Entretiens
Hardt 18 (Geneva: Fondation Hardt, 1972); and NorbertBrox, FalscheVerfasserangaben:
Zur
derfriihchristlichen
Pseudepigraphie
(Stuttgart:VerlagKatholischesBibelwerk,1975 [Stuttgarter
Erkliirung
Bibelstudien,79).
80.
vol. 9, ch. 51. Gibbon's italics.
Gibbon,History
oftheDeclineand Fall oftheRomanEmpire,
81.
Cicero, BellumCivile,III, 111.
82.
Lucan, Pharsalia,X, 440ff;486-505.
83.
Seneca, De Animitranquilitate,
IX, 5. There is some debate as to the numericalfigureitself,as
the manuscriptreads quadraginta(fortythousand),but latersources,such as Orosius,implythatit was
vol. 2, p. 484,
(fourhundred thousand). See Fraser,Ptolemaic
perhapsoriginallyquadringenta
Alexandria,
n. 224.
On theLibrary
Destruction:
Tradition's
ofAlexandria
A
The
~81cpOEIpE]."84
PIXIO066KqVK T(V VECW~piV
nlVEJp6EVOV
149
account
ofthefireis
repeated,itsconsequencesrenderedevengreater,amonglatersources:in thesecond
centuryAulusGelliusthusreportsthatalmost"sevenhundredthousandrollsburned
Dio Cassius,in the thirdcenin the sack of the cityin our firstwarin Alexandria";85
the
storehouses
of grainand of books
the
fire
"reduced
to
ashes
writes
that
...
tury,
Ammianus
Marcellinusrefersin
Kai
T(AAv
v]";86
[Taq OoI&aqKo
TOU OiTOu Kcai
iPIr
the fourthcenturyto "theburningdownofa pricelesslibraryofsevenhundredthouand Orosiusin the fifthcenturyspeaksof
sand books duringtheAlexandrianwar";87
the burningof "fourhundredthousandbooks."88Fromthe "burningof fortythouthe destructionof the "greatLibrary"
sand books" to the firein the "storehouses,"
and itsentirecollectionof "sevenhundredthousandbooks,"the tale of the disaster
ofthearchiveis notonlyechoed,butretoldand amplifiedin itsgravity.
If one examinesthe sourcescarefully,
however,a numberof questionsremain.
of
the
discuss
the
war
as wellas the fire,yetrefrainfromeven
witnesses
Many
period
the
destruction
of
the
in
mentioning
Library: his historyofRome,Florusthusrecalls
Caesar's use of fire, but not its effectson the Museum,89 and in Appian of
Alexandria'sown CivilWarswe read of the "variousbattlesaround the palace" but
Such silenceabout the annihilationof
nothingofflamesthatdestroyedthearchive.90
the greatestlibraryof the ancientworldis, at the veryleast, curious. It has been
of
noted,moreover,thatSeneca, Dio, Gellius,and Orosius,who do discussthe effects
the fireon the collection,speak of the burningnot of the Librarybut simplyits
"rolls";91and it has also been pointed out that the destructionof the collection's
It
"storehouses"(6 rTnoKal)does not necessarilyimplythatof the archiveitself.92
seems a fairsuppositionthat the integraldestructionof the Ptolemaiccollection
would have meant the end of Alexandrianscholarship;but the traditionof textual
criticismin theMuseumcontinuedwellafterthe timeof thecivilwar,and the contributions of later scholars (such as Didymus,Tryphon,and Theon) are such that
Fraserhas writtenthat"itwouldbe wrongto attributeto the fireanydecisiveimportance in the historyofAlexandrianscholarship."93
Strabo'sinvaluabledescriptionof
the "men of learning"in the Ptolemaiccenteris,in itsownway,itselfa powerfultestamentto the absence of anycatastrophein 47/48: it reflectsa visitto the Museum
thattookplace less than a quarterof a centuryafterthe battlebetweenCaesar and
84.
Plutarch,Caes.49.
85.
Aulus Gellius,Noct.Att.,VII, 17, 3.
86.
Dio Cass., 42, 38, 2.
87.
Amm.Marc. XXII, 16, 13.
88.
Oros., VI, 15, 31-32.
Luc. Ann. Florus,Epitome
89.
bellorum
omnium
II, 13.
annorum,
90.
II, 13, 90.
Appian ofAlexandria,'Emfulivwn,
91.
Canfora,La biblioteca
scomparsa,
p. 147. Plutarch,Canforanotes,is alone in hisassertionthatit is
the "greatlibrary"itselfthatis consumed.
On the historyof reflectionon the Alexandrian 6rro0r6Kal,theirprecise location, and their
92.
relationto the Libraryitself,see Canfora,La biblioteca
scomparsa,
pp. 140-41.
