Alexandria: The Intellectual Capital of Antiquity
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- čas přidán 1. 06. 2024
- Alexandria, the most famous city founded by Alexander the Great, was the jewel of Ptolemaic Egypt and the eastern half of the Roman Empire. Here is the story of this city, with a focus on its most renowned institutions and individuals.
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Thersites you really are spoiling us
I lived in Alexandria for six weeks in 2017 and was shocked at the neglect of public spaces . Really safe city and enjoyed being out at night .
Yeah sadly the entire country not just Alexandria was left to rot during the Mubarak era. The country was in a coma for 30 years.
Unfortunately it's not going to get better with the Islamic worldview dominating the country and region as a whole.
What I like about this is that it shows how Historians tend to anachronistically portray Alexandria as some model for multiculturalism in the ancient world that the modern world must learn from especially in the West,however when you look at how things went down,Alexandria it seems was closer to colonial Algiers with a European minority ruling over the native second class majority with a small protected Jewish merchant community in between.
No offense but places other than the West are not multicultural either.
@@brandon5012 China has like 70 ethnic groups, most south American nations have multiple ethnic groups, Ethiopia has about 25 ethnic groups and the largest genetic diversity on the planet etc etc. If you're gonna try and make a weirdly fashy point at least make a valid one.
@@gringlebandersnatch wow, what is that like? 20 countries? Assuming of course, you trust what China and suffering 3rd world countries report to their U.N
@@ChuckNorrizHIM ethnic groups, not countries and these are long established facts. You literally just have to look up an ethnic map of any non European nation and even then Spain for example have a bunch of different ethnic groups so does say France with its Celtic Bretons, Dutch Picard's, Corsicans and occitans.
Also their UN? You mean the UN right? And that isn't how demography works at all.
@@gringlebandersnatch bruh you’re nitpicking information completely irrelevant to the actual main idea of the comment. Which is the demographics were vastly different in Alexandria than the PORTRAYAL of Alexandria. Nice meetings professor
"If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants?"
-- Sir Isaac Newton
Alexandria was the jewel of Hellenistic period
@@fjdgsj *laughs in Caracalla*
The jewel grocery store
Which one?😂
The blood diamond
A myth created by temporary conquers of the PHOENIXIAN/ETHIOPIAN EMPIRE.
Thank you so very much! Learned so very much!
Wow! You surprised me with all the nifty history and reasons for all sorts of things regarding the times of Alexandria!
Fascinating, thank you! 📓
I loved this video might keep a tab opened to rewatch it more times
Thanks for making this informative and interesting video
Thersides: Alexander named all his founded cities after himself
Bukephalos: am I a joke to you?
Yes.
@@ThersitestheHistorian I am pretty sure that Alexander named one city after his horse.
@@Tzimiskes969 He did name a city for Bukephalos when the old horse dropped dead after a battle. That being said, the horse got one city as opposed to the 60-70 Alexander named after himself.
Wasn’t it still called Alexander Bucephalus?
Question is how did he found them
Great video, thank you for putting it together.
Ptolomey I who was likely a bastard of Philips and smart enough to never challenge his half brother Alexander or move against him, was a genius.
He took a vibrant port and turned it into a center of wisdom by forbidding any ship from leaving port with any scroll before it could be copied. He wickedly probably kept the originals and sent the owners away with exact forgeries. Even had they known they dared not accuse Ptolomey.
Both were thieves an slave owners
@@sungazerreg9239 everyone who wasn't a slave was a slave owner in those days. It wasn't until the british empires conscience got the better of it that the age old practice was finally on the down turn. I try not to judge ancient peoples by modern standards of morality. It gets in the way of understanding them.
@@robertalpy9422 I understand very well copy the knowledge and use it for your own
Alexander was no dummy either. He was tutored by Aristotle, who was tutored by Plato. Not many 20 year olds become General and King of Macedonia at the same time. As well as proclaiming himself to be a god. He was also a skilled fighter. Not afraid to get in the battle zones.
@@curtisstewart9426 good point but I still don’t see what so great about him stole my ancestors land built false gods an religions what was so great
How did the tsunami of 365 CE affect the Alexandria Library? According to a Roman who visited Alexandria, apparently some time after the event, the flood carried a ship several miles inland.
Interesting. I will have to look into the 365 event as I have never heard about that before.
