As the fame of the Library spread, students from all over the Greek world came to Alexandria, and there was a great demand for additional copies of the works in the Library. For more than three centuries, Alexandria was the great book-producing mart in the world. The Museum possessed a good collection of the best known copies of the works of the classic writers, and Ptolemy Philadelphus very much enlarged this collection. He bought every copy of all existing Greek works he could find, and as he paid very high prices for them, there was a steady flow of books to Alexandria from all over the civilized world. It is said that he refused to send food to the Athenians at a time of famine unless they agreed to give him certain copies they still possessed of the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. He paid liberally for them, not {403} only in the promised shipment of corn but also in silver. As more and more copies of the classic writers were wanted, a regular publishing trade arose in Alexandria. Callimachus was not only the Librarian of the Library, but a publisher of the works of classic writers. Large numbers of copyists were employed whose business it was to make careful and accurate copies of the works required. This accounts for the fact that in certain works of ancient literature it is sometimes difficult to know what is the really original form of certain lines or passages, because in spite of their care, the copyists made mistakes, and unfortunately many original copies of the classics were lost in the great fire which destroyed the Library in the last century B.C. The Alexandrian school of copyists was a very famous one, and Alexandrian Editions of the classics were considered the very best to be had. Not only were Greek works copied, but other literature was translated into Greek and then copied. It was in Alexandria that the oldest manuscript of the Old Testament we possess was transcribed. It was a translation of the whole of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek, made, according to tradition, by a group of seventy Jewish scholars, whence comes its name, the Septuagint. These scholars were encouraged to undertake this work by the King, who is said to have provided the means for their support whilst they were engaged on the translation, and who gave them a special quarter of the city in which to live. {404} III. SCIENCE IN THE HELLENISTIC AGE Greek science had been born in Ionia, and during the Hellenic Period of Greek civilization, it had gone hand in hand with philosophy. The earliest days of pure science came in the Hellenistic Age, and its home was in Alexandria. Amongst the many names of men of this time who contributed something of value to science, there are two which must be remembered: those of Euclid and Archimedes.