Endnote 20 – The Ancient Library of Alexandria

Shubert, “Oriental Origins,” p. 144. It is interesting in this regard that Anne Holmes (“The Alexandrian Library,” Libri 30 [December 1980], p. 21) suggests that the Pinakes may have been a list of authors and books that Callimachus wanted to acquire for the library rather than a catalogue of existing library holdings. This is unlikely because of the detailed bibliographical and critical material incorporated in each entry, including the indication that the book was purchased from some other library source or confiscated from some traveler. Lionel Casson (“Triumphs from the Ancient World’s First Think Tank,” Smithsonian 10 [June 1985], p. 164) urges that the Pinakes was conceivably only an encyclopedia of Greek literary history. In such a case, one wonders why it was called the Pinakes, connecting it with the tiles designating the categories of storage compartments and their contents.