Early Ptolemaic Alexandria was unequivocally a time and a place of change between equilibrium states - between what we call the Classical period and what we call the Hellenistic Period. This was something that it shared with many other places in Alexander the Great’s empire. Alexandria’s efflorescence as a center of science and technology was spectacular. Less often recognized, it was also short, as is usual with flowerings; it was essentially confined to the reign of the first three Ptolemies (323-221 Bc), I Soter, II Philadelphos, and III Euergetes. More or less directly as a result of the first three Ptolemies’ prodigious expenditure over a century, Alexandria bursts onto the pages of the history of science books, like Athene from the head of Zeus. Thereafter Ptolemaic interest and patronage turned more towards the arts and literature than science, and what used to be thought ‘‘bastard offspring’’ (Fraser 1: 434) such as astrology and alchemy grew from their ‘‘scientific’’ parents, astronomy and physics. The efflorescence that occurs in Ptolemaic Alexandria is, therefore, located during the change between equilibrium states; between the Classical period (c.500-300 bc), which includes the lifetime of Alexander himself, and what we could call the mature Hellenistic period (c.200-100 bc). In the economic domain the issue to be addressed is that of the relative integration or superimposition of Graeco-Macedonian institutions on old Egyptian production methods and social organization (Bingen 2007 Part III; Manning 2007), but in the intellectual domain it is not clear that the two cultures even met enough to matter. Bingen identified ‘‘the most evident feature in the relations between these two coexisting communities’’ as ‘‘a marked reciprocal opaqueness, which sometimes goes as far as rejection of the ‘other’ ’’ (2007: 243). Ptolemaic Alexandria appears to have been rather insulated from the rest of Egypt, ‘‘a nearby but foreign world’’ within Egypt (Bingen 2007: 279), and most Greeks and Egyptians seem to have made no more than their usual (i. e. dismal) effort to learn each other’s languages. This was not helped by the fact that both cultures had a marked sense of cultural superiority. Of course one can find some influences, generally superficial, crossing over from one culture to another, especially in what Bingen calls the ‘‘zones of possible osmosis,’’ such as the army and the women’s quarters (2007: 245), but they remain exactly that - two cultures - and almost everywhere one looks in the scientific and technological domain Greek thinking seems to have made as little impact on Egyptian as Egyptian thinking had on Greek.
We have to begin our exploration with the Library. It has been noted that neither democratic Athens nor Republican Rome created public libraries, and that these were, in the ancient world, associated with powerful individuals (Barnes 2004: 76). Barnes and others have pointed to the cultural pretensions of Alexander’s Successors as the driving force behind the creation of the Library at Alexandria; I would add their political and financial unaccountability. In less autocratic regimes other demands on the public purse tended to take priority over an activity that the majority might then have considered to be of dubious interest and utility for grown-ups. At all events, I disagree with those like Measson (1994: 32), Huss (2001: 236), and Casson (2001: 33) who seem to think of the Ptolemies’ activities as akin to the creation of, say, the Smithsonian or Rockefeller Institutes, the British Museum or British Library. The most important fact to hold on to amid all the obscurities and controversies regarding them is that the Museum at Alexandria, the Library at Alexandria, and the “Zoo’’ at Alexandria were all part of the Ptolemies’ private property. They were located in the palace complex, the Library at least was connected with the education of the royal family, they were adornments demonstrating Ptolemaic good taste, impressive reach, and deep pockets (they might almost be considered as urban bling), and they were probably as inaccessible as all that implies to the relative handful of Alexandrian townsfolk, passing intellectuals, or native Egyptians who might have had a desire to use them. These institutions were not set up as research institutes, or higher educational foundations, or public benefactions. They were created by and for the Ptolemies, new Hellenistic rulers sitting atop a new spear-won kingdom in a very old land with a phenomenally impressive set of monuments and plenty of hoary tradition. The likely physical scale of these institutions should also be registered from the start: “the House of the Faun at Pompeii is larger than any known Hellenistic ruler’s palace’’ (Howe in Rowland and Howe 1999: 256).
The Ptolemies’ interests, and their staff’s experiments, sometimes did and sometimes did not coincide with what we would call scientific or technological investigation. The development of novel or amusing items was clearly on the agenda in Alexandria. For example, the description of Ptolemy II’s great procession (his pompe) reveals that a variety of wild animals had been broken and trained to harness and chariot: this included elephants, goats, antelopes, oryxes, hartebeest, ostriches, wild asses, and camels. One assumes that the Ptolemies’ animal keepers, together with local chariot makers and charioteers, all worked together for quite some time to achieve such novelties, and that the crowd was suitably impressed by that part of the parade as it passed. Whilst the “wow’’ factor was clearly achieved, some scientific understanding or technological progress may also have been intended for, or resulted from, this programme of experimentation - a faster chariot would have obvious military benefits - and it puts a rather different complexion on the old yarn about horse-harnessing in antiquity (which issue was constructed on a tiny evidential base). Obviously people could and did design very different types of harness to utilize these different animals’ physiques and strengths in the service of men.