93.
vol. 1,p. 335.
Fraser,Ptolemaic
Alexandria,
150
OCTOBER
Ptolemy XIII, and it makes no mention of any loss recently sufferedby the
Alexandriancenter.
Manymodernscholarshave forthesereasonsbeen led to a conclusionthat,at
firstglance, could not be more surprising:the Library,it has been suggested,did
not burn.Alongsidethose classicists(fromGibbon to Mommsen,Susemihl,and ElAbbadi) who maintainthatthe archivewas utterly
destroyedin the fireof the civil
there
is
now
a
substantial
tradition
of
scholars
war,
(fromRitschlto Parthey,
by
and
who
that
the
Canfora)
Pasquali,
deny
Librarycould havebeen seriouslyaffected
by the flamesfromthe harbor.94In a discrete,pointed,and altogetherexemplary
article,BertrandHemmerdingerfurnishespowerfulevidenceforthe survivalof the
The literary
evidenceforitsafterlife,
LibrarywellbeyondCaesar's mythicalflames.95
he recalls, is strong: Strabo remains silent about the firein his report on the
Museum twenty-two
yearsafterthewar;Suetonius,born ca. 69 A.D.,bears witnessto
the existenceof the AlexandriaeMusio under the reignof Claudius (41-54 A.D.);96
and Suda makesreferencesto a memberof the Museum in the timeof Theodosius
I, who died in 395.97Hemmerdingeralso citesthe publicationin 1948 of a nonliterarydocumentof singularweight,an Oxyrhynchus
papyrusrecordingthe sale of a
boat on March 31, 173 A.D.It is addressed to none other than a certain"Valerius
memberof the Museum" (06XEpiG A~lO8p(, YEvopEvW
Diodorus,vice-Librarian,
6rr6oMouodou,
i
cKaiWE XpnpaTl'E
rIopvqTJvoyprPcp9,
Hemmerdinger notes, could have ultimately caused the destruction of the
AlexandrianLibrary:giventhatthe reignof Theodosius markedthe beginningof
the exposureof the cityto vandalism,the possibilitiesare many.The onlyone to be
excluded,on both documentaryand literary
bases,is thatof the great"disaster"that
is too well knownto be "recapitulated,"
"the involuntary
flamethatwas kindledby
Caesar in his owndefense."99
One mightbe temptedto suggestthat,had therenotbeen a fireto consumethe
one would have had to be invented:Whatfate,afterall, could awaitthe uniLibrary,
versalarchiveotherthanitsdestruction?
Real or imagined,theconflagration
remains
the supremeemblemof the Alexandrianarchiveitself,whichshelteredthe worksof
thepastin exposingthemto disaster,
and conservingitshistory
in threatconstituting
it
with
its
own
destruction.
For
the
life
of
the
like
that
of
the fire,
ening
very
Library,
was to nourishitselfon whatit consumed,to allowwritingto livein outlivingitself,
94.
See Gibbon, HistoryoftheDeclineand Fall of theRomanEmpire;,
Theodor Mommsen, Romische
3 vols. (Berlin: Weidman, 1854-56); Susemihl, Geschichte
dergriechischen
Geschichte,
Literaturin der
2 vols. (Leipzig:B. G. Teubner,1891-92);El-Abbadi,TheLifeandFateoftheAncient
Alexandrinerzeit,
Library
of
Das alexanAlexandria;
cf.,forthe opposingview,FriedrichRitschl,Die alexandrinischen
Bibliotheken;
Parthey,
La
biblioteca
"Biblioteca";
Canfora,
Museum;Pasquali,
scomparsa.
drinische
95.
BertrandHemmerdinger,
deiclassi"Que C6sarn'a pas brul6la bibliothequed'Alexandre,"Bollettino
ci3, no. 6 (1985), pp. 76-77.
96.
Suetonius,Claudius,42, 5.
97.
See Suidas,"EO)ov."
98.
Hemmerdinger,
p. 76 (the papyrusin question,publishedbySir Harold IdrisBell, is P Merton19).
Hemmerdingeralso notesthatthis"Diodorus"is discussedin anotherOxyrhynchus
papyrus,P. Oxy.2192.
