{{Short description|Hellenistic educational and philosophical institution}} {{Redirect|Temple of the Muses|the novel by John Maddox Roberts|The Temple of the Muses {{!}} ''The Temple of the Muses''}} {{For|the journal|Mouseion (journal) {{!}} ''Mouseion'' (journal)}} [[File:Greek - Leaning Muse, Probably Polyhymnia - Walters 2390.jpg|thumb|upright|Muse statue, a common scholarly motif in the Hellenistic age.]]
The '''Mouseion''' '''of Alexandria''' ({{langx|grc|Μουσεῖον τῆς Ἀλεξανδρείας}}; {{Langx|la|Musaeum Alexandrinum}}), which arguably included the Library of Alexandria,<ref>The relation of the institutions is still a matter of debate. The Mouseion is discussed by P.M. Fraser, ''Ptolemaic Alexandria'' (1972: vol. I: 213–219 etc), and Mostafa el-Addabi, ''The Life and Fate of the Ancient Library of Alexandria'' (Paris 1990: 84–90).</ref> was an institution said to have been founded by Ptolemy I Soter and his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Russo|first=L.|url=https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-642-18904-3|title=The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why It Had to Be Reborn|publisher=Springer|year=2004|doi=10.1007/978-3-642-18904-3|isbn=978-3-540-20068-0}}</ref> Originally, the word ''mouseion'' meant any place that was dedicated to the Muses, often related to the study of music or poetry, but later associated with sites of learning such as Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Natali |first=C. |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/book/36704 |title=Aristotle: His Life and School |date=2013 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-4600-9 |location=Princeton, New Jersey}}</ref>
The Ptolemies reputedly established their Mouseion and Library with the intention of bringing together some of the best scholars of the Hellenistic world and to collect all the books known at the time.<ref name=":2">{{Citation|last1=Berti|first1=M.|title=The Ancient Library of Alexandria. A Model for Classical Scholarship in the Age of Million Book Libraries 1|publication-date=2009|last2=Costa|first2=V.|citeseerx=10.1.1.158.2953}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Lynch|first=J. P.|title=Aristotle's school; a study of a Greek educational institution.|date=1972|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-02194-5|location=Berkeley|language=English|oclc=548489}}</ref> Although it did not imply a collection of works of art, the word ''mouseion'' is the root for the modern usage of the word museum.
==History== According to Johannes Tzetzes, the Mouseion was an institution founded by Ptolemy I Soter (c. 367 BC – c. 283 BC) in Alexandria, Egypt, though it is more likely that it took shape under Ptolemy II Philadelphus (309–246 BC).<ref name=":3">The earliest sources ascribe the Mouseion and Library to the Ptolemies without providing dates or historical details. Roger S. Bagnall notes in "Alexandria: Library of Dreams", ''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'' '''146'''.4 (December 2002: 348-362) that the most complete account for the Library is Tzetzes' remarks in an introduction to Aristophanes, more than a thousand years after the fact.</ref> As a community gathered together under the protection of the Muses, the Mouseion remained supported over the centuries by the patronage of the royal family of the Ptolemies, and later by that of the Roman emperors.<ref name=":1">Entry [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%2368883 Μουσείον] at Liddell & Scott</ref>
Unlike the modern museum in the sense that has developed since the Renaissance, the Mouseion of Alexandria did not have a collection of sculpture and painting presented as works of art, as was assembled by the Ptolemies' rival Attalus at the Library of Pergamum.<ref>The Ptolemaic dynasty displayed these in their palace nearby.</ref> Instead, it was an institution of learning that attracted some of the best scholars of the Hellenistic world, as Germain Bazin puts it, "analogous to the modern Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton or to the Collège de France in Paris."<ref>Bazin, ''The Museum Age'' 1967: 16.</ref>