It’d be hard to say without knowing the average wave height at shore and the direction of the wave. From my understanding of the coastal (urban) evolution of Alexandria, the shore in a lot of areas in downtown modern Alexandria extended a bit more into the Mediterranean, and the location of the library was likely also raised above a ground that was several feet higher and further from the shores than today.
Nevertheless, any tsunami above 10-15ft and higher wave would be catastrophic to any coastal area irrespective of direction. Our buildings today can hardly withstand that now; imagine a densely-populated city 1700 years ago.
@@sergpie Apparently, for many years after it was known as "the day of sorrows."
The eastern Mediterranean might be the most seismically active, tectonically complex regions of the planet. Earthquakes and tsunami are frequent. Poseidon, shaker of the earth, ruler of the waves.
This is an extremely informative presentation. Very interesting. Thank you.
A lot of information here. Had to listen twice, good both times.
The best part of these video essays is all the professionals and academics in the comments. How lucky we are to have so many people that know everything in one place
Couldn’t have put it better myself, bless up 🙌🙏
Not a pro or a academic. I just want to learn the history of the world lol.
Thank you for this video
Very nice. I enjoyed that. Thanks.
Another excellent video, Thersistes! Alexandria and Seleucia on the Tigris are definitely my favorite Hellenistic cities.
I'm going to be covering Alexandria's history soon, this video was super insightful for my prep!
One more intellectual of the Church is Augustine of Hippo.. who in 425 A.D. wrote "City of God"... Audiobooks are available on this site.
I wish I could have been there to see it at the height of it's influence! And of course, the library must have been jaw dropping! 😞
Nice lecture
My beloved hometown. The Mediterranean runs in my veins!
you're probably an arab
@@PASTRAMIKick I’m an Egyptian from Alexandria.
@@PASTRAMIKick And? Why would that take anything from their comment.
Had to look up what a mole was. Dude, I'm loving your lectures.
really love your work.
What work work of white supremacy and slave owners
@@sungazerreg9239 , ah ,great, another black supremacist. You should stop believing in your weird fan fictions, you have nothing to do with the legacy of ancient Egypt.
@@PrinceVega actually proven from contemporary sources…Egyptians saw themselves as a different people to even the Nubians, who were in the ‘Upper Nile’ region, modern Sudan and even southern Egypt., named Nubia. Never mind Ethiopians etc.
As a contemporary scholar, I wish we were appreciated like in the Alexandrian golden age. If I had a dollar for every story I've heard about burn out, bad work environment, bad work life balance, etc in academia. I'd probably have made more money than my current job lol.
Academia has progressively went from academics to narrative, not saying you had a part but I feel like that’s why the scholars aren’t as respected. That & we stopped using the word scholar & instead use expert, IMO two really different things.
@@lightarc7126 I don't necessarily agree. Bias has always existed in research. It did in the time of Ptolemy and it exists now too. Eventually we make our way towards the "truth" (although you can never absolutely know for sure).
Fascinating
"You are so wise in the ways of science"
Well you gotta know these things when you’re a King.
loving it!
seems like a college lecture... I love it
Freaking fantastic!!
Ooh. Thank you algorithm 🥰
Excellent
Great and interesting video. However there is a weird buzzing sound in the backgroind which mkes it hard to listen to.
There has been a new "Library of Alexandria" constructed in recent years, a mention of this would end video on a slightly more positive note. Thanks for this comprehensive effort!
Interesting. I was not aware of that.
@@ThersitestheHistorian they are even trying to recreate the "mission statement" of the original libraries by being a repository of as much human writing, history, and literature as possible and maintain it for all time, like a seed repository or time capsule.
43:45 slight correction, the Torah(Pentateuch) is only the first 5 books of the Tanakh(Septuagint).
The Septuagint is the Tanakh
The Pentateuch is the Torah
But thank you for your well researched videos
Thank you for the enlightening presentation. Did most of the copies of scriptures in the Library, survived in other libraries? Thanx
I think, I found an answer in the lecture about the Library of Alexandria at your podcast. Thanx
I’d love a video on gymnasiums and Greek exercise practice would be fun
Creep.
@@carolforrest9218 why i like working out and it sounds fun to know how they used to do it back then
@@carolforrest9218 homophobe
The movie Agora, about the sacking of the library of Alexandria, is my all time favourite movie. It’s a tribute to the human spirit.
I haven't heard of that movie, I'll have to check it out.