A connection between science, technology, and entertainment also exists in the justifiably famous automata - literally, self-acting devices - that were created at this time, such as dancing figures, drinking birds, and wine-dispensers in which the quantity of wine seemed never to diminish, no matter how many times people refilled their cups from it. Everyone agrees that many of these devices astonished the viewer, and surviving ancient texts indicate that they were so designed, but modern academics typically attribute to their inventors an intent to illustrate physical and mechanical properties (even Wikander, even while questioning it, in an excellent paper that demolishes many other modern myths about ancient high-tech devices, 2008: 789-90). However, if that was the case, then why were the workings so carefully hidden? These devices were designed to conceal not to reveal how they worked, to maximize the astonishment, not the understanding. The reader thinking of building Philon’s automatic theatre, for example, is told explicitly that they should make the column on which it stands smaller than could possibly conceal anybody, so that the audience will know that what they witness could not be caused by a person, however small, hiding inside the device. The aim was to astonish, to entertain, and to impress. Incidentally, these devices were not always small; the statue of Nysa in Ptolemy’s pompe that stood up, poured a libation, and sat down again, was 8 cubits (about 4m) high when seated, and surely generated the ‘‘wow factor’’ that the organizers of the pompe sought (description inAthenaeus 5.198f; Lewis 1997 explains how it might have worked).
The invention of the lighthouse was clearly pragmatic; goods that constituted home comforts for the newly established residents had to come in by sea, since the only alternative route from Macedon and Greece was by very long march through often hostile territory culminating in a significant desert crossing from Gaza. Maritime traffic in this area had been discouraged hitherto (Strabo 17.1.6 [C792]), and the only sea route in the area that would have been familiar to sailors already plying these waters was that to Naukratis in the Delta, via the Canopic branch of the Nile, some 150 stadia (about 8 miles) to the east. They, together with any merchants sailing these waters for the first time, needed a target to steer towards, which was what ancient lighthouses provided, in contrast to modern lighthouses, which signal areas to avoid. ‘‘Since the coast was harborless and low on either side, and also had reefs and shallows, those who were sailing from the open sea thither needed some lofty and conspicuous sign to enable them to direct their course aright to the entrance of the harbor,’’ is how Strabo explains its function (17.1.6 [C791], Jones trans.). So the building of a lighthouse on or near Pharos island was an infrastructural invention of critical importance to the growth of the new city and was an idea copied by the Romans and others to mark out, physically and symbolically, favored harbors such as Portus at the mouth of the Tiber. Like most infrastructural developments, they cost a lot to build (800 talents for Pharos, Pliny NH 6.18, = c.21,000 kg of silver, Grimm 1998:43), and Pharos joined the prestige projects just then being listed as Wonders of the World; for it was ‘‘the greatest and most beautiful work of all’’ (Lucian How to write History 62). But unlike most such projects, lighthouses also required heavy ongoing costs to function properly, through the nightly supply of fuel to the fire which provided the light, and the associated labor (which was presumably the ‘‘few seamen’’ who lived on the island near the tower in Strabo’s time (17.1.6 [C792]). It is to me inconceivable that the business of lifting fuel 100 m or more from the base of the Pharos to the fire was not mechanized, even if there is no evidence, for or against, on the issue. Meanwhile, out in the countryside around Alexandria, experimentation was going on with new crops and new methods in the newly reclaimed land of the Fayum (Orrieux 1983: 77-9). Land supply there was perhaps trebled through this massive project. It was probably achieved by restricting at Lahun the quantity of water entering the Fayum and digging additional new canals, thereby reducing the size of Lake Moeris and reclaiming land around its margin.
Founded only a few years earlier by Alexander, Alexandria was, under the Ptolemies, simultaneously capital city, imperial naval base, and sole entrepiot for all maritime trade in and out of Egypt (Davies 2006: 82). Current best guess is that the population grew rapidly from next to nothing to perhaps about 300,000 around 200 BC, where it reached a plateau until Roman times, whereupon it grew again by perhaps as much as a third (Scheidel 2004). It was also a cultural fortress for the conquering forces. Ptolemy and his heirs, it has been astutely observed, used culture as a diplomatic weapon, aiming to outdo, in the production and preservation of skills and knowledge, both the others of Alexander’s successors, and the old established centers like Athens (Adams 2006: 41), but what exactly did this involve? Ptolemy Soter’s interest in, and approach to, matters intellectual is summarized and immortalized in the famous anecdote that he wanted a fast track to geometrical understanding; Euclid famously replied that there was ‘‘no Royal Road to geometry’’ (Proclus, Comm. Euclid Book 1, 68). Ptolemy Il’s chief role was in growing the library, by hook or by crook. Ptolemy Ill’s involvement seems more passive: he was, for example, the recipient of the world’s then-biggest ship, sent to him by Hieron of Syracuse. (The role of Archimedes in the design, construction, and oversight of this ship, the Syrakosia, including the relevance of his treatises On the Equilibrium of Planes, On the Quadrature of the Parabola, On the Method, and, of course, On Floating Bodies, is the subject of Pomey and Tchernia 2006.)
