The Mouseion of Alexandria (; ), which arguably included the Library of Alexandria, was an institution said to have been founded by Ptolemy I Soter and his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus. 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.
The Ptolemies reputedly established their Mouseion and Library with the intention of bringing together some of the best scholars of the Hellenistic world and collect all the books known at the time. 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) at Alexandria, Egypt, though it is more likely that Ptolemy II Philadelphus (309–246 BC) saw to its completion. 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.
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. 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."
It is uncertain how many scholars lived in the Mouseion at any given time, as surviving reports are few and rather brief. 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.
Based on extant works of scholars associated with the Mouseion, it seems likely that literary criticism and other similar activities took place there. In addition to Greek works, some foreign texts were translated from Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian, Jewish, and other languages. 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 the scholars assembled in the Mouseion and the Library of Alexandria.
Appearance
In the first century AD, the Greek geographer Strabo described the Mouseion as part of a bigger, richly decorated campus of buildings and gardens:
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.
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. 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. However, it is unclear if the premises provided accommodations for anatomical research or astronomical observations. In addition to the Library of Alexandria, another smaller library was housed in the nearby Serapeum (Temple of Serapis), which may have been open to people other than Mouseion scholars.
Decline
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. Johannes Tzetzes and other Byzantine sources do not mention any further directors after him, albeit four obscure 'caretakers' are mentioned in an Oxyrhynchus fragment, and an inscription from the 80s BC speaks of a certain Onesander of Paphos being appointed to the Library. There are reports that, during the Siege of Alexandria in 47 BC, parts of the library collection caught fire and were destroyed.