Talking with a scholar researching the Libary,he made a convincing argument that not a insignificant potion of said library were comprised of commentaries on Homeric works.
Interesting, I haven't heard that. It certainly sounds possible as there were a number of scholars in the Hellenistic period and beyond who spent a great deal of time composing commentaries on classical texts.
@@ThersitestheHistorian HIJACKING PHOENIXIAN SCROLLS IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED.
always hope, there is always hope if we look with eyes to see the best, anything is dreamable. especially if it pushes onwards, to be beneficial to all
Shouldn't we call errors and deviations in ancient manuscripts "scrypos" and not typos?
Funny
Can you do a deep dive into Bacchanalia?
"Hephaesteon... his best friend."
::Me, alone in my room, giving side-eye to no one::
Lolllllllllll
This is great.. thanks very much!!
Did any of Alexander's cities survive? Other than Alexandria? Did Ptolemy place Alexander's grave in Alexandria? Great video!
alexandropole in thrace, greece I think, or belongs to bulgaria nowadays maybe..
Alexandria Arachosia is now Kandahar, Afghanistan.
Ptolemy did relocate Alexander's body to Alexandria once he constructed a special tomb. Unfortunately, both the tomb and the body are long lost to time.
Alexandria Eschate is believed to be modern Khojand, Tajikistan. Alexandria ad Issum is Iskanderun in Turkey.
Town in central Minnesota called Alexandria
Alexandria is why humanity shouldn't strive for the best. We should just strive to sustain. When we push ourselves like this, we get greedy and kill each other almost to extinction... gtfo yourself and become one with ourselves. Keep trying to be the best we can be and we'll just keep back stepping.
Ptolemy was with Alexander while he was in Egypt
If they were so great, why aren't they great now?
The pursuit of knowledge began in India in what is now the Gulf of Cambay 10,000BCE
@1:13:00 that quote attributed to the period of the Arab occupation of Egypt in 642AD was written 600 years later (13th century) by the Syriac Bishop, Gregory Bar Hebraeus. Caliph Omar is supposed to have made the same statement on the fate of a library in Persia. It is likely the library suffered severe damage in the reign of the Roman Emperor Aurelian (270-275 AD) when he besieged Alexandria to recapture it from the Palmyrene Queen Zenobia. The Broucheion quarter of the city in which the library was located was destroyed.
If arab conquerors heated public baths of Alexandria for 6 months with manuscripts (according to arab historians), there might have been quite a few of them left even then.
Islam is the worst thing to ever happen to this region .
Hey, I know. Let's put all the original texts of the greatest literary works in the world in one place! What could go wrong?
Why is it unlikely the ruins of the Library will ever be discovered?
All that lost history and information and data when they burned it all.thank goodness for partial surviving documents.
Athanasius contra mundum! Athanasius contra Thersites!!
You say that the illiad and odyssey were something like religious texts to Greeks. Did the other works of homer, like Margites also hold such importance to the Greeks? Is this why those works survived instead?
Illid and Odyssey were basically national symbol of Greeks. By Hellenistic era, Homer was well known all across the Med. sea and educated Romans and Phoenicians knew greek as their second language.
@@OkurkaBinLadin I’ve read that at least homer’s work Margites was also famous in the ancient world. Aristotle basically said it was the foundation of comedy
The term "critical editions" more evokes ancient cultural Marxism - selectively doctoring or destroying works that challenged the political and religious narratives of the day.
The Silicon Valley of the ancient world but nothing like it
Will you do a WW2 generals ranking?
Yes, we will do that eventually. Most likely, we will do a WWII faction ranking the week after next which will cover the armies, navies, and air forces of the 8 major combatant nations. I'm not sure when we'll get around to the generals, but it probably won't be all that long.
"Alexander invented syncretism"
This seems like a pretty bizarre claim from someone I'm pretty sure has read Herodotus. Even the identification with Ammon is found in the Histories, in which the claim is made that the Oracle at Dodona was founded by an Egyptian.
(2:54-57)
This seems like pretty common practice across a lot of the ancient world, way before Alexander.
Not trying to nitpick, that one just caught me off guard.
I don't know if I said it quite so literally. It is true that syncretism exploded after Alexander's conquests, however. Stoicism was a fundamentally Hellenistic philosophy and its emphasis on the brotherhood of man led Stoic scholars to try to systematically find links between Greek and non-Greek deities.
