Note 243 — Chapter XII · EGYPT.

A “Homeric poet” ἐκ Μουσείου is ready to sing the praise of Memnon in four Homeric verses, without adding a word of his own (C. I. Gr. 4748). Hadrian makes an Alexandrian poet a member in reward for a loyal epigram (Athenaeus, xv. p. 677 e). Examples of rhetors from Hadrian’s time may be seen in Philostratus, Vit. Soph. i. 22, 3, c. 25, 3. A φιλόσοφος ἀπὸ Μουσείου in Halicarnassus (Bull. de corr. Hell. iv. 405). At a later period, when the circus was everything, we find a noted pugilist figuring (so to say) as an honorary member of the philosophical class (inscription from Rome, C. I. Gr. 5914: νεωκόρος τοῦ μεγά[λου Σαράπιδ]ος καὶ τῶν ἐν τῷ Μουσείῳ [σειτου]μένων ἀτελῶν φιλοσόφων; comp. ib. 4724, and Firmicus Maternus, de errore prof. rel. 13, 3). Οἱ ἐν Ἐφέσῳ ἀπὸ τοῦ Μουσείου ἰατροί (Wood, Ephesus, inscriptions from tombs, n. 7), a society of Ephesian physicians, have relation doubtless to the Museum at Alexandria, but were hardly members of it; they were rather trained in it.