A cupboard of the Pinakes

Lyric (melic) poetry

μέλη

Known: probable Attested indirectly: a papyrus commentary says Callimachus placed Bacchylides' Cassandra among the paeans (P.Oxy. XX 2368), so lyric was subdivided by genre.

How to read this cupboard: each hole holds a work the evidence puts in the Library's orbit, at the age it arrived, and an empty hole means a lost work and nothing else. Works written in the city by people not attested as Library scholars lie on the table of the city; works of the Egyptian milieu and witnesses to the city lie on the ledge. The closed door stands for the books no one can now name.

Lyric (melic) poetry

Behind this door: what the Library held under this class that no one can now name. Our shelves hold 185 works. The ancient claims for the whole collection run from 40,000 to 700,000 rolls, and modern estimates are much lower (see the Ledger of Numbers). The doors are not drawn to scale.

Behind this door: what the Library held under this class that no one can now name. Our shelves hold 185 works. The ancient claims for the whole collection run from 40,000 to 700,000 rolls, and modern estimates are much lower (see the Ledger of Numbers). The doors are not drawn to scale.

On the table: written in the city

On the ledge: written in Egypt or about the city

This class through time

  1. I Founding: 1 in the city, 1 arriving
  2. II Collection: 8 in the city, 7 arriving
  3. III Librarians: 14 in the city, 6 arriving
  4. IV Purge and Fire: 15 in the city, 1 arriving
  5. V Roman: 15 in the city
  6. VI Serapeum: 17 in the city, 2 arriving
  7. VII Last Schools: 17 in the city

This cupboard in the show

  • Early Spread of Christianity & Esotericism, episode 17, at 48 minutes 34 secondsTranscriptEarly spread of Christianity and esotericism; Plotinus' hypostases and the Trinity.Known: attested
  • Alexandria as Esoteric Crossroads, episode 17, at 47 minutes 57 secondsTranscript“the evangelist Mark brought Christianity there in 42 CE”Church tradition, which the speaker labels 'legend… or tradition' (Eusebius, Church History 2.16); Eusebius' Chronicle, in Jerome's version, puts Mark's mission in the early 40s.Known: attested
    Correction
    What was said
    The Hermetic tracts were "all found outside of Alexandria".
    What the sources say
    Near Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt, some 600 km south of Alexandria (about 615 km in a straight line, farther by the river). Codex VI holds three Hermetic texts (the Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth, the Prayer of Thanksgiving, an extract of the Asclepius) and an extract of Plato's Republic.
  • Heresiologists and early Christian doctrine, episode 2, at 2 minutes 2 secondsTranscript“Clement of Alexandria was a little bit more um he was a little bit more amunable to you know particularly the Gnostic schools”Known: attested

+ 3 more, each on its roll's tag.