@@ThersitestheHistorian Fair, I probably took it more literally than you meant.
I think it's reasonable that the spread of Hellenistic culture created a greater drive toward syncretism, perhaps with more distinct motives. I think it is one of the more common and very interesting elements of ancient religion. Not just syncretism, but the exchanges and inclusions of religious ideas, stories, and rituals between neighbouring groups, the politics of religious narrative, etc.
My suspicion is that one would find many strata of these interactions in the cycles of all the major divinities in the well-known Greek pantheon, but I admit a lot is speculative, and I don't like to start throwing out lots of wild examples without sources at hand, so I'll leave it there.
While on the subject though, I'll mention my favourite bit about the gods from Herodotus. I think it's right around the same spot where he says the Oracle of Dodona came from Egypt. He starts making the argument that the worship of Herakles comes from Egypt as well, and says that all the heroic stories the Greeks tell about him must have been made up later, because they're so stupid. "You're telling me he let himself get dragged all the way to the king, to be sacrificed, and then - what?- just *remembered* he could break free the whole time? And then he kills a thousand guys. Have you ever seen someone kill *1000* guys?" Paraphrasing. But he does have some real fedora-tipper energy once in a while.
I hope you touch on the Septuagint bible 🍿
I think this video’s been struck by the advertisement wave.
Translated Into English? Is that right? Wouldn't it be into Latin or Greek?
Which text are you referencing?
@@ThersitestheHistorian 43:31 "Scholars at the library were also very active using this same process on foreign works in translating them into _English_ . The most famous work to be translated from Hebrew to _English_ was of course the Septuagint."
How many of the scholars were hucksters? Must have been a fair few.
Excellent, thank you! Poor Hypatia, murdered by the religious. Plus ca change.
Also North Africa had many Greek colonies
Not at all, except Cyrenaica. Northwest Africa was an exclusively Phoenician niche, much as Iberia south of some not-so-clear line (depending on whether you believe Hemeroskopeion was real or not and where it was located). Greeks competed with the Phoenicians by creating colonies where these were not present, i.e. in Europe, mostly in Italy. It was a true colonial race for spheres of interest (and Rome took over all them by vanquishing Pyrrhus first and Carthage later).
@@LuisAldamiz sure,but don't forget with Alexander Greeks made many cities in all over the known world
@@stayrospaparunas3062 - Again not in North Africa, not West of Cyrenaica, because, whatever plans Alexander had when he died, he died without acomplishing them. NW Africa remained a Phoenician niche all the way up to the Punic Wars, when these were replaced by Rome/Italy, not Greeks.
@@LuisAldamiz whatever...Greeks didn't butcher the planet
@@stayrospaparunas3062 - WTF?
This time is BC right ?
🤫More accurately kemet/egypt was the intellectual capital of antiquity.🖤👑💯
Well that ended abruptly.
Imagine having a copy of Homer’s works with Aristotle’s notes on it…
Blessed Alexanderos , Son of Amun.
The fact that native Egyptians were an underclass is a major reason to be skeptical of the modern PC idea that Cleopatra was likely party Egyptian.
She had some Persian ancestry in 'Cleopatra I Syra'. It is however, WIDELY, accepted that she was Greek/Macedonian and that she saw herself as that instead of Egyptian.
I guarantee some rich oligarch or oil baron has Alexanders body locked away like some treasure and is hoarding it for themselves. At least in that scenario it still exists and can be recovered.
I suppose that isn't impossible.
Found my way here trying to discover what the one piece is. Hope I get what I'm looking for
37:34 is there any actual evidence for this law? My understanding is that it's essentially an urban myth that didn't really happen. Specifically, copying any of those papyri would have taken months, not something they can just give to you overnight or even in a couple of days, and so if ship captains knew that they would have to wait around doing nothing for all that time, it's likely they would have just stopped coming Alexandrian trade would have suffered tremendously.
They didn't have Xerox machines back then? Months... really.
Ptolemy III Euergetis = Ptolemy the Benefactor
I believe the library of Alexandria never burned down,at least the information inside never did
5:03 you could say he was pretty Tyre-d
Have you ever been to Alexandria?
Ain that shit underwater now
Alexandria. The first college town.
Athanasios sounds like the Jordan Peterson of his day.
