Empire and Communications - Chapter 5. Rome and The Written Tradition - Rome and The Problems of Greek Empire - Ptolemaic Dynasty

Ptolemaic Dynasty

Innis discusses various aspects of Ptolemaic rule over Egypt including the founding of the ancient library and university at Alexandria made possible by access to abundant supplies of papyrus. "By 285 BC the library established by Ptolemy I had 20,000 manuscripts," Innis writes, "and by the middle of the first century 700,000, while a smaller library established by Ptolemy II...possibly for duplicates had 42,800." He points out that the power of the written tradition in library and university gave rise to specialists, not poets and scholars — drudges who corrected proofs and those who indulged in the mania of book collecting. "Literature was divorced from life, thought from action, poetry from philosophy." Innis quotes the epic poet Apollonius's claim that "a great book was a great evil." Cheap papyrus also facilitated the rise of an extensive administrative system eventually rife with nepotism and other forms of bureaucratic corruption. "An Egyptian theocratic state," Innis notes, "compelled its conquerors to establish similar institutions designed to reduce its power."