Legends, at their first telling

The Hall of Told Stories

Four stories about the Library are told so often that they pass for history. The portal retires each of them in so many words: that Hypatia was the Library's last librarian; that the caliph ordered the books burned; that the Library held 700,000 scrolls; that “healing place of the soul” was the Library's motto. No ancient source supports any of the four.

Every legend below is told in its teller's voice, with the date it was first told and how far that was from the events, and beside it what the evidence supports. Legends are never painted as scenes.

The Afterlives

A man in a turban crouches in a cliff hollow at sunset over a broken clay jar, leather-bound codices spilling from it — The Afterlives, 642 to today. Each legend at the date it was first told; beside them, in gilt, what else happened. An ordinal list, not a scale.

The founding

Legend

The barley meal

Curtius, Plutarch and Arrian tell that the surveyors had no chalk and marked out the city's lines in barley meal; birds came down and ate it, and the seers said the city would feed many peoples.

Told by Curtius Rufus, Plutarch and Arrian, 1st–2nd century CE, some four centuries after the founding

What the evidence supports

The city's grid is real and survives under the modern streets. The omen is a story of the kind told of many foundations.

Sources (3)

Curtius Rufus 4.8.6
Plutarch, Alexander 26.8–10
Arrian, Anabasis 3.2.1–2

Told of: Alexander founds Alexandria

Legend

Homer's dream

Plutarch, citing Heracleides, tells that a grey-haired man stood beside Alexander in a dream and recited Homer's lines: "There is an island in the surging sea, in front of Egypt; Pharos they call it." Alexander rose, went to Pharos, and chose the ground for his city.

Told by Plutarch, citing Heracleides, c. 100–120 CE, some four centuries after the founding

What the evidence supports

Alexander founded the city in 331 BCE opposite the island of Pharos; every narrative says so. The dream is a story told to make the founding fated, and no earlier source has it.

Sources (3)

Plutarch, Alexander 26.5–7
Homer, Odyssey 4.354–355
P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972)

Told of: Alexander founds Alexandria

Legend

The poet killed by a paradox

Athenaeus, some five centuries later, quotes an epitaph in which Philitas says the Liar paradox and his nights of thought on it killed him; Aelian adds that he was so thin he wore lead in his shoes so the wind would not blow him over.

Told by Athenaeus and Aelian, c. 200 CE, some five centuries later

What the evidence supports

Philitas was a poet and scholar who taught the young Ptolemy II, and his glossary of rare words is attested. Both stories are jokes about a learned man's leanness, not records.

Sources (3)

Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 9.401e
Aelian, Varia Historia 9.14
Suda φ 332

Told of: Philitas of Cos, Demeter, and Disorderly Words

The making of the Library

Legend

Atlantis

Plato has Critias tell, in the Timaeus, that an Egyptian priest at Sais told Solon of Atlantis, an island power beyond the Pillars of Heracles sunk nine thousand years before.

Told by Plato, c. 360 BCE, some two centuries after Solon

What the evidence supports

The story is Plato's, told inside his dialogue. No Egyptian record of it is known; Proclus reports that Crantor claimed the Egyptians could show the inscriptions.

Sources (2)

Plato, Timaeus 20d–25d
Proclus, Commentary on the Timaeus 1.76

Told of: Plato, Timaeus

Legend

A translation older than the Septuagint

Aristobulus tells King Ptolemy that Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato drew on a Greek translation of the Law older than the one made under Ptolemy II, and quotes a poem in which Orpheus renounces the many gods for the one.

Told by Aristobulus, c. 175–150 BCE, of philosophers dead two to four centuries

What the evidence supports

No earlier translation is known. The Orphic poem is a Jewish composition in Orpheus's name, and the quoted Aratus has 'Zeus' changed to 'God'.

Sources (2)

Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 13.12
Clement, Stromata 1.150; 5.97

Told of: Aristobulus of Alexandria, Explanations of the Law of Moses (fragments), with the Jewish 'Testament of Orpheus'

Legend

The seventy-two elders

The Letter of Aristeas tells that Demetrius of Phalerum urged Ptolemy II to have the Jewish Law translated for his library, and that seventy-two elders came from Jerusalem and finished the work in seventy-two days on the island of Pharos.

Told by The Letter of Aristeas, c. 150–100 BCE, about a century after the translation

What the evidence supports

The Torah was translated into Greek in Alexandria in the 3rd century BCE; its Greek is that of Ptolemaic Egypt. Whether the court had any part in it, or whether a copy was placed in the Library, is unknown.

Sources (4)

Letter of Aristeas 9–11, 28–51, 301–311
Philo, Life of Moses 2.25–44
S. Honigman, The Septuagint and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria: A Study in the Narrative of the Letter of Aristeas (London: Routledge, 2003)
T. Rajak, Translation and Survival: The Greek Bible of the Ancient Jewish Diaspora (Oxford, 2009)

Told of: The Torah translated into Greek, The Greek Pentateuch

Legend

Demetrius, keeper of the king's library

The author who wrote as Aristeas, about a century after Ptolemy II, tells that Demetrius of Phalerum, put in charge of the king's library, reported over 200,000 books, hoped soon for 500,000, and urged the king to add the laws of the Jews.

Told by The author who wrote as Aristeas, mid-2nd century BCE, about a century later

What the evidence supports

Demetrius was at the court of Ptolemy I, and Hermippus reports that Ptolemy II kept him under guard. The numbers, his charge of the library and the translation story are not supported; the Letter shows how Alexandrians imagined their Library a century on.

Sources (2)

Letter of Aristeas 9–11, 29–32, 301–311
Diogenes Laertius 5.78

Told of: Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates

Legend

The gilded tongue

Vitruvius tells, some two and a half centuries later, that Berossus founded a school of astrology on Cos; Pliny adds that Athens set up a statue of him with a gilded tongue for his predictions.

Told by Vitruvius and Pliny, c. 25 BCE and 77 CE, two and a half to three and a half centuries later

What the evidence supports

Berossus, a Babylonian priest, wrote a history of Babylon in Greek for the Seleucid king; Josephus and Eusebius quote it. The school and the statue are doubtful, and there is no direct evidence of an Alexandrian copy.

Sources (3)

Vitruvius, On Architecture 9.6.2
Pliny, Natural History 7.123
Josephus, Against Apion 1.128–153

Told of: Berossus of Babylon, Babyloniaca

Legend

The plagiarists exposed from memory

Vitruvius tells, some 170 years later, that Aristophanes, judging a poetry contest for the king, exposed the winners as plagiarists by fetching the originals from the Library's shelves from memory. The Suda, a thousand years later, adds that he was jailed on a charge of planning to flee to Eumenes of Pergamon.

Told by Vitruvius, c. 25 BCE, some 170 years later

What the evidence supports

Aristophanes headed the Library (P.Oxy. X 1241) and his lexicography and editions are attested. Both stories are anecdotes.

Sources (2)

Vitruvius, On Architecture 7, preface 4–7
Suda Aristonymos, α 3936 (on Aristophanes of Byzantium)

Told of: Aristophanes of Byzantium, Lexeis (Words), and editions of Homer, Hesiod, the lyric poets and drama

Legend

Criminals from the king's prisons

Celsus tells, some three centuries later, that the kings handed Herophilus and Erasistratus condemned criminals from their prisons to cut open alive, as the physicians who defended the practice claimed; Tertullian, around 210 CE, says Herophilus dissected six hundred people.

Told by Celsus, c. 30 CE, some three centuries later

What the evidence supports

Herophilus's anatomical discoveries in Alexandria are attested in Galen and others, and human dissection there is generally accepted. Celsus passes on the defenders' own claim and condemns it; Tertullian writes as an enemy of anatomy. Whether living people were cut open is still debated.

Sources (2)

Celsus, On Medicine prooemium 23–26, 74
Tertullian, On the Soul 10.4

Told of: Herophilus of Chalcedon, Anatomy, On Pulses, Midwifery and other works

Legend

The invention of parchment

Pliny, citing Varro, tells that when a Ptolemy, jealous of the library at Pergamon, stopped the export of papyrus, Pergamon invented parchment.

Told by Pliny the Elder, citing Varro, 77 CE, some two and a half centuries after the rivalry it tells of

What the evidence supports

Alexandria and Pergamon did compete for books and scholars. Writing on prepared skins is far older than either library.

Sources (2)

Pliny, Natural History 13.70
L. Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001)

Told of: Aristophanes of Byzantium; the rivalry with Pergamon

Legend

The lovesick prince

Plutarch tells, nearly four centuries later, that Erasistratus found the cause of the Seleucid prince Antiochus's wasting illness by watching him whenever his stepmother Stratonice came into the room: he was in love with her.

Told by Plutarch, c. 100 CE, nearly four centuries later

What the evidence supports

Erasistratus's anatomy and his school are well attested through Galen. Whether he worked in Alexandria or at the Seleucid court is uncertain; the diagnosis is a romance.

Sources (2)

Plutarch, Demetrius 38
Galen, On the Natural Faculties 2

Told of: Erasistratus of Ceos, On Fevers, On Paralysis, Anatomy and other works

Legend

Fifteen talents for the tragedians

Galen tells in the same passage that Ptolemy III borrowed Athens's official copies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides against a pledge of fifteen talents, kept the originals, sent back fine new copies, and let the Athenians keep the silver.

Told by Galen, c. 175–199 CE, some four centuries after Ptolemy III

What the evidence supports

Athens did keep official texts of the three tragedians, by a law of Lycurgus in the 330s BCE. That they went to Alexandria rests on Galen alone.

Sources (2)

Galen, Commentary on Hippocrates' Epidemics III 2.4 (Kühn XVIIa.607)
[Plutarch], Lives of the Ten Orators 841f

Told of: A story told by Galen: the books from the ships

Legend

Two roads for Aristotle's books

Athenaeus tells, some five centuries later, that Ptolemy II bought all of Aristotle's and Theophrastus's books from Neleus and brought them to Alexandria. Strabo, two centuries before him, tells instead that Neleus's heirs hid the books in a cellar at Scepsis, where Apellicon bought them and Sulla took them to Rome.

Told by Athenaeus, c. 200 CE, some five centuries later

What the evidence supports

Both writers agree that Neleus of Scepsis inherited the books. The two roads cannot both be wholly true; copies sold to Alexandria and originals hidden in Asia would reconcile them, but no source says so.

Sources (3)

Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 1.3a–b
Strabo, Geography 13.1.54
Plutarch, Sulla 26

Told of: Aristotle, Theophrastus and the Peripatetics, The library of Aristotle and Theophrastus

Legend

Democritus among the priests and Magi

Diogenes Laertius, writing some six centuries later from earlier biographers, tells that Democritus studied geometry with the priests of Egypt and went to the Chaldeans and to the Magi.

Told by Diogenes Laertius, c. 230 CE, some six centuries later

What the evidence supports

Callimachus gave Democritus a table of his own, a list of his rare words and writings (Suda κ 227, usually read so). The travels belong to ancient biography, and the alchemical books under his name were written centuries after him (see Pseudo-Democritus).

Sources (2)

Diogenes Laertius 9.34–49
Suda κ 227

Told of: Democritus of Abdera, Works of Democritus, and Callimachus's Table of his Glosses and Writings

Legend

The failed first reading

The ancient Lives of Apollonius, copied with the poem's medieval manuscripts, tell that his first reading of the Argonautica failed, that he left Alexandria for Rhodes in shame, and that he quarrelled bitterly with Callimachus.

Told by The ancient Lives of Apollonius, in the Lives copied with the poem (manuscripts from the 10th century), at an unknown distance; the Lives' own date is uncertain

What the evidence supports

Apollonius headed the Library and tutored a king (P.Oxy. X 1241). The failure and the feud are probably later inventions built from the poets' own allusions.

Sources (2)

Vitae Apollonii (in the scholia)
P.Oxy. X 1241

Told of: Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica

Legend

A curse for Apollonius

The Suda, a Byzantine lexicon compiled some twelve centuries later, says Callimachus wrote the Ibis against Apollonius of Rhodes.

Told by The Suda, c. 970 CE, some twelve centuries later

What the evidence supports

The Ibis was a deliberately obscure curse poem, known from the Suda and from Ovid's imitation. Modern scholars think the famous quarrel was largely built by later biographers out of notes like this one.

Sources (2)

Suda κ 227
Ovid, Ibis

Told of: Callimachus of Cyrene, Ibis

Legend

The well at Syene

Modern retellings tell that Eratosthenes heard of a well at Syene where the noon sun shone straight to the bottom on the longest day, and measured the Earth from it.

Told by Modern retellings, modern retellings, more than two thousand years later

What the evidence supports

Cleomedes' summary of the measurement uses the sun overhead at Syene and a sundial's shadow at Alexandria, one-fiftieth of a circle; it has no well. Strabo mentions a well at Syene that marked the solstice, but not in connection with Eratosthenes.

Sources (2)

Cleomedes, Caelestia 1.7
Strabo, Geography 17.1.48

Told of: Eratosthenes of Cyrene, On the Measurement of the Earth

The fires

Legend

"Caesar burned the Library"

Plutarch writes that the fire Caesar set to the ships spread from the dockyards and destroyed the great library.

Told by Plutarch, c. 100–120 CE, some one hundred and fifty years after the fire

What the evidence supports

A fire in 48 BCE burned books, probably in storehouses near the docks. Caesar and the nearest witnesses say nothing of books, and twenty years later Strabo found the Mouseion at work.

Sources (4)

Plutarch, Caesar 49.6
Cassius Dio, Roman History 42.38.2
R. S. Bagnall, "Alexandria: Library of Dreams", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 146.4 (2002) 348–362 357
M. Hatzimichali, "Ashes to Ashes? The Library of Alexandria after 48 BC", in J. König, K. Oikonomopoulou and G. Woolf (eds.), Ancient Libraries (Cambridge, 2013) 167–182

Told of: Caesar's fire in the harbour

Legend

700,000 rolls

Aulus Gellius writes that nearly 700,000 rolls were burned in the Alexandrian war, by chance, by auxiliary soldiers; Ammianus repeats the figure about 390.

Told by Aulus Gellius, c. 170–179 CE, some two hundred and twenty years after the fire

What the evidence supports

No ancient source gives a reliable figure, and the manuscripts disagree on this one: some read 70,000. A catalogue of 120 rolls could hardly have listed hundreds of thousands. A modern estimate is tens of thousands of rolls, perhaps more.

Sources (3)

Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 7.17.3
Ammianus Marcellinus 22.16.13
R. S. Bagnall, "Alexandria: Library of Dreams", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 146.4 (2002) 348–362 352–356

Retired: that the Library held 700,000 scrolls. No ancient source supports it.

Told of: Caesar's fire in the harbour

Legend

The caliph's order

‘Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, writing about 1200, mentions in passing the library which ‘Amr burned with ‘Umar's permission. Ibn al-Qifti, a generation later, tells the whole story.

Told by ‘Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, c. 1200 CE, some 550 years after the conquest

What the evidence supports

No ancient source supports it. John of Nikiu, who wrote within a lifetime of the conquest and was hostile to the conquerors, says nothing of books burned; the story is unknown before about 1200, and no ancient library is known to have stood in 642.

Sources (5)

‘Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, Account of Egypt c. 1200
John of Nikiu, Chronicle 120
B. Lewis, "The Vanished Library", letter in The New York Review of Books, 27 September 1990
B. Lewis, "The Arab Destruction of the Library of Alexandria: Anatomy of a Myth", in El-Abbadi and Fathallah (eds.), What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria? (Leiden, 2008) 213–217
A. J. Butler, The Arab Conquest of Egypt and the Last Thirty Years of the Roman Dominion (Oxford, 1902; 2nd ed. P. M. Fraser, 1978) (opens in a new tab)

Retired: that the caliph ordered the books burned. No ancient source supports it.

Told of: The Arab conquest, and the later story of the caliph's order

Legend

"Theophilus burned the Library"

Gibbon writes that when the Serapeum fell the valuable library of Alexandria was pillaged or destroyed, and reads Orosius's empty shelves as its remains. Later books say Bishop Theophilus burned the Library.

Told by Edward Gibbon, 1781, almost fourteen centuries after the Serapeum fell

What the evidence supports

The temple was destroyed in 391 or 392. No account of the destruction mentions books, and Ammianus, just before, already speaks of its libraries in the past tense.

Sources (3)

Rufinus, Church History 11.22–30
Socrates Scholasticus, Church History 5.16–17
J. Hahn, "The Conversion of the Cult Statues: The Destruction of the Serapeum 392 A.D.", in J. Hahn, S. Emmel and U. Gotter (eds.), From Temple to Church (Leiden: Brill, 2008) 335–365

Told of: The destruction of the Serapeum

The people

Legend

Demetrius as librarian

The Letter of Aristeas makes Demetrius of Phalerum the head of Ptolemy II's library, with funds to collect all the books in the world, and has him report 200,000 rolls with 500,000 to come.

Told by The Letter of Aristeas, c. 150–100 BCE, more than a century after Demetrius

What the evidence supports

Demetrius was at the court of Ptolemy I. By Hermippus's account Ptolemy II had him held under guard in the countryside after Ptolemy I's death. No source independent of the Letter makes him the Library's head.

Sources (3)

Letter of Aristeas 9–11
Diogenes Laertius 5.78–79
R. S. Bagnall, "Alexandria: Library of Dreams", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 146.4 (2002) 348–362 349–351

Told of: Demetrius of Phalerum, Demetrius of Phalerum at Ptolemy's court

Legend

The plagiarists exposed

Vitruvius tells that at a poetry contest Aristophanes of Byzantium, one of the judges, named the poets who had stolen their verses and fetched the originals from the library's cases from memory.

Told by Vitruvius, c. 30–20 BCE, about a century and a half after Aristophanes

What the evidence supports

Aristophanes headed the Library and was famed for his learning. The contest is an anecdote found in Vitruvius alone.

Sources

Vitruvius, On Architecture 7 praef. 4–7

Told of: Aristophanes of Byzantium

Legend

Aristotle taught the kings

Strabo says that Aristotle was the first we know of to collect books, and that he taught the kings in Egypt how to arrange a library.

Told by Strabo, c. 7 BCE–23 CE, some three centuries after Aristotle's death

What the evidence supports

Aristotle died in 322 BCE, before any Ptolemy was king. His school's ways may have reached Egypt through his pupils, Demetrius of Phalerum and Strato among them; that is an inference, not a record.

Sources (2)

Strabo, Geography 13.1.54
R. S. Bagnall, "Alexandria: Library of Dreams", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 146.4 (2002) 348–362 350–351

Told of: Aristotle

Legend

Books from the ships

Galen tells that Ptolemy III had every book found on ships putting in at Alexandria brought to him and copied, gave the owners the copies, and kept the originals labelled "from the ships".

Told by Galen, c. 175–199 CE, some four centuries after Ptolemy III

What the evidence supports

One late source, told to explain a label on a copy of the Hippocratic Epidemics. The label may be real; the policy is Galen's story.

Sources (2)

Galen, Commentary on Hippocrates' Epidemics III 2.4 (Kühn XVIIa.605–607)
R. S. Bagnall, "Alexandria: Library of Dreams", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 146.4 (2002) 348–362 353–354

Told of: A story told by Galen: the books from the ships, Ptolemy III Euergetes

Legend

Hermes the ancient sage

Lactantius tells that Hermes Trismegistus lived long before Plato and Pythagoras and foresaw the truth of the Christian faith. Renaissance readers set him in the age of Moses.

Told by Lactantius, c. 303–311 CE, two centuries or more after the Hermetica were written

What the evidence supports

The Greek Hermetica were written in Roman Egypt, probably between about 100 and 300 CE. Isaac Casaubon showed in 1614 that they belong to the Christian era.

Sources (4)

Lactantius, Divine Institutes 1.6
A. Grafton, "Protestant versus Prophet: Isaac Casaubon on Hermes Trismegistus", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 46 (1983) 78–93
G. Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind (Cambridge, 1986)
B. P. Copenhaver, Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English Translation (Cambridge, 1992)

Told of: Hermes Trismegistus, The Greek Hermetica take shape in Roman Egypt

Legend

The Scythian sage

The Acts of Archelaus, a 4th-century polemic against the Manichaeans, tells of Scythianus, a teacher from Scythia who lived in Egypt and was a forerunner of Mani. Modern retellings sometimes call Ammonius Saccas a Scythian sage.

Told by Hegemonius, Acts of Archelaus, c. 330–350 CE, a century after Ammonius

What the evidence supports

No ancient source calls Ammonius Saccas a Scythian. Porphyry's Life of Plotinus, the main source for him, does not.

Sources (3)

Hegemonius, Acts of Archelaus on Scythianus
Porphyry, Life of Plotinus 3
F. M. Schroeder, "Ammonius Saccas", in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.36.1 (Berlin, 1987) 493–526

Told of: Ammonius Saccas

Legend

Letters to every king

Epiphanius tells that the king wrote to every king and ruler on earth, asking them to send the works of their poets, historians, physicians and philosophers.

Told by Epiphanius, 392 CE, some six centuries after Ptolemy II

What the evidence supports

The ambition to hold the writings of every people is attested from the Letter of Aristeas on. The letters are a story; no such correspondence is known.

Sources (2)

Epiphanius, On Weights and Measures 9
Letter of Aristeas 9–11

Told of: Ptolemy II Philadelphus

Legend

No royal road

Proclus tells that when Ptolemy asked whether there was a shorter way to geometry than the Elements, Euclid answered that there is no royal road to geometry.

Told by Proclus, c. 450–485 CE, some seven centuries later

What the evidence supports

Euclid probably taught in Alexandria under Ptolemy I, as Proclus says. The retort floats: Stobaeus tells the same of Menaechmus and Alexander.

Sources (2)

Proclus, Commentary on Euclid I 68.6–20 Friedlein
Stobaeus, Anthology 2.31.115

Told of: Euclid teaches geometry under Ptolemy I, Euclid

Legend

Four thousand baths

Ibn al-Qifti tells that John the Grammarian asked ‘Amr for the books of wisdom; the caliph replied that if they agreed with the Book of God they were unnecessary and if they disagreed undesirable, and the books fed the fires of the city's four thousand baths for six months.

Told by Ibn al-Qifti, before 1248 CE, some six centuries after the conquest

What the evidence supports

John Philoponus, the Grammarian, had died some seventy years before the conquest. Ibn Khaldun tells the same exchange of the books of the Persians: a travelling tale.

Sources (3)

Ibn al-Qifti, History of Learned Men Yahya al-Nahwi
Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah ch. 6
B. Lewis, "The Arab Destruction of the Library of Alexandria: Anatomy of a Myth", in El-Abbadi and Fathallah (eds.), What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria? (Leiden, 2008) 213–217

Told of: The Arab conquest, and the later story of the caliph's order, John Philoponus

Legend

Callimachus as chief librarian

The Latin note called the Scholium Plautinum, drawn from Tzetzes, calls Callimachus the royal librarian. Modern books often make him the Library's chief.

Told by The Scholium Plautinum, a Latin note drawn from Tzetzes, 15th century CE, some seventeen centuries after Callimachus

What the evidence supports

Callimachus compiled the Pinakes, the Library's great catalogue. The papyrus list of the heads does not name him, and Tzetzes's Greek calls him a young man of the court; most scholars think he was never its head.

Sources (4)

Tzetzes, Prolegomena de comoedia Koster XIa I–II
P.Oxy. X 1241 col. ii
R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship from the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968) 123–151
R. Blum, Kallimachos: The Alexandrian Library and the Origins of Bibliography, trans. H. H. Wellisch (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991; German 1977)

Told of: Callimachus of Cyrene

Legend

Plato learned from Hermes

Marsilio Ficino, prefacing his Latin Hermetica, sets out a chain of ancient theologians from Hermes Trismegistus through Orpheus and Pythagoras to Plato, so that Plato's wisdom descends from Hermes.

Told by Marsilio Ficino, 1471, some eighteen centuries after Plato

What the evidence supports

The Hermetic treatises are later than Plato and draw on Platonism, not the other way about. The show's hosts make this correction on air, in episode 21.

Sources (2)

A. Grafton, "Protestant versus Prophet: Isaac Casaubon on Hermes Trismegistus", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 46 (1983) 78–93
B. P. Copenhaver, Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English Translation (Cambridge, 1992)

Told of: Hermes Trismegistus

Legend

The end of ancient science

John Toland's Hypatia (1720) makes her a most learned and virtuous woman torn to pieces by the clergy of Alexandria. Voltaire and Gibbon follow him, and later tellers make her death the end of ancient science.

Told by John Toland, Hypatia, 1720, some thirteen centuries after her death

What the evidence supports

Her murder is attested; it was part of a feud between the prefect and the bishop. The schools of Alexandria went on teaching Plato, Aristotle and mathematics for two centuries after her.

Sources (3)

Socrates Scholasticus, Church History 7.15
E. J. Watts, Hypatia: The Life and Legend of an Ancient Philosopher (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017)
E. J. Watts, City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006)

Told of: Hypatia, The late schools teach Plato and Aristotle

Legend

Hypatia, the last librarian

Carl Sagan's Cosmos ends its account of the Library's destruction with Hypatia's death, and so joins the two; later tellers make her its last librarian. Cosmos is the latest date for the link; who first made it is still to be dated from Watts 2017.

Told by Carl Sagan, Cosmos, 1980, more than fifteen centuries after her death

What the evidence supports

No ancient source supports it. Hypatia taught mathematics and Platonism in Alexandria and was killed by a Christian mob in March 415; no ancient source connects her with the Library or with any library, and the Serapeum had fallen more than twenty years before.

Sources (3)

Socrates Scholasticus, Church History 7.13–15
E. J. Watts, Hypatia: The Life and Legend of an Ancient Philosopher (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017)
M. Dzielska, Hypatia of Alexandria (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995)

Retired: that Hypatia was the Library's last librarian. No ancient source supports it.

Told of: Hypatia, The murder of Hypatia

Later tellers

Legend

"Healing place of the soul"

Diodorus says that over the sacred library in the tomb of Osymandyas at Thebes stood the words "healing place of the soul". Modern books often give them as the motto over the door of the Library of Alexandria.

Told by Diodorus of Sicily, of a library at Thebes, c. 60–30 BCE, a description of another library; moved to Alexandria by modern books

What the evidence supports

No ancient source puts these words at Alexandria. Diodorus gives them to a library at Thebes, in the Ramesseum, the temple he calls the tomb of Osymandyas.

Sources

Diodorus Siculus 1.49.3

Aphthonius, Progymnasmata 12
J. S. McKenzie, S. Gibson and A. T. Reyes, "Reconstructing the Serapeum in Alexandria from the Archaeological Evidence", Journal of Roman Studies 94 (2004) 73–121

Told of: The underground galleries

The myths in the show

Secrecy and danger in historical occult practice, episode 6, at 10 minutes 27 secondsTranscript“these mini Alexandrias”The only use of the Library as an image in the whole archive: the private collections of Trithemius and John Dee called 'mini Alexandrias'. A reception doorway, not a historical one.Known: attested
Sacred Architecture · Chronology: Vitruvius' De architecturaVitruvius' De architectura. The entry does not mention it, but Vitruvius' preface to book 7 (7 pref. 4–7) is a key source for the Library: the story of Aristophanes of Byzantium exposing plagiarists by fetching rolls from the shelves.Known: attested
Philosophy · Chronology: The murder of HypatiaThe murder of Hypatia: 'not the end of pagan philosophy — the Alexandrian school continued'.Known: attested

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Philosophy · Figures: HypatiaKnown: attested