26:09 Palestine? Not entirely historically accurate for that time. They were most like from the Kingdom of Judah
Why was it destroyed again
Que. Bonito 🤩. Así. Me. Gusta
Knowledge is the enemy of the ignorant...
That regent is so perdy.
Eh gee na (Aegina)
Randos?
How do we "owe" them preserving them? I do not understand such logic, they were already "preserved", all they did is destroy other works.
I thought Rhodes was more important, intellectually speaking, until Pompey raided it to help pay for his campaign against Ceasar, or am I misled?
I've always thought Alexander was looking for something. His military campaigns were unlogical, although he was an amazing militaristic strategist. Based on what i said, i really do think he had advanced weaponry, because no strategy, was ever good enough to conquer the places he did, because attacking the terrains where the oposing kingdoms presided, was unimaginable back then, for the age or weaponry.
@@yaboibSLT Millions of armed, trained soldiers are not good enough to conquer an empire that sits on a clif. You will need airplanes, just like soldiers of today need boats to conquer empires that are located across the ocean. And those innovations, bring the new eras, the new empires.
@@yaboibSLT I get your point. I'm just saying the innovations invented for that era, seem to shallow to conquer the empires that existed at the time. For example, if i told a group of cave man that i was a king, do you think they will understand me? You will need the first pilar of any civilization, language.
Fallin Angels ran the City
Of western antiquity.
The east has it beat by millennia.
If Greeks were so smart...why aren't they smart now?
In fact, Origen was considered a heretic and did not become a saint because he ripped out his own genitalia. His works and ideas are still used and taught today.
A number of modern scholars believe that the story about his self-castration is apocryphal. He certainly doesn't sound like the kind of fanatic who would do such a thing in his writing, but I don't profess to know what he did in the privacy of his home with his cutlery.
@@ThersitestheHistorian "but I don't profess to know what he did in the privacy of his home with his cutlery." hahahahaha.
Was gonna listen. But the ads every 5 minutes make this a joke
Thats not his fault thats the CZcams default
@@TwoDollarGararge I learned that after some research. I listened to the entire video and it is well done. Also learned a trick. Scroll to the end or the video and hit replay. No ads
"Intellectual capital". No, it was a scientific capital, the Alexandrian school was known for it's practical inventions, it's engineering tradition. It was home to the largest library, but Athens and other great Greek cities were where the Romans decided to study as well. Alexandria was probably the greatest city of Antiquity, for it's trade, it's contributions, it's library, it's monuments, but some pseudo-intellectuals nowadays try to "claim" Alexandria saying things like what's in the title of the video. Well, Ptolemaic Egypt was paternalistic, patrilineal, only men voted and were allowed in the gymnasium and the boulé, they had slaves, they were warlike, in Roman times they were hostile to homossexuality and i'm sure most intellectuals have this as sensitive topics and target of their political narratives (Defending LGBTQ, feminist and ambientalist groups), so don't worry, you would cancel any of that great figures of Antiquity. Some scholars try to create a narrative in which they claim such societies couldn't prosper, well it did. People were sane, people didn't lived in a bubble of hypocrisy they weren't paranoics trying to "cancel" anyone in times of pandemics plus i'm sure their mental health was way better. At that times the markets didn't envolved enough to make people comfortable in order to start criticizing the own system (Capitalism, and it's economic advantages) that makes them have time to create NGOs, to criticize oil-based economy (While taking huge benefits from it, directly and indirectly), to "cancel" anyone they don't like, specially the white, male, rich, heteressexual and/or enterpreneurs in general. So they weren't what many "intellectuals" are today, and that's good for them, it was a time of practical knowledge, of realism, you had to face problems like a sane person, not like an angry teenager breaking things randomly after losing a democratic election. I'm saying all of this because history became as politicized as mainstream media and their 'journalism', almost every topic in Wikipedia has "LGBT rights, human rights record, role of women". It's all about activism, the study of history was not that biased and ideologically motivated even in the Middle Ages, it seems like the West exchanged Christian dogmas for Radical Liberal dogmas, and acts in an inquisitorial way in order to defend the agendas mentioned above. That with the support and sometimes leadership of the so-called "intellectuals" and their extremist followers.
Praise praise, but think of a better place than Alexandria for a scriptorium producing texts of mass propaganda at that time. There aren't many. Ultimately Alexandria was interested in keeping and maintaining Greek supremacy just as any other instrument of governance at that time.