After Ptolemy III the Macedonian Pharaohs’ support for discovery and invention in science and technology was on a downward trend, as was their empire (probably not coincidentally). Ptolemy IV Philopator (221-204) felt able to hold his own with the philosophers who visited his court and even scored points against them sufficient to enter popular folklore and get into the history books (Diogenes Laertios 7.177), and Philon was drawn to visit Alexandria and talk with its catapult builders sometime around the end of his reign. Ptolemy V was a child Pharaoh, however. The lowest point intellectually was perhaps after Ptolemy VIII’s accession in the mid-second century when a military officer was appointed Librarian (one Kydas). Nevertheless, Alexandria’s by now established reputation as a center for these studies seems to have served to draw successive generations of students to this city (amongst others such as Athens, Antioch, and Pergamon), and that, in turn, became self-sustaining. So, for example, in the early second century bc Apollonios of Perge, famous for his work On Conics, died in Alexandria, though he was not born or raised there. Alexandria’s reputation was still strong in the late Republic, when Caesar commissioned one Sosigenes from the city to revise the calendar and bring Roman time to order. Even as late as the middle of the second century ad people like Galen of Pergamon were still being drawn to this city, as well as others, to further their studies. Though Galen found the standard of theoretical and practical medicine at Alexandria significantly lower than he had expected (and had found elsewhere in years previous), he also found here a medical tradition that included some figures he respected, notably Andreas, the only one of Herophilos’ pupils who established a medical reputation in his own right (von Staden 2004). The different cultural centers in different regions of the ancient Mediterranean seem to have preserved and promoted their own traditions, or brands, of medicine or Homeric scholarship (Finkelberg 2006) or whatever, so someone seeking an education in more than one intellectual camp had physically to travel to consult written works and teachers of a different stamp. The Alexandrian tradition and the Antiochean tradition more or less survived the Roman acquisition of their political territories, whilst the Macedonian (centered on Pella) and the Attalid (centered on Pergamon) were dissipated when their libraries were taken to Rome and Alexandria (in 168 bc and about 41 bc respectively), where they formed the basis of new private collections - first those of great generals (Aemilius Paullus and Mark Antony respectively), which became in due course those of emperors. The libraries’ owners changed, but their (in)accessibility was probably not much changed from before, when they were owned by Hellenistic kings. Ultimately, the school of Antioch was more successful than that of Alexandria, for Constantinople, where most of our texts found refuge from the decay of time, was in Antioch’s sphere, not Alexandria’s. Alexandrian scholars’ efforts on literary and biblical texts were not, by and large, noticed in the texts that survive to us (Finkelberg 2006 passim, esp. 233).
Thus, it would appear that ambitious scientists and technicians passed through Alexandria in the tracks of the few intellectual giants who flourished here in the third century. (Vitruvius may have passed through accidentally, so to speak, when he served on campaign with Caesar in 46; his role in transmitting Alexandrian knowledge to Rome is discussed in Fleury 1998), but we know of no great medics with an Alexandrian ethnic, and almost no works of medicine written by or about an Alexandrian survived the test of time to us. There is no need to assume with Fraser (1: 370) that scientists and healers were routinely offered Alexandrian citizenship and chose to decline it, an assumption that he himself appears not to make when he observes that ‘‘the lack of temptation to scholars and scientists from the Greek world to settle in Alexandria’’ (1: 422) was one of the chief causes contributing to Alexandria’s intellectual decline. The intelligentsia associated with Alexandria mostly came to it from elsewhere; they were not home grown, and most of them were transient. Of our exemplars of the golden age of Greek science at the start of this chapter, Euclid, Archimedes, Eratosthenes, Apollonios, and Herophilos, Euclid’s ethnic is unknown (the evidence is such that he used to be confused with a Euclid of Megara), Archimedes was from Syracuse, Eratosthenes was from Kyrene, Apollonios was from Perge, and Herophilos was from Khalkedon. Even Ktesibios, widely known as the son of an Alexandrian barber (Vitruvius 9.8.2), and the sole known torchbearer for Ptolemaic Alexandrian mechanics, apparently had an ethnic suggesting the family were foreigners, resident aliens (though from where exactly is unexplained): ‘‘Ktesibios the Askrenian (or Askranian, the MSS are corrupt here), the mechanic in Alexandria’’ (Athenaios Mekhanikos 29.9).
Given that in Ktesibios’ time Alexandria was a new foundation, and it was growing rapidly, this should not be surprising; most of its population would have been immigrants. Moreover, the visiting intelligentsia were mostly from Ptolemaic-dominated territories: Fraser goes so far as to hazard the generalization that ‘‘the intellectual achievement of Ptolemaic Alexandria was based on [persons originating from the Ptolemaic empire and associated regions]... Once Egypt lost her overseas empire, her intellectual pre-eminence in almost all fields was lost, and the new intelligentsia of the Alexandrian citizen-body never provided a comparable substitute’’ (Fraser 1: 307-8). Perge, for example, the hometown of one of the greatest ancient mathematicians, Apollonios, was a Ptolemaic possession when he went up to his capital to study and work (and, as it happened, die). Note that when he wrote his Conics, he sent it by letter to people who were not in Alexandria, and whom he had met elsewhere than Alexandria (Fraser 1: 417-8). It might be argued that this epistolary activity is not evidence of local want of talent; for he would not have needed to put his discoveries into a letter to someone in Alexandria (he could simply have told them orally), but it goes deeper than that. Letters were a regular method of ‘‘publication’’ in the mathematical field, and the choice of recipient was not random. Probably the most famous exemplars of this phenomenon, Archimedes’ treatises, were published as letters to Eratosthenes, Konon, and Dositheos, all renowned mathematicians in their own right (and none living where Archimedes did, in Syracuse). Konon is another example of an imperial subject who visited Alexandria rather than being a product of a local Alexandrian education or tradition; like Pythagoras, he was a Samian, and Samos was in his time under the control of the Ptolemies. Dositheos’ ethnic is a garrison town in the delta (Pelousion), but he was taught by Konon, so either Dositheos’ family moved from Samos after his tuition there by Konon, or he attended Konon when Konon was in Egypt. Samos, not Alexandria, was also the home of Aristarkhos, who developed heliocentric theory around the 280s bc and thereby earned the modern accolade of the Copernicus of antiquity, and though he failed to persuade most astronomers of the time, Archimedes knew his work well enough to use it in his Sand-Reckoner.
