The fact that, for hundreds of years, Alexandria held the preËminence as the center and source of literary achievement—down to the culmination of her distinguishing history in 642 A. D.—will not blind our eyes to the recognition of the earlier and narrower centers and sources of intellectual activity. The fact must not be overlooked that, long before the imperial City was founded at the northern extremity of Egypt in 332 B.C., there were other important centers of learning and well-known depositories of written records.

Perhaps the very earliest extensive depository of written documents of any character which have survived for millenniums of years was at ancient Nippur, in the region of Babylon and between the Euphrates and the Tigris. This Nippur, or the modern Nuffar, is spoken of in the old Sumerian legends as the oldest city of the earth, and the influence of which has been felt by all classes of Babylonian peoples for fully four thousand years. Through explorations, patiently and hazardously prosecuted—at Nippur and elsewhere in Babylonia—a long-forgotten world has slowly risen from its sealed entombment for multiplied centuries into resurrection life and reality. The Babylonian Expedition, organized and equipped for the purpose by the University of Pennsylvania, has carried on a succession of expeditions, with some interruptions, from 1889, forward, on the site of this ancient forgotten city. As part results of its excavations, there have been unearthed, not only temple walls with their contents of sarcophagi, bas-relief, vases, playthings, weapons, objects and ornaments in gold, silver, bronze, iron, clay, and stone, together with human bones, but also more than 32,000 cuneiform tablets. These tablets, the first-fruits of the vast literary deposits of this ancient city, are of a manifold character and consist of syllabaries, letters, chronological lists, historical fragments, religious texts, and the like. The tablets already examined indicate the probable value of many of these records from that far-off age. The oldest of them, according to Professor Hilprecht, have an antiquity of about 2800 years B.C.,—one particular fragment, containing a part of the deluge story more ancient by a thousand years than any yet found, antedates Abraham's leaving Ur of the Chaldees full two hundred years. The story as inscribed thereon, being deciphered by Professor Hilprecht, not only tallies with the Bible record but adds minute details and clarifies in some particulars the inspired narrative contained in Genesis.65 The newspapers of the time of this "find" contain this account of the difficulty in the way of the tablet's decipherment: "Because of its long period in the earth the tablet was incrusted with crystals of nitre, which filled up the characters of the ancient text. Besides, the clay was in a state of decomposition and exceedingly difficult to handle without destroying the tablet and losing the precious writing on it. For weeks Professor Hilprecht worked several hours a day to remove the crystals and to put the tablet into a state in which it could be deciphered. Then he set about the work of translating the writing."

The chief library of ancient Assyria—and the one of which we have the most definite knowledge—was that of Assur-bani-pal at Nineveh. This distinguished king of Assyria, successor of Sargon, Sennacherib, and Esar-haddon, and the conqueror of Babylon, greatly enlarged the library of which his predecessors had made beginnings, bringing into it the plundered books of Babylonia and otherwise greatly developing its resources. The date of this library at Nineveh is fixed at about 670 B.C., and is accredited to have contained in its archives more than thirty thousand tablets and a large collection of hexagonal and octagonal cylinders, seals, and other valuable archÆological treasures, including clay sarcophagi. Assur-bani-pal sent his scribes to copy the vocabularies of foreigners wherever accessible and added thus to the treasures of his library by the extensive transcription of tablets and cylinders. Professor Sayce tells us that "a whole army of scribes were employed in it, busily engaged in writing and editing old texts." In the library, too, the study of the Accadian tongue was revived and the language and literature of the primitive progenitors of the Assyrio-Babylonians was written, not only with Babylonian translations but also with their Assyrian equivalents. Sir Henry Layard, as long ago as in 1850, in the course of his explorations unearthed on the site of this old library more than twenty thousand clay tablets, which were brought, later, to the British Museum. It was estimated that as many more tablets remained as had been carried away. These tablets vary in dimensions, the largest measuring from nine inches by six and a half while the smallest in some cases are not more than an inch long and with but one or two lines of writing on them. These tablets are covered over with cuneiform characters. These characters are so small on some of the cylinders and tablets that, according to Professor George Rawlinson, five or six lines have been traced within the space of an inch. The delicate character of the writing on some of the tablets has led some of the archÆologists to conclude that the inscriptions thereon must have been written with the aid of a magnifying glass;—indeed, a magnifying lens of crystal, now exhibited in the British Museum, was found on the site of this library at Nineveh. These tablets, like those at Nippur, cover a wide range of subjects: historical, mythological, linguistic, mathematical, geographical, and astronomical.

The next in point of time among the great libraries of the ancient world was that at Pergamos in Asia Minor. Eumenes II. (197-159 B. C.) and other kings of Pergamos established a library in this city of ancient Mysia in which was stored a vast collection of manuscript books, approximating 200,000 rolls, written on papyrus and parchment. This library at Pergamos flourished for a period of one hundred and fifty years, or from its establishment on until it was given to Cleopatra by Antony, and transferred by his authority to Alexandria in order to replace one of the libraries which was said to have been destroyed by fire in the wars of CÆsar; and so, thenceforward, became incorporated in the Alexandrian Library and shared its fateful history.