99.
ed. Womersely,
Gibbon,TheHistory
vol.5-6, p. 285.
oftheDeclineandFall oftheRomanEmpire,
On theLibrary
Destruction:
Tradition's
ofAlexandria
151
nor only
acquireda technicalsense thatapproachesthatof itsmodem equivalent,101o
in thatit was the "men of learning"of the Museum who created,developed,and
and coniectura
thatwould one daybe
refinedso manyof the techniquesof emendatio
of
centralto the criticalactivitiesof the Humanistsand, stilllater,to the constitution
the modernacademic scholarlydisciplinesof literaturein the wake of the scientific
The Alexandrianinheritanceof criticismruns
methodsof Lachmannand Bedier.102
a meansofinquiryor evena disciplineunto
beforeconstituting
deeper.For philology,
itself,delimitsthe space of a singularexperienceof whichthe Libraryis, even today,
as catastrophe.
perhapsthemostpowerfulfigure:theexperienceofhistory
which
a
the
historicaldisciplinesthat
Philology,
todayoccupies positionamong
is oftenspectralat best,knowsonlyone conceptof the past,and thatis a pastthatis
essentiallysuspect,distorted,and, in the finalanalysis,corrupt.There could be no
and
criticism,
philologyweretraditionnot broken,no fieldof textualinterpretation,
of
were
the
transmission
texts
not
and
the
obscure,
altered,
study
already
interrupted:
of
and
would
forbid
the
of
a
constitution
disimmediacy transparency understanding
of
the
of
the
of
the
on
nourishes
itself
the
cipline
language
study
past. Philology
erosionofhistory;
iterectsitselfoverthegraveofthatwhichitrecovers,dwelling,
with
on
in
its
that
has
and
can
no
enthusiasm,
everything
necrophilic
past
grownopaque
it
once
itself
as
Hence
the
was.
with
which
since
its
criticism,
longerpresent
assiduity
in
dedicates
to
the
identification
and
definition
of
the
itself
emergence Alexandria,
formsoftextualcorruption.For thefalsification
thatthephilologisttakesitupon himto
is
of
the
a
that
is
no longeritself.It is significant
that
self identify
past
verycipher
the technicallexiconofwhichthe criticmakesuse is above all one offraud:fromthe
100. Benjamin,Gesammelte
ed. Tiedemann and Schweppenhiiuser,
vol. 2, pt. 1 (Frankfurt
am
Schriften,
Main: Suhrkamp,1977), p. 204.
101. On the semantic historyof the terms pilhowhoyvo6,qtiXooyila,and pt(oXoy8'iv, see Gabriel
R.F.M.Nuchelmans,Studieniibercphiowhoyo6q,
ptxohoyla, und qthohoyEIV(Nijmegen:N. V. UitgeverseinesWortes
vonseinemersten
maatschappij,1950); Heinrich Kuch, FILOLOGOS: Untersuchungen
Auftreten
in der Traditionbis zur ersteniiberlieferten
lexikalischen
DeutscheAkademiederWissenschaften
zu
Festlegung,
Berlin:Schriften
derSektion
vol. 48 (Berlin:Akademie-Verlag,
1965); and Pfeiffer,
fiirAltertumswissenschaft,
History
ofClassicalScholarship,
pp. 156-160.
102. See Sebastiano Timpanaro, Genesidel metodo
di Lachmann(Florence: Le Monnier,1963); cf. the
"criticalhistory"of the subjectbyBernardCerquiglini,L'elogede la variante:Histoirecritique
de la philologie(Paris: Seuil, 1989).
152
OCTOBER
ayEj68EOal)
thenitis because
gested,"entangledwiththeforgerlikeLaocoon and hisserpents,"104
he can vindicatethepastas hisobjectto theverydegreetowhichhe can demonstrate
its"monstrosity";
he mayspeakof the traditionthatprecedeshimonlyin exposingits
corruption.
is one thatis lostfromthe
The pastthata philologistseeksto restore,therefore,
outset.The veryprotocolsof textualcriticismassurethatit could not be otherwise.
thatthe textit presents,ifit has notyet
Anyeditionhas as itsconditionof legitimacy
in
and
be
hitherto
inaccessible
yetin need ofpublication;itmustconappeared print,
oftextshas untilthenconcealed.If
sistofa workthatonlya breakin the transmission
the criticaleditionis but the latestin a series,itmust,bycontrast,presupposethatall
precedingones be, moreor less,forone reasonor another,inadequate;a newedition,
as thescholarand thepublisherknowwell,isjustifiedonlyas long as it takesthe place
notof thetextitself,
butofitsmostrecentdistortion.
The apparatusofthecriticaleditiontakesthefaultsof itspredecessoras itsownpointof departure;itsveryedificeis
constructedon the destructionof the one thatwentbeforeit,withoutwhichitwould
itselfbe nothing.Despitethe role thatit has oftenbeen assignedand thatit has itself
at timesadopted,philologyis thusin no sense the handmaidenof traditionand the
whetherlinguistic,
cultural,or national:it canguarantorof an unbrokenpatrimony,
not assurethe continuity
of a historyexceptbybreakingit. Not withoutreason has
criticismbeen definedpreciselyas "the mortification
of works":105
philologymay
it
of
its
matter
once
has
its
subject
only
speak
registered veryloss,and it can giveitself
itsobjectonlyon conditionofhavingdestroyeditfirst.