It seems then that intellectuals were not recruited as employees of the court at Alexandria. In its intellectual heyday, most of those of whom we know appear rather to have been subjects going up to their imperial capital in order to find fame and fortune, as Dinokrates went in pursuit of his king Alexander and was rewarded with the commission to lay out Alexandria (Vitruvius 2 pref. 1-4). When Ptolemaic patronage for those interested in scientific and technological work declined, such people went elsewhere instead. Meanwhile those who populated the Museum in later times were called philologoi by Strabo (17.1.8), that is, philologists, and that is exactly what they appear to have been; literary scholars (Homeric above all), poets, and philologists in the modern sense. They dined together, shared the Museum, and held property in common (khremata koina) - which again does not require that they were employees, note, but rather gives the impression of a learned society. Even this may be an inflationary description; temples of the Muses are elsewhere glossed as schoolrooms (as e. g. by Finkelberg 245 n. 33; compare the Academy, Lykeion, Stoa and Garden in Athens, Rihll 2003). As befits a temple of the Muses, the man in charge was a priest (hiereus), who sometimes doubled as royal tutor, and who was appointed formerly by the Ptolemies and in Strabo’s own time by the emperor, much as the priest of any major cult was usually an appointee of the dominant political body or figure in the state.
Fraser suggested that ‘‘those patronized expected a material reward from their patron, and it appears that payment was in fact carefully organized’’ (1: 310).
Now the first statement is banal, and the second, which is not, is based on what Fraser himself describes as ‘‘a silly story’’ concerning the grammarian Sosibios preserved by Athenaios (493e-494a, at the end of a long and tortuous discussion of Nestor’s cup, which begins at 487f). No-one would dispute that patronage involved payment or other material reward; the issue here is on what basis was patronage dispensed. Any well-run treasury or financial official wishing to keep his post (or under some rulers, his head) would keep a list of payments to individuals, which is what the source says happened in the Sosibios story, but Fraser turns this into a list of ‘‘royal pensions,’’ which implies a very different scenario of regular payment from king to employee. The differences in scenario hide in the difference between ‘‘if ever’’ Sosibios came to demand money, which is what the Greek says, and ‘‘whenever’’ he came to ask for his stipend ( can not hotan 493f, which is how it is translated in the Loeb). The Vitruvius story that Fraser goes on to discuss (7 praef. 8), which is his second case for the existence of royal pensions-type patronage, opens explicitly with the observation that the claimant, a Homeric scholar called Zoilos, tried - and failed - to make a living privately in Alexandria, before throwing himself on the king’s charity. Fraser himself surmises that this was ‘‘no doubt simply begging’’ (2.465 n.34). The Sosibios episode could be construed in much the same way. The third and last case concerns one Panasepis, ‘‘an obscure pupil of Arkesilaos,’’ as preserved in a fragment of an equally obscure author, one Polemon of Ilion, which says that this otherwise unknown philosopher (too obscure for inclusion in Diogenes Laertios’ ten-volume Lives of the Philosophers) received a phenomenal 12 talents per annum (!) from Ptolemy Euergetes (Fraser 1: 310). On those three dubious cases is based the generalization that there was such a thing as a royal pension, and Fraser moves on to wonder who was in receipt of it, before acknowledging that ‘‘royal patronage of individuals in Alexandria was essentially a phenomenon of the third century’’ (1: 312).
Ptolemaic patronage did not, I think, work that way. Public performance at one of the old and new festivals was the principal occasion for entertainers, and Theokritos, singing particularly of the Dionysia, claimed that anyone who sang was rewarded by Ptolemy as his art deserved (Idyll 17). The evidence suggests that the vast majority of the intelligent individuals who lived and worked in Alexandria were not employees of the court, even in its early heyday, and even despite the fact that the conquerors inherited a functioning system of court employment of artisans and technologists (Rostovtzeff 1: 300-1; Lewis 1986). As Cuomo rightly points out (2008: 20) ‘‘the practical necessities of ruling states. . . called for experts in land-surveying, water-supply, architecture (including fortifications), navigation, and military enginebuilding,’’ but no known scientist was a member of the Mouseion, not even the most famous of them. Straton of Lampsakos, for example, who went to Alexandria from Athens, went expressly to tutor the royal children (Isaac Newton took a similar post in a later age and different place, leading to the production of one of his lesser-known works, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended). There is, incidentally, no suggestion that he was employed in any other capacity, including that of Librarian, with which the Tutor post is sometimes supposed to have been connected (e. g. by Finkelberg, who ignores Straton amongst others, 2006: 232 n.2), and in due course he went back to Athens, where he became scholarch of the Lykeion after Theophrastos’ death.
