Built on a simple plan, Alexandria was more regular than other Greek cities.  The streets intersected at right angles; a great highway 100 feet broad and three and one-half miles in length traversed the whole length of the city.  It was bordered with great monuments—­the Stadium where the public games were presented, the Gymnasium, the Museum, and the Arsineum.  The harbor was enclosed with a dike nearly a mile long which united the mainland to the island of Pharos.  At the very extremity of this island a tower of marble was erected, on the summit of which was maintained a fire always burning to guide the mariners who wished to enter the port.  Alexandria superseded the Phoenician cities and became the great port of the entire world.

=The Museum.=—­The Museum was an immense edifice of marble connected with the royal palace.  The kings of Egypt purposed to make of it a great scientific institution.

The Museum contained a great library.[99] The chief librarian had a commission to buy all the books that he could find.  Every book that entered Egypt was brought to the library; copyists transcribed the manuscript and a copy was rendered the owner to indemnify him.  Thus they collected 400,000 volumes, an unheard-of number before the invention of printing.  Until then the manuscripts of celebrated books were scarce, always in danger of being lost; now it was known where to find them.  In the Museum were also a botanical and zooelogical garden, an astronomical observatory, a dissecting room established notwithstanding the prejudices of the Egyptians, and even a chemical laboratory.[100]

The Museum provided lodgings for scholars, mathematicians, astronomers, physicians, and grammarians.  They were supported at the expense of the state; often to show his esteem for them the king dined with them.  These scholars held conferences and gave lectures.  Auditors came from all parts of the Greek world; it was to Alexandria that the youth were sent for instruction.  In the city were nearly 14,000 students.

The Museum was at once a library, an academy, and a school—­something like a university.  This sort of institution, common enough among us, was before that time completely unheard of.  Alexandria, thanks to its Museum, became the rendezvous for all the Orientals—­Greeks, Egyptians, Jews, and Syrians; each brought there his religion, his philosophy, his science, and all were mingled together.  Alexandria became and remained for several centuries the scientific and philosophical capital of the world.

=Pergamum.=—­The kingdom of Pergamum in Asia Minor was small and weak.  But Pergamum, its capital, was, like Alexandria, a city of artists and of letters.  The sculptors of Pergamum constituted a celebrated school in the third century before our era.[101] Pergamum, like Alexandria, possessed a great library where King Attalus had assembled all the manuscripts of the ancient authors.

It was at Pergamum that, to replace the papyrus on which down to that time they used to write, they invented the art of preparing skins.  This new paper of Pergamum was the parchment on which the manuscripts of antiquity have been preserved.