Ancient library of Alexandria foreign book fund
Ancient library of Alexandria foreign book fund

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this article is to demonstrate that the Lagid Kings showed great interest not only in the works of Greek authors, but also in the non-Greek books. I argue here that in the Alexandrian Library there were also books that belonged to foreign cultures. According to sources, it seems that in the Alexandrian Library there were no books in other languages, but only in Greek, therefore the books of foreign origin had to be translated into Greek in order to be displayed in the Library. Among these books of foreign origins we mention the Hebrew Bible, the History of Babylon, written by a Babylonian priest named Berossos, the sacred texts of Zoroastrianism and the sacred Buddhist texts, which were written in faraway lands and were brought to Alexandria under the patronage of the Lagid kings, where they were translated and included in the famous royal library. These books had an undeniable importance in spreading the knowledge and wisdom of other cultures in the Greek world, first in Alexandria and Ptolemaic Egypt, and later throughout οἰκουμένη, since Greek was lingua franca at the time and thus facilitated the spread of these works. This was possible due to the bibliophile ecumenism of the Ptolemies, who did not seek to gather in the Alexandrian Library only writings belonging to Greek culture, but wanted to include in their library all the science and wisdom of the world.

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