For the ‘‘ordinary’’ recipient of Ptolemaic monies I think patronage was much more ad hoc. Consider the following example. Vitruvius refers to the celebration of Mouseia at the Alexandrian Mouseion (the connection between festival and shrine is lost in the Latinized form of the institution, Museum) (7. pr. 4-7). He claims Ptolemy-he does not say which one - founded competitions with prizes not just for athletes but also for writers, in order to increase the prestige of the library. There is nothing inherently implausible about the story, though some details are likely or certainly muddled or fictitious (Fraser 1970), but the only person who acquired employment in this story - the post of Librarian (which is the only post known to have existed besides that of royal tutor, with which it was sometimes amalgamated), and that given by the king as a spontaneous reward for his actions - was the judge - the only one of the judges - who spotted that most competitors were plagiarising earlier works. That judge (unlike the other judges) evidently already knew the Library and its contents well, and may even have worked there already, presumably in a lower capacity (Vitruvius 7. pr. 7). The library at Pergamon, which survives, unlike Alexandria’s, albeit in ruins, has what appear to be three bedrooms for the librarian and his staff (or his family?), and a dining room large enough for sixteen (Stewart 2006: 167). To take another and even more telling example, there is no evidence that Herophilos and Erasistratos, the most infamous of the Hellenistic anatomists, worked at the Museum; in the latter case, there is no evidence even that he was present in Alexandria. The only explicit connection between these men and the Ptolemies is the story that they received death-row prisoners for vivisection from ‘‘the kings’’ (Celsus 1 pr. 23-5; those not familiar with this episode in ancient history and wanting to know more should consult von Staden 1989, who also discusses the interrelationships between Ptolemaic and Pharaonic medicine thoroughly on pp. 3-31). And it is not just scientists and medics who are concerned; as Cameron pointed out, ‘‘there is not a scrap of evidence that any Hellenistic poet literally wrote in or for a library’’ (1995: 30). We must beware imprecision and anachronism here.
Being given material to work on, or being employed to undertake that work, is not the same thing as being employed in the modern sense, and the former does not imply, still less require, the latter. The normal Graeco-Roman pattern of patronage at this time in the technological domain was for the patron to commission the artisan, supply the materials if they were valuable, and to pay the artisan for his labor on the item, which he carried out in his own premises in his own time. This sort of arrangement underlies what is possibly the most famous fraud in history: a patron supplied a goldsmith with a given weight of gold, and in due course the goldsmith delivered to the patron a crown of the same weight, but subsequently an allegation was made that the goldsmith had substituted another metal for some of the gold, so the patron asked Archimedes to investigate. Like the goldsmith, Archimedes carried on the investigation in his own home, and, famously, in the bath, where, observing the water rising as his body descended into the hipbath, he spotted a possible solution to the problem and apparently then jumped out of the bath and ran through the streets naked shouting ‘‘Heureka, heureka’ ‘‘I found it, I found it!’’ The results were, ultimately, Archimedes’ discovery of specific gravity, and the prosecution of the goldsmith.
So too ancient doctors (with the exception of Roman military doctors serving with the legions) worked in or from their own homes. Medicine, like mechanics, was then classed as a techne, ‘‘craft’’ (see Cuomo 2007: 7-40), like carpentry or metalworking. That this applied to the great Herophilos too is demonstrated by the references to pupils of his as those who came ‘‘from the house of Herophilos.’’ The normal pattern for trainee doctors at this time was to learn their craft in the presence and under the instruction of a skilled practitioner - in a pseudo-familial relationship if they swore the Hippocratic Oath or something similar. That they would join his household seems the most natural thing in the circumstances (so Fraser 1: 358), and there is surviving a contract from Egypt in the reign of Ptolemy IV specifying exactly such an arrangement (Fraser 1: 374). Alexandria had schools, just like any other city worthy of the name, but they were private, just like in (almost) any other city. According to Strabo, writing in about 20 bc, Alexandria, Athens, and everywhere else had been surpassed on the educational front by Tarsos, but that place was unusual in that most of the producers and consumers of education there were natives (and although they went abroad to complete their education, they returned to Tarsos). In contrast, many foreigners went to Alexandria to study, and not a few Alexandrians went abroad (and the implication of the contrast is that they stayed abroad; 14.5.13, C674).
If the project was not the detection of a small fraud on a small object, but a major public project such as the defence of a city, or the building and arming of a superfreighter, then the procedure was similar to building a temple. An Archimedes, for example, simply would not have the financial resources to buy, transport, and work enough timber of the right size and quality for counter-siege devices that could repel the Roman army. Very few private citizens had resources of this order in the Hellenistic world, and euergetism is generally the province of the politically ambitious or successful. Enough documents relating to such projects survive for us to understand the modus operandi; those from Athens and Epidauros are well known. Requirements were, in brief, a plan, a variety of different materials with their associated variety of different craftspeople, a number of supervisors - both of the public monies being spent on the project and the products that they bought, and a technically competent superintendent. When labor was employed directly by the building commissioners, as in classical Athens, only the leader of the builders (the literal meaning of‘‘architect’’) was on annual contract rather than piece work, and he was paid once a year. In Hellenistic Epidauros most of the work was subcontracted by a process of competitive tendering, every contract needed a guarantor, and payment was often made in instalments.
It would be natural for someone who invented something in this environment to assume that the same sort of modus operandi that was employed for everyday technologies (and which, as craftsmen and service providers they probably instantiated in their normal daily activity) applied in this case too. Therefore they would seek payment from a prospective patron for a good delivered, even if the good had not been sought. This was not a peculiarly Greek phenomenon. ‘‘The Persian kings announce publicly a large sum of money for those who discover some novel pleasure,’’ Theophrastos told Kassandros in the treatise On Kingship that he dedicated to him (Fortenbaugh et al. II: 603). More recently, in 1809 ad to be precise, the British Parliament awarded ?10,000 for services rendered to his country to the man who had contributed most to the development of the power loom (Cartwright; see Lawton II: 1049). The similarly substantial reward offered by the same sovereign body to solve the longitude problem, and how hard Harrison had to work to realize his claim to it, is a story too well known to need rehearsing here.
