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of the later learning of antiquity, was projected by. the architect, Dinocrates,* commenced during the lifetime of Alexander, and carried nearly to completion by Ptolemy Soter; but many of its public works remained to be finished under his son and. successor, Philadelphus. By means of an artificial causeway, jutting three-fourths of a mile into the sea, the long and narrow island called Pharos, in front of the city, was connected to the main land, and thus converted into a breakwater for the protection of the spacious harbor; in front of which stood most of the public edifices. From the temple of Pan, which rose like a sugar-loaf in the center, the whole of this, remarkable capital could be surveyed at a glance. Its two main streets crossing at right angles, were flanked with rows of columns; the one extended lengthwise thirty stadia, or about three miles; and the other transversly about one-fourth of this distance. Fronting the harbor in the middle of the principal avenue, stood the Soma, or mausoleum of the Greek kings, taking its name from the body, meaning the body of Alexander, which was the first therein deposited. Ranging in a line with this along the shore, stood the temple of Neptune, the Emporium or Exchange, the royal docks, the hall of justice, the Serapium, and the Museum of College of Philosophy. Beyond the Heptastadion, as the stone causeway, from its length, was called, were seen other docks; and beyond the walls, the theater, the amphitheater, and the beautiful Gymna

Vitruvius, lib. ii., præfat. § 4.

+ See Sharpe's Egypt, passim.

sium for athletic exercises, with its stoa or portico of a stadium in length, where the pentennial games were celebrated. On one side of the city could be seen the Hippodrome for chariot races, on the other, the public groves and gardens; still further. off, the Necropolis, with its tombs and sepulchral monuments ornamenting the roadside for miles along the shore; and beyond the western wall, the ship canal connecting the harbor of Eunostus with lake Mareotis, which lay beyond the suburbs; and to which, when the city contained its three hundred thousand souls, these suburbs reached.

The Serapium, or temple of Serapis, on the promontory of Lochias, at the western extremity of the great harbor, was an object as striking to the observer as the lighthouse at the other. Standing within the western gate, this temple, the most magnificent of all the buildings, was approached on one side by a slope for carriages; on the other, by a flight of a hundred steps, widening as they ascended from the street. At the top of these was the portico, with its circular roof and its supporting columns, which gave entrance to the great court-yard; in the middle of which stood the roofless hall of the temple, encircled with columns and porticos inside and out. Enclosed within these porticos were chambers dedicated. to the rites of the ancient religion of the country. In one of these stood, glittering with gold and silver, the colossal statue of Serapis, the god whose worship became so popular in the latter ages of the Roman empire; and, as if to impress the multitude with superstitious awe, the light here was so ar

ranged as to allow the sun's rays, at appointed times, to illuminate the statue's lips. But among the inner porticos at a later period, were deposited portions of that library which rendered Alexandria the great repository of the science and wisdom of the ancients. In the middle of the inner area of the temple stood a lofty column, visible from all the country round, and from ships far off at sea. And when the temple itself, with its fountain, its two obelisks, its gilded roofs, its painted chambers and glittering architectural ornaments, had perished, this column, under the name of Pompey's Pillar, still stood, to vie, in magnitude and durability, with the yet remaining monuments of the earlier Egyptians.

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But, among the public buildings of the rising capital, that which has the greatest claim upon our attention, and to which the city ultimately owed its fairest fame, was the Museum. This stood in the quarter of the Bruchium, fronting the harbor. Its chief apartment was a great hall, which served as a lecture-room and place of general concourse. Around the main building, on the outside, was a covered walk or portico; and connected with it, was an Exhedra, in which the philosophers sometimes sat in the open air.

This noble institution was originally designed to serve in part as a school for the training of youth in the higher walks of learning, and in part as a retreat within which men of genius and acquirements, free from the necessity of providing for their daily wants, might have leisure and opportunity, each in his own way, for extending the domain of

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science, or for increasing the enjoyments or improving the condition of their fellow-beings. It may have owed its origin, as it owed much of its early celebrity, to the intimate relation existing between the family and descendants of Aristotle, and those of Alexander the Great.* For, Nicomachus, the father of the philosopher, was the physician and friend of Amyntas, the grandfather of the conquerór; and Alexander himself had been the pupil and afterwards the patron of Aristotle. Again, Erasistratus, the grandson of the latter, was among the most prominent of the scientific men brought together at the Museum by Ptolemy Soter, its founder; who was, by repute, the natural son of of Philip, and consequently, brother to Alexander. And finally, we read of another Nicomachus, a name for several generations running through the family of Aristotle, among the associates of the Museum at a later date.

The men of learning in the several faculties of this institution, lived. together in a sort of fraternity, eating at a common table, supported in whole or in part at the public expense. Some of them officiated as professors under a fixed salary; some of them as private tutors, deriving at least a portion of their income from their pupils; some of them were engaged in the public works,, or in the service of the state; and some, as original investigators

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*We are told by Strabo, that Aristotle was the first to collect a library; and that the kings of Egypt, after his example, founded the library of the Museum. See Schulze, p. 359. Athenæus, however, as we 'shall see, mentions earlier collections.

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in the arts, in literature or philosophy, or in works of fancy, in the exact sciences, in natural history, or in medicine.

Under Ptolemy Philadelphus, the Museum had already risen to the highest rank among the Greek schools. Its library already held two hundred thousand rolls of papyrus, equal to about ten thou sand of our modern printed volumes. At the head of this library, under Ptolemy Soter, its founder, was Demetrius Phalereus, who had formerly been chief-magistrate of Athens. The system of instruction, as at first arranged, was divided among the four faculties of literature, mathematics, astronomy and medicine; but other faculties, or special depart ments, must have been early adjoined to these.

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At the head of the mathematical department was Euclid. In that of poetry, were Theocritus and Callimachus. The chair of philosophy was assigned to Hegesias of Cyrene, that of astronomy to Timocharis. The department of natural history was under Philostephanus, then engaged in a work on the history of fishes. Manetho, an aboriginal Egyptian, was occupied in preparing an elaborate history of his own country; and Timosthenes, the commander of the fleet, had in charge the subject of geography. In the medical faculty were Cleombrotus of Cos, Herophilus, and Erasistratus. The first of these was in high repute as a practitioner.; was sent to the relief of Antiochus when dangerously ill, and after curing that king, received on his return a present of a hundred talents, about fifteen thousand pounds sterling, as a reward from Philadelphus.

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