It is uncertain how many scholars lived in the Mouseion at any given time, as surviving reports are few and rather brief.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":5">{{Cite journal|last=Berti|first=M.|date=2016|title=Greek and Roman Libraries in the Hellenistic Age|url=https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004305069/B9789004305069_005.xml|journal=The Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran and the Concept of a Library|language=en|pages=31–54|doi=10.1163/9789004305069_005|isbn=9789004305069|url-access=subscription}}</ref> Nonetheless, it appears that scholars and staff members were salaried by the State and paid no taxes. According to Strabo, they also received free room and board, and free servants.<ref name=":0" />
Based on extant works of scholars associated with the Mouseion, it seems likely that literary criticism and other similar activities took place there.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":4">{{Cite journal|last=Jochum|first=U.|date=1999|title=The Alexandrian Library and its Aftermath|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1179/lib.1999.15.1.5|journal=Library History|volume=15|issue=1|pages=5–12|doi=10.1179/lib.1999.15.1.5|issn=0024-2306|url-access=subscription}}</ref> In addition to Greek works, some foreign texts were translated from Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian, Jewish, and other languages.<ref name="DW">{{Cite web|title=Mouseion|url=http://www.dailywriting.net/Mouseion.htm|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721210105/http://www.dailywriting.net/Mouseion.htm|archive-date=2011-07-21|access-date=2018-03-18|website=www.dailywriting.net}}</ref><ref name=":7" /> Many of the edited versions of the Greek canon that we know today, from Homer and Hesiod forward, exist in editions that were collated and corrected by scholars presumably affiliated with the Mouseion and the Library of Alexandria.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":4" />
===Appearance=== thumb|A map of Alexandria at the time of the Ptolemies.|upright=1.1 In the first century AD, the Greek geographer Strabo described the Mouseion as part of a bigger, richly decorated campus of buildings and gardens:<ref name=":4" />
<blockquote>The ''Mouseion'' is also part of the ''Brucheion'' (palace complex), possessing a ''peripatos'' (lobby), an ''exedra'' (columned hall), and large ''oikos'' (dining hall), in which the common table of the ''philologoi'', men who are members of the ''Mouseion'', is located. This ''synodos'' (assembly) has property in common and a priest in charge of the ''Mouseion'', formerly appointed by the kings, but now by Caesar.<ref>Strabo, ''Geography'' 17.1.8, noted by Bagnall 2002: 57 note 39.</ref></blockquote>
According to this description, the Mouseion featured a roofed walkway, an arcade of seats, and a communal dining room where scholars routinely ate and shared ideas.<ref name="DW" /> The building may have also hosted private study rooms, residential quarters, and lecture halls, based on similar structures that were built much later in Alexandria.<ref>Majcherek, G. (2018). 'Crumbs from the table'-archeological remains of Hellenistic Alexandria. In C. S. Zerefos & M. V. Vardinoyannis (Eds.), ''Hellenistic Alexandria'' (pp. 71–85). Archaeopress.</ref><ref name=":6">{{Cite journal|last1=Bagnall|first1=R. S.|last2=Davoli|first2=P.|date=2011|title=Archaeological Work on Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, 2000–2009|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3764/aja.115.1.0103|journal=American Journal of Archaeology|volume=115|issue=1|pages=103–157|doi=10.3764/aja.115.1.0103|jstor=10.3764/aja.115.1.0103|s2cid=194126728|issn=0002-9114|url-access=subscription}}</ref> However, it is unclear if the premises provided accommodations for anatomical research or astronomical observations.<ref name=":7" /><ref>{{Cite book|last=von Staden|first=H.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rGhlIfJZkVoC&dq=anatomical+research+Mouseion+ancient&pg=PR11|title=Herophilus: The Art of Medicine in Early Alexandria: Edition, Translation and Essays|date=1989|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-23646-1|language=en}}</ref> At a later date another smaller library was housed in the nearby Serapeum (Temple of Serapis), which may have been open to people other than Mouseion scholars.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":5" />