Consistent with this unpretentious image of Hellenistic Alexandria’s scientific and technological giants is the apparently undistinguished social origins of some of them. Ktesibios, for example, was the son of an Alexandrian barber. Herophilos was ‘‘reared beside the looms,’’ according to Galen (X.27 Kuhn). This could be taken for a common domestic environment wherein the women typically made the household’s textiles, but it may indicate a less common background: ‘‘looms’’ (plural) suggests a workshop and a mother or father (professional weavers were often men) or both making a living as craftspeople. The Aristophanes who became the librarian (c.265-188 Bc) and who (amongst other things) invented the asterisk as a textual notation, was born of a military father who settled in Egypt as a kleruch or member of the garrison (Fraser 1: 308, see also 2: 662 n.97). In this period kleruchs occupied land at the King’s pleasure and whim (Rostovtzeff 1: 286), so dependency was assured. Nevertheless, the self-esteem of the inventor shines through in a wonderful story about Sostratos of Knidos, who built the Pharos, the first lighthouse. He had the reigning king’s (i. e. the patron’s) name inscribed in the plaster - and his own inscribed in the masonry underneath, so that, when time removed the plaster, posterity would know who really deserved the credit for this magnificent monument (Lucian How to write history 62).
Philon reports that the formulae for catapult construction were first discovered by artisans ( tekhnitas) working in Alexandria, and he explains why these men made the breakthrough by saying that they had ample means because they had kings who loved fame and technology (Belopoiika 50.24-6 Th.). He goes on immediately to stress that some discoveries cannot be found by theoretical analysis alone but require systematic empirical trials, as this one did. The point seems to be that systematic empirical trials are expensive and the outcome is uncertain, and, therefore, it required an unusual ambition by patron and craftsmen alike to find out why some catapults worked well and some did not, and thereby discover the key to reliable catapult construction and repeatable results. It is rather ironic, therefore, that he does not preserve either the names of said craftsmen or their kingly patrons! The early Ptolemies certainly had plenty of cash with which to reward those who impressed them; it has been estimated that their annual income in coin alone (that is, ignoring revenue in kind, which was phenomenally impressive in itself) had the purchasing power of at least half a million man years (Manning 2007: 455).
One of the most interesting features of the work going on in the ancient world in general and Ptolemaic Alexandria in particular was its interdisciplinarity, for example, concepts, theories, technical terms, and materials can be seen to have moved between mechanics and medics. Concrete illustrations of this include similarities between the mechanics of Ktesibios’ force pump, on the one hand, and theories on the physiology of the heart, on the other, and the same technical terms being used both of parts of a machine for reducing fractures, and of parts of catapults (von Staden 1998). Or a theory on the generation of winds which was based on the behavior of water when heated in a container with a narrow opening - and which, incidentally, is obviously a predecessor of Heron of Alexandria’s so-called steam engine (Vitruvius 1.6.2). Another notable illustration of disciplinary crossovers is the use of literary genres to communicate scientific discoveries. For example, Kallimachos wrote a poem about the constellation Coma Berenices. This constellation was discovered and named by Konon of Samos (one of Archimedes’ correspondents) to commemorate Queen Berenike’s sacrifice of her hair to the gods in thanks for Ptolemy III Euergetes’ safe return from a military campaign in Syria. Eratosthenes showed his skills in both domains by writing the dedication for his cubic scaling instrument in verse himself, perhaps indirectly responding to Archimedes’ similar bravura: his Cattle Problem was ‘‘published’’ in the form of twenty-two elegiac distichs he put in a letter to Eratosthenes, then in Alexandria as Librarian. Eratosthenes is best known now as a geographer, the ancient who calculated almost exactly the circumference of the earth using nothing more than a little geometry and two measurements (one a distance, the other an angle).