Consideringtheoriginsof literary
scholarshipin Alexandria,Nietzsche,reflecton
the
that
had
once
been
his,made the followingremark,whichhe
ing
discipline
a
of
with
number
other
notes
of
ironicheading
1875,undertheunmistakably
placed,
"We Philologists":"Reverenceforclassicalantiquity..,.is an enormousexample of
quixoticism;and thatis philologyat its best...." "One imitatessomethingthatis
purelychimerical,"Nietzschewrote,"and one chases aftera wonderlandthatnever
existed" (Man ahmtetwasreinChimdrisches
die
nach,und idufteinerWunderwelt
hinterdrein,
Tradition's
Destruction:
On theLibrary
ofAlexandria
153
nieexistiert
No wordscould bettercharacterizethe singularobjectof philologihat).106
cal activity,
whoseabsence and evanescencemustbe securedto be studiedat all. The
historythatmovesthe scholarto his insensatepassionis preciselythe one thatwould
not existwithouthim,a "wonderland"(Wunderwelt)
thatmustin each case be sumof historicaland criticalconstruction.
moned anew bythe efforts
It is difficult
not to
of thissearchfora
hear the tone of disdainthathere accompaniesthe identification
world"thatneverexisted,"whichbecomesquite explicitonlya fewsentenceslater,as
of philologydooms it to an "imitaNietzschespecifiesthatthe essential"quixoticism"
tion" (Nachahmung)
thatcan producenothing:"a culturethatchasesafterthatof the
and so forththroughimitation,
butit
Greeks,"we read,"can adopt customs,thoughts,
cannotengender
nichts
The
condemnaanything[siekann
erzeugen]."107 philosopher's
tion of the "fantastical"
philologistis clear,and in the end Nietzsche'sremarkis not
altogetherunlike that of the Pigeon who, "in a tone of the deepest contempt,"
demandsexplanationsfromthatothertravelerin wonderland,Alice,forherobstinate
attachmentto make-believe:
"'Well!Whatare you?'said the Pigeon. 'I can see you're
to
invent
something!'"108
trying
Nietzscheseemsto misinterpret
his owninsight.For the pursuit
Here, however,
of the chimerical,bydefinition,
cannotbe a matterof "imitation":
wherethe original
is a world"thatneverexisted,"thereis nothingto copy,and the philosopher'sdenunciationsof the sterility
of reproductiontouch the philologistas littleas the Pigeon's
exclamationshaltAlice on her voyagethroughwonderland.Rejectingthe falsealternativeof a choice betweenthe noble but unattainableoriginand the base but facile
the good philologistfollowsthe principleonce expressedbyKarl Kraus
simulacrum,
in themaximthat"originis the goal" (Ursprung
istdas Ziel),consciousat all timesthat
the "origin"is not the presupposition
of hisworkbut itssole and finalproduct.He is
not the dutifulscribewho recordswhathas been said but the criticwho "readswhat
was neverwritten"and who knows,likeAlice,thathe has "invented"not onlysomethingbut everything,
leapingintothe pastthatneverwasjust as thefearlesslittlegirl
pops downthe rabbithole"withoutonce consideringhow in theworldshe was to get
out again."109
For onlyin such a leap does historicalscholarshipestablisha relationto
thepastthatis neitherforgetful
nor conservative,
neithersimplyobliviousnor merely
restorative.
And onlyin sucha leap does philology,
it,sucsavingthepastin destroying
ceed in the taskthatthearchivists
ofAlexandrialeftas theirlegacyto criticism:
notto
"increasetheburdenof the treasurespiled upon theback of humanity,"
butto "shake
themoff,"
so thattheymayfallat lastintoitsownhands.110
106. Friedrich Nietzsche, "Wir Philologen" 7[1], in Siimtliche
Werke:KritischeStudienausgabe,
ed.
Taschenbuch Verlag,p.
Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari,vol. 8 (Berlin: De Gruyter-Deutscher
121.
107. Ibid. Italicsin original.
108. Lewis Carroll,Alice'sAdventures
in Wonderland
and Through
theLooking-Glass
and WhatAliceFound
ed. Roger Lancelyn-Green(Oxford:OxfordUniversity
There,
Press,1982), p. 48.
109. Ibid., p. 10.
110. Benjamin,Gesammelte
ed. Tiedemann and Schweppenhiuser,vol. 2, pt. 2 (Frankfurt
am
Schriften,
Main: Suhrkamp,1977), p. 478.