1. GALEN
Galen of Pergamum was a Greek medical writer who lived in the 2nd century A.D. He wrote a huge number of books, most of which have never been translated into English. The passage translated here has been chosen to illustrate the methods that were used to collect books for the library at Alexandria. It is taken from a commentary on the "Epidemics" of Hippocrates; the original Greek text can be found in Volume XVIIa of the collected works of Galen, as edited by C.G.Kühn (1828, reprinted 1965). The numbers in red are the page numbers in that volume.
[605] What I am about to say has been said previously by Zeuxis in the first volume of his commentary on the present book [the third book of Hippocrates' Epidemics]; and perhaps it would have been better for me, as I usually do in such cases, to refer those who want to know the [full] story to that book. But since Zeuxis' commentary is no longer respected, and has become difficult to find, therefore they asked me [606] to tell the story, beginning with Mnemon.
Some say that Mnemon took the third book of the Epidemics out of the great library at Alexandria, as if he intended to read it, and then put it back after inserting these characters in it, in the same ink and similar handwriting. Others say that he brought the book [to Alexandria] from Pamphylia. Ptolemaeus the king of Egypt was so eager to collect books, that he ordered the books of everyone who sailed there to be brought to him. The books were then copied into new manuscripts. He gave the new copy to the owners, whose books had been brought to him after they sailed there, but he put the original copy in the library with the inscription "a [book] from the ships". They say that a copy of the third book of the Epidemics has been found with the inscription, "a [book] from the ships, as emended by Mnemon of Sidē". Some claim that the inscription does not say "as emended", but simply gives the name of Mnemon; because when books were taken from all the others who sailed there, [607] the servants of the king wrote down their names in the copies that were deposited in the storehouses (the servants did not place the books in the library immediately, but first they stored them away in piles in some other buildings).
This Ptolemaeus is said to have given sufficient proof of his eagerness to collect old books, by his behaviour towards the Athenians. After giving them fifteen talents of silver as a surety, he received from them the manuscripts of Sophocles and Euripides and Aeschylus, on the understanding that he would simply make new copies from the manuscripts, and then promptly return them intact. But after he had produced magnificent new copies on the finest writing material, he kept the books that the Athenians had sent to him, and sent back to them the copies that he had made. He urged them to keep the fifteen talents, and at the same time to receive new copies instead of the old books that they had sent to him. The Athenians would have had no other option, even if he had kept the old books without sending new copies to them, because when they accepted the money, they had agreed that if he kept the books, then they would keep the money; and so they accepted the new copies and kept the money.
[608] But Mnemon - whether he brought the book himself, or took it out of the library and interpolated the characters - seems to have done this as a subterfuge . . .
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