continued briskly: ‘Ptolemy Soter started it about three hundred and fifty years ago. A career soldier, Alexander’s general - fancied himself as a historian. Hence his big ambition: not just to create a Temple of the Muses to glorify his culture and civilisation, but to have in it a Library which contained all the books in the known world. He wanted to be tops. He set out deliberately to rival Athens. Even the catalogue is a thing of wonder.’
Aulus had walked me through some of the gardens where Helena and I sauntered yesterday He did not stop to smell the flowers. He was athletic and moved fast. His guided tour was succinct: ‘See the pleasant outside areas: cool pools, topiary, colonnades. Inside: marbled lecture halls with speakers’ podia, rows of seats, elegant couches. Excellent acoustics for music and reading recitals. A communal refectory for the scholars -’
‘Tried the food?’
‘Lunch. Edible.’
‘Scholars don’t come to pamper themselves, lad.’
‘We have to feed our busy brains, though.’
‘Hah! So what else have you found?’
“Theatre. Dissecting rooms. Observatory on the roof. The biggest zoo in the world.’ This zoo made its presence felt. Any walk among the shady porticoes was orchestrated by disconcerting animal roars, squawks and bellows. They sounded quite close by.
‘Why in Hades do scholars need a zoo?’
Camillus Aelianus gave me a sad look. Clearly I was a barbarian. ‘The Museion facilitates enquiry into how the world works. These beasts are not some rich man’s trophies. They are gathered here deliberately for scientific study. The whole place, Falco, is intended to attract the best minds to Alexandria - while the Library -’ we had reached that edifice - ‘is designed to lure them most of all.’
It was arranged around three sides of yet another garden. At the centre of the lush green planting lay a long straight-sided rectangular pool. The limpid water drew the eye towards a grandiose main entrance. Two side wings rose up double height, with an even more stupendous main building that towered directly in front of us.
‘So in there,’ I mused, ‘is all the knowledge in the world?’
‘You bet, Falco.’
‘The greatest scholars alive today gather to read there?’
“Best minds in the world.’
‘Plus a dead man.’
‘At least one,’ answered Aulus, with a grin. ‘Half the readers look embalmed. There could be other stiffs that nobody has noticed yet.’
‘Ours had eaten an excellent meal in friendly company, with decent talk and enough good wine, yet he still wanted to bury himself in his workroom late that night, surrounded by the inert presence of hundreds of thousands of scrolls . . . Poor home life?’
‘He was a librarian, Falco. No home life at all, most probably.’
We walked up to the imposing marble-clad entrance. Inevitably it was flanked by stupendous pillars. Both the Greeks and the Egyptians are superb at monumental pillars. Put them together and the Library had a heart- stopping, heavyweight porch and peristyle. Huge statues of Ptolemy Soter, the ‘Saviour’, flanked the entrance. Coins showed him
as curly-haired and mature, thicker-set than Alexander - though he lived much longer; Ptolemy died at eighty- four whereas Alexander only made thirty-three. Polished in granite, Ptolemy was smooth and serene in the style of the Pharaohs, smiling, with the flaps of a traditional head-dress behind his long ears and the merest hint of eye makeup. Alexander’s closest general, he was a Macedonian, a fellow-student of Aristotle, but in the big share-out after Alexander died he grabbed Egypt, which he ruled with respect for its ancient culture. Perhaps it was because Ptolemy was a Macedonian that he made it his mission to establish Alexandria as a rival to Athens, to spite the Greeks who viewed Macedonians as crude northern upstarts. So Ptolemy not only built a library to outdo those in Athens, but he stole the Athenians’ books to put in it - ‘borrowing’ them to copy, then keeping the originals even though he had to forfeit his surety of fifteen gold talents. This tended to prove what the Athenians thought: a Macedonian was a man who did not care if he lost his deposit.
Demetrius Phalereus had built for Ptolemy one of the cultured world’s great statement buildings. Oddly, its core material was brick. ‘Cheapskates?’
‘Helps air circulation. Protects the books.’ Where did Aulus find that out? This was like him; whenever I condemned him as lackadaisical, he came out with some gem. The main library faced east; that, too, was better for the books, he said.
We craned up at enormous polished granite columns, topped by exquisitely carved capitals, florid in the Corinthian manner but earlier and with distinct Egyptian overtones. Around their mighty bases, clusters of off-duty readers littered the well-planned architecture in untidy groups - younger members of the academic world, all looking as if they were debating philosophical theories, but in tact discussing who had what to drink last night, and in what horrendous quantities.
Passing through the shadow of the intimidating porch, we entered the grand hall. Our feet slowed reverently; the floor, made from enormous sheets of marble, was so highly polished it showed our blurred images. A pervert could look up your tunic; a narcissist could look up his own. I slowed down cautiously. The interior space was enormous, sufficient to impart hush through size alone. Beautiful marble veneers cooled the air and calmed the spirits. A colossal statue of Athene as goddess of wisdom dominated the far wall, between two of the magnificent pillars that decorated the lofty lower area and supported the upper gallery. Behind this colonnade, which was repeated above with lighter pillars, were tall niches, each covered by panelled double doors.
These housed some of the books. Occasional open doors showed wide shelves of scrolls. The cupboards were set above a triple plinth; its steps ensured that anyone approaching the scrolls would be fully visible. Library staff could discreetly monitor who was consulting what valuable works.
The upper gallery was protected by elegant latticed banisters with gilded bosses. The lower floor had half- columns at intervals, bearing bearded busts of famous authors and intellectuals. Discreet plaques told us who they were. Many would have worked here in their day.
I laid a hand on Aulus’ arm and we stood for a moment watching. This alone should have drawn attention to us, though no one seemed to notice. The scholars ignored activity around them. They worked at two rows of handsome tables running down each side of the great hall. Most were lost in concentration. Only a few talked; it caused a
Men came in and looked around for empty seats or for staff to fetch scrolls from store, but rarely did anybody gaze directly at other people. Without doubt, some of these blinkered types avoided being sociable; they crept around unobtrusively and were nervous if anybody spoke to them. Some, I thought, must be well-known, but I reckoned others liked anonymity. In most public buildings, everyone has a common interest: they work as a team on whatever the building exists for. Libraries are different. In libraries, each scholar toils privately on his thesis. Nobody else need ever find out who a man is, or what his work entails.
I had used libraries. People condemn informers as low blockheads but I not only read for pleasure, I regularly consulted the records in Rome for my work. My main haunt was the Library of Asinius Pollio, Rome’s oldest, where citizens’ details are held - birth, marriage, citizenship status, death certificates and opened wills - but I had other favourites, such as the Library on the Porticus of Octavia, for general research or consulting maps. In just a few moments’ stillness, I began to recognise familiar types. There was the man who talked long and loud, oblivious to the bad feeling he caused; the one who came and sat right next to someone else, even when there were plenty of free seats; the fidgety one who seemed to have no idea how much he rustled and clattered his stuff; the one making furious longhand notes with an extremely scratchy stylus; the one who breathed maddeningly.
Moving around quietly with requested scrolls were staff members doing a thankless task.
We had already encountered the students hanging around outside, those who never did any work but just came to meet their friends. Inside were the weirder scholars who