This interdisciplinarity is apparent also in the work of the three great mechanics who are associated with ancient Alexandria: Ktesibios, Philon, and Heron, and we will consider them in turn. Ktesibios, who flourished in early Ptolemaic Alexandria, we have had occasion to mention already. He was a mechanical genius, inventor of the force pump, the water organ, the first feedback-controlled water clock (which set the standard till the fourteenth century ad), catapults powered by compressed air and by springy metal, and amazing automata - and these are just the things we know about over two thousand years later; no doubt there were others of which knowledge has been lost. His towering influence in mechanics is widely recognized by modern scholars, as it was by ancient, but the survival of one of his works is not, because it was included amongst some old mechanical treatises republished by Heron three centuries later, and it is Heron’s name that has become associated with the relevant texts, instead of the original author’s. Thus Ktesibios’ Belopoiika is now known as Heron’s, and Philon’s automatic theatre is now usually called Heron’s too. There are several good reasons why these texts should be reassigned to their proper authors that have been advanced by a number of scholars over a very long time, including Degering, Marsden, Murphy (1995: 3) and most recently Rihll (2007: 141-2). The biggest clue is in the title of one of the manuscripts: Heron’s Ktesibios’ Belopoiika, and everything, even the language itself, points to the same conclusion. Schiefsky, for example, in a close analysis of the technical terminology used by the authors of Belopoiika treatises, and acknowledging in his prefatory discussion that ‘‘Heron’s’’ Belopoiika ‘‘reflects the technological level of a time several centuries before Heron’s own’’ (2005: 261), writes as if this text preceded Philon’s (2005: 262). This would be grossly anachronistic if the author was really Heron, who wrote about 250 years later than Philon. If, on the other hand, the author was really Ktesibios, as its title claims it to be, then the text would have been written some 35-70 years before Philon, so the terminology, as well as the technological level, would have been Ktesibios’, and Schiefsky’s impressions, which appear to have been based only on the language used and not on the supposed date of authorship, would be true to history, and not anachronistic (Ktesibios was probably active about 270 bc and Philon probably about 235-200 bc; Heron recorded an eclipse of 62 ad). Moreover, had Schiefsky included in his analysis the Kheiroballistra, which probably was written by Heron, his results would have been different (see Rihll 2007: 142). Turning to the automatic theatre, Heron introduces the stationary version with the following: ‘‘none [of my predecessors’ writings] are better or more suitable for didactic purposes than those of Philon of Byzantion’’ (Automatopoietikes 20.1), and he goes on to explain why: in his automatic theatre there are many varied scenes telling the story of Nauplios (ironically, this is one of the least well known myths today), which are well managed except for the handling of Athene. Here Heron thinks a hinge at her feet would work less clumsily than a crane. (Having seen a reconstruction which has Athene appearing and disappearing via Heron’s hinged base, I would have to disagree; the goddess appears faintly ridiculous rising backwards from prone position, and even more so when she leaves by apparently falling flat on her face). Heron also complains that Philon forgot to tell the reader how to make the sound of thunder, and so he supplies a scaled down version of the device used in real, full-size, theatres (21. 3-4). He then announces that he is happy with ‘‘all the other things’’ in the Nauplios play ‘‘as explained in order and methodically by Philon,’’ and ends his introduction with the comment that he believes that ‘‘readers receive the greatest benefit. . . when things said well by older authors are presented to them accompanied by comparisons and corrections’’ (21. 5, Murphy trans.). It seems natural to suppose from this (and similar comments in 22.3) that the automatic theatre that follows is Philon’s, with an alternative method of bringing Athene on and off stage, and an additional sound effect of thunder.
Philon, who lived a generation or two later than Ktesibios, traveled to Ptolemaic Alexandria when he was studying the theory and practice of everything to do with mechanics, in general, and siege warfare, in particular. We do not know who taught him, either in his homeland or in Alexandria, and we have no idea how long he stayed, but a number of comments in the Paraskeuastika are particularly appropriate to Ptolemaic territories (use of palm trees, for example) and suggest composition for a Ptolemaic patron. He was from Byzantion (now Istanbul), and spent time in Rhodes as well as Alexandria in his quest for mechanical knowledge and/or employment. He explicitly recognized the role of the Ptolemies in the development of torsion catapults: as ‘‘kings who loved glory and technology’’ they encouraged mechanics and craftsmen, and as a result those working in Alexandria first discovered the formulae that ensured good quality performance from any catapult built according to them; before this discovery catapult performance had been erratic and haphazard (Philon Belopoiika 50.26). It would be naive to suppose that consideration of similar rewards did not play a role in Philon’s decision to go to Alexandria; in other words, I do not think that the noble pursuit of mathematical understanding was the only reason for his visit. He invented the wedge catapult, and his treatise could be seen as an extended sales pitch for it (compare Biton’s, written for King Attalos).
There is then a gap of about 250 years before the birth of the third great mechanician who was associated with Alexandria. Heron was from Roman, not Ptolemaic, Alexandria. He flourished in the 60s ad, about a century after the last Ptolemy, Kleopatra VII Philopator, had died by her own hand, and when the whole of Egypt was part of the Roman emperor’s privately run domains. He is best known today for his work in mechanics, his Pneumatics, in particular, which tells the reader more or less how to make 75 self-acting devices, the most famous of which is undoubtedly the aiolipile, the ball that rotates on a pivot when steam is passed through it, otherwise mistakenly known as a sort of steam engine (see Lienhard 2006 chapters 4 and 5 for the long road between this steam jet and a steam engine). There is no reason to suppose that Heron invented these devices, or that they are particular to Alexandrian culture, in general, or the Museum, in particular: for there was a long tradition of such devices stemming back at least to Philon of Byzantion, c.200 bc at the latest, whose own Pneumatics survives in Arabic translation (and partly in Latin) and whose automatic theatre was well known to Heron (see above). A few devices clearly have practical application, such as the self-dispensing wine or lamp-oil reservoirs, many of them are designed to entertain the audience, for example, with dancing (rotating) figures or whistling birds (compare clockwork jewelery boxes of yesteryear), and some are explicitly meant to provoke astonishment (compare modern magic tricks and illusions). The practical dimension is very much to the fore with the sighting instrument called a Dioptra, in Heron’s work of that name. For example, one reads how to take a variety of measurements at a distance that are obviously useful in a military context, such as establishing the height of a wall or the depth of a ditch, and how to use it to ensure that a tunnel dug simultaneously from both ends will meet, and not become two tunnels. Of course other methods were available; few tools or techniques then or now are unique and irreplaceable, but developments occur because inventive people are dissatisfied with that subset of existing provision with which they are familiar, and so they set out to improve it in the area(s) in which they find it deficient. Most new inventions do not work well or well enough to replace the current method, so it is not reasonable to dismiss ancient attempts as ‘‘armchair exercises’’ when a modern engineer can tell that they would not work. Stephenson’s Rocket was not the first locomotive; it was the first locomotive that superseded the horse, while Trevithick’s locomotive, which was the first locomotive, was too heavy for the rails (Lienhard 2006: 108-10) - something that could be worked out today, but was not and probably could not have been in Wales in 1804. Thus it is unreasonable to dismiss the historical reality of an ancient invention simply because it did not work.
