ABSTRACT
The founding and expansion of the museum at Alexandria by the first two Ptolemies heralded a new epoch for scholarly disciplines. Its achievements will be dealt with below (see pp. 281ff.). Magnificent library facilities boasting fine collections, research amenities and, not least, well-remunerated professorial chairs whose incumbents enjoyed high esteem both in society at large and at court (the library superintendent was usually tutor to the crown prince) constituted ideal conditions for a rich flowering of scholarship, and to a certain extent poetry.