The city of Alexandria, located on the delta of the Nile, became—and remained for centuries both prior to and after the Christian Era had begun—preËminent among the cities of the age we are considering, as a literary center and source of intellectual virility. Grecian literature and learning flourished there under the patronage of the Ptolemies; and there, under Ptolemy I. (Ptolemy "Soter") at about 300 B.C., was begun the Alexandrian Library and Museum, the largest, most valuable, and the most renowned of all ancient libraries. While the Alexandrian Library was begun under the rule of Ptolemy "Soter," a general of Alexander the Great, it was during the reign of his son and successor, Ptolemy Philadelphus, that the Library took on organized proportions and greatly augmented resources. Ptolemy Philadelphus sent to all parts of Egypt, Greece, and Asia to secure the most valuable books; no exertions nor expense were spared to enrich and enlarge the collection in the Library; and he left, it is said, 100,000 volumes therein. Staffs of copyists were gathered in the Museum and search was continually made throughout Greece and Asia Minor for copies and duplicates of existing rolls. Extravagant prices were paid for books by the librarians (page 30) and thus a steady flow of literature was turned toward Alexandria from all parts of the then civilized world. The Library further grew, during the Ptolemaic Dynasty, and, as augmented by the collection of books from Pergamos, to the vast proportions of 700,000 books (all, of course, in manuscript) in this proud Capital on the Nile.

We must ever bear it in mind, however, while considering the large number of books treasured in the Alexandrian Library, or in any other ancient collection, that a manuscript roll—the common form of most ancient books—was generally written on one side of the parchment or papyrus only and therefore could contain at most only one-half the amount of matter embraced within a book of leaves and pages.

We have already called attention (p. 62) to the change in literature from the roll book to the book of leaves; and would now note the further change in the roll-book by which the smaller rolls, convenient for handling, were substituted for the enormous and cumbrous ones often encountered. The bulkier manuscript rolls, composed as they were of parchment or papyrus,—chiefly of papyrus at Alexandria—sometimes having the length of one hundred and twenty feet or even longer, came to be divided into smaller rolls as making up a given large work,—the number of which being determined by the size of the respective works, or, somewhat, as in poetry, by the character of the composition. The object of this was to facilitate handling and reference, and, incidentally, the preservation of the manuscript;—the opening portions of the roll, as also the initial pages of a book of leaves, being most frequently handled, were subjected to greatest "wear and tear." Under this change, the History of Herodotus, e. g., was multiplied into nine and the Iliad of Homer into twenty-four "books" or volumes; and the entire Bible which, if contained in one roll would prove unwieldly and almost incapable of use, would require thirty or forty or more rolls. The size of the Medieval Bibles, when made up in a book with leaves instead of the roll form, was immense. They were veritable libraries in themselves—consisting of four or five, in one instance of fourteen, great folio volumes. The Bible, however, being written by many different authors and having a great diversity of themes, would, by reason of this difference in authorship and subject-matter, more readily lend itself to an arrangement into separate rolls or books than many of the early classic writings. Indeed, the Bible, while it is THE BOOK, is, essentially, a large collection of separate books. Not the Bible alone but other large works, as the Iliad and the Odyssey, notwithstanding the unity and continuity of their themes, were also divided into "books" or rolls, and these were numbered or named by the letters of the Greek alphabet:—"Iliad A" would designate the first book of Homer's Iliad, and so on unto the end of the composition. This change to smaller books, and thus to a larger number of separate volumes, came about or was facilitated and expedited in the Library at Alexandria. One, Callimachus, the grammarian, seems to have been greatly instrumental in its furtherance; for, as says Mr. Putnam, "From his time the cumbrous scrolls began to disappear, and as well for the editions of the classics as for the literature of the day, the small rolls came into use."66

The method of collecting books (as well as the multiplication of smaller rolls from a single larger roll by transcription) tended also to the enlargement of the Alexandrian Library. We are informed by tradition that, in addition to the purchase of rolls, the books taken by the authorities from Greeks and other foreigners coming into Egypt were sent to the Library and there copied by the scribes in its employ. The copies thus made were delivered to the owners of the books, while the originals from which the copies were made were deposited in the Library. If this tradition is to be credited, then, how absolutely beyond estimate was the importance of the Alexandrian Library as the chief and the almost exclusive depository of original manuscripts of both sacred and classic literature—and for a long period of time. And if this was the fact, then it is highly probable that the original copies of the New Testament, or of books thereof, and of the Old Testament entire, were translated into the Greek during this period of literary activity in Alexandria in order to meet the needs: First, of the Greek-speaking Jews—later, of the Greek-speaking apostles and Christian teachers and disciples; and that these books were among the treasures of this most famous Library of the ancient world, or, indeed, of all time. On the authority of Tertullian, who lived in the first quarter of the third century, and of Chrysostom, who lived in the last half of the fourth century, the original Septuagint Version of the Old Testament scriptures—reputed to have been made near Alexandria in the third century B. C.—and, probably, with it autograph copies of the whole or parts of the New Testament were deposited in the Library at Alexandria.

[It may not be without its interest while referring to the large number of books treasured in the Alexandrian Library to mention, parenthetically, the number of volumes contained in some of the leading libraries of the United States and of the world: