The Shelves · Tragedy

The Athenian official copy of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides

Legend · Told storyin Alexandria?Conjecturedvery likely classLegend · Told storya told story on its tag

See it on the shelves ›

I · The entry, in his form

In the table of Tragedy

Conjecturedvery likely class

Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides (state copy made under Lycurgus)

The Athenian official copy of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides

Opening words not preserved.

Length: not counted

Above, his entry form, filled from what we know. Below, ours.

II · Does it survive? Where to read it

Lost

The copy itself is lost; its story survives in Galen.

Was it in Alexandria?

Legend · Told story

Acquired for the Library.

In the cupboard: an ancient source reports it entering the collection or the Pinakes.

Read it today

Galen's commentary on Epidemics III has no open English translation; the Greek is in Corpus Medicorum Graecorum V 10.2.1 (1936) and Kuhn vol. 17A.

III · In the show

The show has not yet spoken of this work.

IV · Sources and the living entry

Ancient references
  • Galen, Commentary on Hippocrates' Epidemics III 2.4 (Kuhn 17A.606-608)
Modern scholarship (5)
  • M. W. Handis, 'Myth and History: Galen and the Alexandrian Library', in Konig et al. (eds), Ancient Libraries (2013), 364-376.
  • R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship from the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968)
  • P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972)
  • R. MacLeod (ed.), The Library of Alexandria: Centre of Learning in the Ancient World (London: I. B. Tauris, 2000)
  • M. El-Abbadi, The Life and Fate of the Ancient Library of Alexandria (Paris: UNESCO/UNDP, 1990).

Entry checked 31 Oct 2026 · no corrections · Suggest a correction ›

THE ATHENIAN OFFICIAL COPY OF AESCHYLUS, SOPHOCLES AND EURIPIDES

Read what is told

The back of the tag: a story told of this work, in its teller's voice.

Legend: told story

Fifteen talents for the tragedians

Galen tells, some four centuries later, that Ptolemy III borrowed Athens's official texts of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides against a pledge of fifteen talents of silver, kept the originals, sent back fine copies, and let Athens keep the silver.

Told by Galen, c. 175 CE, some four centuries later

What the evidence supports

Athens did keep an official copy of the three tragedians, made under Lycurgus. Galen told the story to explain corrupted texts and royal book-hunger; it is possible, not proven.

Sources
  • Galen, Commentary on Hippocrates' Epidemics III 2.4 (Kühn 17A.606–608)
The Hall of Told Stories

Beside it in the cupboard