I recently was on the Wikipedia article for the library of Alexandria, and it seems the English version doesn’t really talk about the fire (anymore), only saying things like
“The Library, or part of its collection, was accidentally burned by Julius Caesar during his civil war in 48 BC, but it is unclear how much was actually destroyed and it seems to have either survived or been rebuilt shortly thereafter.”
And
Between 270 and 275 AD, Alexandria saw a Palmyrene invasion and an imperial counterattack that probably destroyed whatever remained of the Library, if it still existed.
With no sources, instead painting it as naturally losing influence over time.
What’s up with that?
Because the impact of the fire wasn’t actually as large as popular history makes it out to be. The most influential works in the Library’s collection almost certainly had copies in other libraries across the ancient world. The texts that didn’t were probably just obscure things with little actual value. Of course it still sucks from a historical perspective, but those works would have probably been lost anyways to natural degradation and not being recopied.
Where are the sources to back that up though? (Talking about the article, not you. Although if you could provide some historian’s assessment I would be interested)
I imagine not the uniqueness, but simply the aggregation was its most attractive attribute at the time. Knowing another copy exists somewhere across Europe isn’t really helpful if you had to travel months to retrieve it. Everything was there, ready to be consulted.
The arson is, as far as I know, an event that has been continuously recalled and depicted throughout history and, while it has most likely been romanticised at least a little bit, I struggle to believe it’s a myth. Both the library and the fire are important symbols, especially in a time where we are seeing similar attacks on freely available knowledge
Secret teachings is from 1928 I thought it was way newer. It’s a good book. Pretty crazy that Manly was still doing talks into the 80s I think.