===Decline=== {{See also|Serapeum of Alexandria}} During the reign of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II, at a time of territorial losses and political turmoil in Egypt, most intellectuals were either killed or expelled from the city, including the last recorded head librarian of the Library of Alexandria, Aristarchus of Samothrace, who supposedly was forced to resign his position in 145 BC and died in exile a few years later.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":7">{{Cite journal|last=Chapman|first=P. H.|date=2001|title=The Alexandrian Library: crucible of a renaissance|journal=Neurosurgery|volume=49|issue=1|pages=1–14|doi=10.1097/00006123-200107000-00001|issn=0148-396X|pmid=11440429}}</ref> Johannes Tzetzes and other Byzantine sources do not mention any further directors after him,<ref>Daniel Heller-Roazen, "Tradition's Destruction: On the Library of Alexandria" ''October'', '''100''', Obsolescence (Spring 2002: 133–1530 esp. p. 140.</ref> albeit four obscure 'caretakers' are mentioned in an Oxyrhynchus fragment,<ref>Fraser, P. M. (1972). ''Ptolemaic Alexandria'' (Vol. 1), p. 333. Oxford.</ref> and an inscription from the 80s BC speaks of a certain Onesander of Paphos being appointed to the Library.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hatzimichali|first=M.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3QRaAQAAQBAJ|title=Ancient Libraries|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2013|isbn=978-1-107-01256-1|editor-last=König|editor-first=J.|pages=173|language=en|editor-last2=Oikonomopoulou|editor-first2=A.|editor-last3=Oikonomopoulou|editor-first3=K.|editor-last4=Woolf|editor-first4=G.}}</ref> There are reports that, during the Siege of Alexandria in 47 BC, parts of the library collection caught fire and were destroyed.<ref>Nesselrath, H. G. (2012). [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Heinz-Guenther-Nesselrath/publication/327651888_Did_it_burn_or_not_Caesar_and_the_Great_Library_of_Alexandria_a_new_look_at_the_sources_in_I_Volt_Janika_Pall_Hgg_Quattuor_Lustra_Papers_celebrating_the_20th_anniversary_of_the_re-establishment_of_cla/links/5b9bb19c299bf13e602edb11/Did-it-burn-or-not-Caesar-and-the-Great-Library-of-Alexandria-a-new-look-at-the-sources-in-I-Volt-Janika-Paell-Hgg-Quattuor-Lustra-Papers-celebrating-the-20th-anniversary-of-the-re-establishment-o.pdf Did it burn or not? Caesar and the Great Library of Alexandria: a new look at the sources]. In I. Volt & J. Päll (Eds.)'', Quattuor Lustra: Papers celebrating the 20th anniversary of the re-establishment of classical studies at the University of Tartu'' (pp. 56–74). Tartu.</ref>
Despite the fact that the Mouseion continued as an institution under Roman rule, it never regained its former glory.<ref name=":5" /> Membership of the Mouseion was not limited to prominent scholars under the Roman emperors but included politicians, athletes, and other people rewarded for their support to the state.<ref name="watts148">Edward Jay Watts, (2008), ''City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria'', page 148. University of California Press</ref> Emperor Claudius added an additional building in the first century AD,<ref>Suetonius, ''Claudius'', 42</ref><ref name="watts147">Edward Jay Watts, (2008), ''City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria'', p. 147. University of California Press</ref> and much later the emperor Caracalla temporarily suspended Mouseion membership in 216 AD.<ref name="Butler">{{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Alfred J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O3-yWUIs7TkC |title=The Arab Conquest of Egypt – And the Last Thirty Years of the Roman Dominion. |date=November 2008 |publisher=Read Books |isbn=978-1-4437-2783-9 |page=411 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="watts147" />
===Destruction=== The last known references to the old Mouseion still functioning occur in the 260s AD.<ref name="watts150">Edward Jay Watts, (2008), ''City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria'', p. 150. University of California Press</ref> The Brucheion, the complex of palaces and gardens that included the Mouseion, was probably destroyed by fire on the orders of Emperor Aurelian in 272 AD, although it is not known with certainty how much of the original buildings existed at the time.<ref name=":6" /> Scattered references in later sources suggest that another comparable institution was established in the 4th century at a different location, but little is known about its organisation and it is unlikely to have had the resources of its predecessor.<ref name="watts150"/> The mathematician Theon of Alexandria (ca. 335 – ca. 405), father of the philosopher Hypatia, is described in the 10th century ''Suda'' as "the man from the Mouseion," but it is not clear what connection he actually had with it. Zacharias Rhetor and Aeneas of Gaza both speak of a physical space known as the "Mouseion" in the late 5th century.<ref name="watts150"/>
