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.