Other technological developments that are particularly associated with GraecoRoman Egypt include alchemy. Bolos of Mendes (a town in the Delta), who flourished about 200 BC, is a key figure in the alchemists’ efforts to transform various materials’ color, weight, and other features. Then-current ideas about matter and its properties (that were not based on the modern concept of an element of given properties) led to the development of a variety of synthetic dyes, gems, and metal tintings and patinations (Wilson 2002). For example, a good inorganic blue pigment was discovered in Alexandria. Thereafter one Vestorius, a contemporary of Cicero, began its manufacture in Italy, specifically, in Puteoli, on the Bay of Naples, where the Egyptian grain fleet docked at the time (Vitruvius 7.11.1). Many transfers of technologies to and from Alexandria probably occurred in a similar way, especially when Alexandria was at the hub of trade into, out of, and through Egypt. Successful technology transfer generally requires the movement of people as well as goods, but such movements are documented in the surviving sources; for example, an Indian rajah is recorded visiting Alexandria for tourism and trade, and other Indians were spectators at games there (Casson 1989: 34 n.53).
In the second century AD we find one of the greatest ancient scientists walking Alexandria’s streets. Claudius Ptolemy synthesized ancient astronomy into the form that persisted for about a millennium and a half, until displaced by the efforts of
Copernicus, and others, from the sixteenth century. Toomer described his Almagest as ‘‘a masterpiece of clarity and method, superior to any ancient textbook and with few peers from any period... more than that...it is in many respects an original work’’ (and not a mere systematization of earlier astronomy, Toomer 1981: 196). That he wrote a textbook suggests a connection with teaching, but we have no evidence of either school or pupils associated directly with him. Observations which can be dated between ad 127 and 141 in our terms and are reported in his Almagest enable us to place his floruit under Hadrian and Antoninus, while his name reveals Greek ancestry and Roman citizenship. We do not know who taught him, or where, but his observations were made in Alexandria. He also worked on astrology (the Apotelesmatika, or Tetrabiblos, Four books), Geography, where in map-making he had no successor for nearly 1,400 years, on optics and on harmonics, during his investigations for both of which he undertook a variety of clever experiments (see Barker 2000 on music, Strano 2004 on optics), and on mechanics and other mathematical topics, which works are sadly lost. His Almagest includes instructions for the manufacture of a variety of astronomical devices, such as the ring astrolabe (5.1). There had been equinoctial rings on display in the Square Stoa in Alexandria since the second century bc at least (Taub 2002), and Eratosthenes also dedicated his mechanical device to find cubes and cubic roots (above) in a public place where (presumably) any Alexandrian who wished could use them. A public interest in, and use for, these instruments is indicated in Plutarch’s treatise On the Face in the Orb of the Moon, which was written at about the same time as Ptolemy was active, in which the participants at a symposium, who are portrayed as normal well-educated gentlemen, discuss theories on planetary motion, the size and distance of the sun and moon from earth, and many other related matters. Whether the instruments worked or not is a different issue, of course.
The early fourth century ad brought forth another significant ancient mathematician in Alexandria: Pappos. Again we do not know who taught him, or where, but that he was an Alexandrian is stated in the titles of his works, and he appears to have been a teacher; for his Commentary on (Ptolemy’s) Syntaxis (= Almagest), which survives in part, appears to be material for lectures to beginners (Bulmer-Thomas 1981: 298). He also commented on Euclid’s Elements, which would be natural for someone teaching mathematics. His (Mathematical) Collection is a handbook designed to be read with (not instead of) the works on which it comments, which are more or less all of Greek geometry to his time (Bulmer-Thomas 1981: 294). Pappos, therefore, assumes that the reader has access to those treatises, which is an interesting sidelight on the book trade, the schools, or the public library in Alexandria c. AD 320-40. He also worked on geography, apparently basing himself on Ptolemy’s maps - this may survive in Armenian translation - and astrology, again like Ptolemy, and possibly also on music, again like Ptolemy. Over a hundred years later Theon followed in much the same tracks (sometimes so closely it is what we call plagiarism), and the existence of educational institutions and traditions as we understand them is now apparent.
Auditoria dating to the fifth to seventh centuries ad in Kom ed-Dikka, a central district of modern Alexandria, testify to the existence of a substantial teaching infrastructure in the city at this time; teaching is no longer confined to teachers’ own houses and gardens or open public spaces. The complex of 20 smallish rooms (most c.11 X 5 m) with two or three rows of stone benches on three walls, and a seat of honor at the apex of the benches, fit the picture of philosophical classrooms attested by ancient literary and pictorial evidence (Majcherek 2007). The interpretation of the ‘‘theatre building’’ close by, following its remodelling in the sixth century, as a hall for public displays of oratorical skill, would suggest that the teaching which took place here was focused on rhetoric rather than on science or technology, as might anyway be expected from the literature and history of this period.
World History