==Legacy== [[File:Ptoleme2 Vincenzo Camuccini 1813.jpg|thumb|''Ptolemy Philadelphus in the Library of Alexandria'' by Vincenzo Camuccini (1813).|upright]] The Ptolemies founded the original Mouseion at a time of transition in Greek history, during the passage from a predominantly oral to a more literary culture. The scholars gathered there included:<ref name=":2" />
* Callimachus, a poet and the first to publish a comprehensive book catalogue (the ''Pinakes''). * Zenodotos, the first head librarian of the Library of Alexandria, who laid the foundations for Homeric philology. * Apollonius of Rhodes, epic poet and author of the ground-breaking ''Argonautica.'' * Eratosthenes of Cyrene, head librarian under Ptolemy III Euergetes and a polymath, who worked on literary criticism, philosophy, geography, and mathematics (e.g., his sieve for prime numbers and his measure of the Earth's circumference). * Aristarchus of Samothrace, arguably the greatest grammarian of antiquity, who invented conventional signs nowadays used in critical editions. * Didymos of Alexandria, known as βιβλιολάθας ("Book-Forgetting"), who reportedly composed more than 4,000 commentaries on classical authors.
The members of the Mouseion ensured the preservation and production of historical, literary, and scientific works, which would remain part of the Western heritage for centuries, and thanks to their efforts today one can still read Homer and the tragedians.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" />
As an institution dedicated to the Muses, the word ''mouseion'' became the source for the modern word ''museum''.<ref name=":1" /> In early modern France, it denoted as much a community of scholars brought together under one roof as it did the collections themselves. French and English writers often referred to these collections originally as a "cabinet of curiosities." A catalogue of the 17th century collection of John Tradescant the Elder and his son John Tradescant the Younger was the founding core of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. It was published as ''Musaeum Tradescantianum: or, a Collection of Rarities. Preserved at South-Lambeth near London by John Tradescant'' (1656).
==References== {{Reflist|30em}}
==Further reading== *MacLeod, Roy M., ''The Library of Alexandria: Centre of learning in the ancient world,'' 2000. *El-Abbadi, Mostafa, ''The life and fate of the ancient library of Alexandria,'' 1990. *Canfora, Luciano, ''The Vanished Library: A Wonder of the Ancient World,'' 1987. *Lee, Paula Young, "The Musaeum of Alexandria and the formation of the 'Museum' in eighteenth-century France," in ''The Art Bulletin,'' September 1997. * {{cite book |last=Hartmann |first=Udo |date=2018 |lang=de |title=Der spätantike Philosoph. Die Lebenswelten der paganen Gelehrten und ihre hagiographische Ausgestaltung in den Philosophenviten von Porphyrios bis Damaskios |trans-title=The late antique philosopher. The lifeworlds of pagan scholars and their hagiographic treatment in the philosophical vitae from Porphyrius to Damascius |publisher=Habelt | location=Bonn |isbn=978-3-7749-4172-4 |pages=602–623}} {{Muses}}{{Ptolemaic Kingdom}} {{Authority control}}
Category:3rd-century BC establishments in Egypt Category:Buildings and structures completed in the 3rd century BC Category:3rd-century disestablishments in Egypt Category:Buildings and structures demolished in the 3rd century Category:270s disestablishments in the Roman Empire Category:Ptolemaic Alexandria Category:Defunct museums in Egypt Category:Former buildings and structures in Egypt Category:History museums in Egypt Category:Museology * Category:Types of museums Category:Museums in Alexandria Category:Library of Alexandria Category:Aurelian Category:Burned buildings and structures in Egypt Category:History of museums Category:Ptolemy I Soter