Library builder

The water mill, the first energy source to replace muscle power, appears in the Hellenistic cultural sphere at the end of the 2nd or beginning of the 1st century BC. The region of origin of this important invention, somewhere in Asia, is not well known. The first traces are claimed to be from the kingdom […]

A constant preoccupation of the Lagide kings, pressured by their politics of prestige and expansion, was to increase agricultural productivity. Each region (or nome) is under the responsibility of an economist (the Greek name is Oikonomos), charged, among many other tasks, to “control the delivery canals across the fields, from which the peasants draw water […]

In Chapter 3, devoted to Egypt of the pharaohs, we mentioned several projects that rep­resented completion or termination of efforts that the Ptolemites had begun earlier. In their development of commerce with distant partners in Arabia, and even as far as India according to Strabo, the Ptolemites needed to develop the infrastructure to access the […]

Lysimachus, who had received Thrace in the partition of Alexander the Great’s empire, imprudently left part of his war spoils in the custody of Philetairos, in the Asia Minor citadel of Pergamon. This citadel occupied a rocky spire that overlooked the plain from 300 m above it, and about 30 km from the sea. After […]

As we have shown, Lagide Egypt undergoes a period of troubles and reduced prosperi­ty from the 2nd century, a situation not at all propitious for development. Ptolemy VIII (called Physcon — i. e. the vain) hunts down the Alexandrian intellectuals in 145 BC and later sends his mercenaries to attack this city that had revolted. […]

Archimedes (287 — 212 BC) was born at Syracuse, in Sicily. In all probability, he spent time in Alexandria where he studied geometry with the followers of Euclid. Though Archimedes belonged to the mathematical School, it would have been quite natural and possible for him to see the inventions of Ctesibios during his stay. Upon […]

The writings of our 3rd century BC authors have unfortunately been lost for the most part. We know them primarily through citations and references contained in the writings of the subsequent period, in particular those of the Roman Vitruvius (about 25 BC) and of Heron of Alexandria (around 60 BC). It is thought that Straton […]

Is it to increase their prestige that the first Ptolemites set themselves up as protectors of the sciences, techniques and arts? Ptolemy I created the Library of Alexandria — more of a personal collection than a true institution. The Library is then completed by the Museum, either by Ptolemy I himself, or by his successor […]

Setting out from Macedonia, with contingents of Macedonian and Greek soldiers, Alexander achieved a first victory over the Achaemenid King Darius II, who ruled the Persian Empire, at the battle of Issus. Egypt falls without resistance into the clutches of Alexander, who makes a long sojourn there from 332-331 BC. During this sojourn, he founds […]

In 335 — 331 BC, Alexander the Great conquered the totality of Greece and the Persian Empire, including Egypt and Mesopotamia. The spirits of analysis and hydraulic know­how now were brought together in the same crucible, fueled by the need to innovate — in order to ensure survival in a world whose boundaries were suddenly […]