Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries (20 page)

Once the largest library in the
world-and containing works by the
greatest thinkers and writers of antiquity, including Homer, Plato, Socrates,
and many more-the Library of Alexandria is popularly believed to have
been destroyed in a huge fire 2,000
years ago and its collection lost. Since
its destruction, this wonder of the ancient world has haunted the imagination of poets, historians, travelers, and
scholars, who have lamented the tragic

loss of knowledge and literature. Today, the idea of a universal library situated in a city celebrated as the center
of learning in the ancient world has
attained mythical status. The mystery
has been perpetuated by the fact that
no architectural remains or archaeological finds that can definitely be attributed to the library have ever been
recovered, which is surprising for such
a supposedly renowned and imposing
structure. This lack of physical proof has even persuaded some to wonder if
the fabulous library actually existed at
all in the form popularly imagined.

Home to the massive Pharos lighthouse, one of the Seven Wonders of the
Ancient World, the Mediterranean
seaport of Alexandria was founded by
Alexander the Great in 330 B.C., and as
with many other cities, took its name
from him. After his death in 323 B.C.,
Alexander's empire was left in the
hands of his generals, with Ptolemy I
Soter taking Egypt and making Alexandria his capital in 320 B.C. Formerly
a small fishing village on the Nile
delta, Alexandria became the seat of
the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt and developed into a great intellectual and
cultural center. It was perhaps the
greatest city in the ancient world. The
story of the founding of the Library of
Alexandria is obscure. It is believed
that around 295 B.C. the scholar and
orator Demetrius of Phalerum, an exiled governor of Athens, convinced
Ptolemy I Soter to establish a library.
Demetrius envisioned a library that
would house a copy of every book in
the world, an institution to rival Athens itself. Subsequently, under the
patronage of Ptolemy I, Demetrius organized the construction of the
Temple of the Muses or the Musaeum,
from which our word museum is derived. This structure was a shrine complex modeled on the Lyceum of
Aristotle in Athens, a center for intellectual and philosophical lectures and
discussion.

The Temple of the Muses was to be
the first part of the library complex at
Alexandria, and was located within
the grounds of the royal palace, in an
area known as the Bruchion or palace

quarter, in the northeastern, Greek
district of the city. The museum was a
cult center with shrines for each of the
nine muses, but also functioned as a
place of study with lecture areas, laboratories, observatories, botanical gardens, a zoo, living quarters, and dining
halls, as well as the library itself. A
priest chosen by Ptolemy I was the
administrator of the museum, and
there was also a separate librarian in
charge of the manuscript collection. At
some point during his reign (from 282
to 246 B.C.) Ptolemy II Philadelphus,
the son of Ptolemy I Soter, established
the Royal Library to complement the
Temple of the Muses set up by his father. It is not clear whether the Royal
Library, which was to become the main
manuscript library, was a separate
building located next to the museum,
or if it was an extension of the original
building. However, the consensus of
opinion is that the Royal Library did
form part of the Temple of the Muses.

During the reign of Ptolemy II, the
idea of the universal library seems to
have taken shape. Apparently, more
than 100 scholars were housed within
the museum, whose job it was to carry
out scientific research, lecture, publish, translate, copy, and collect not
only original manuscripts of Greek
authors (allegedly including the private collection of Aristotle), but translations of works from Egypt, Assyria,
Persia, as well as Buddhist texts and
Hebrew scriptures. One story goes that
the hunger of Ptolemy III for knowledge was so great that he decreed that
all ships docking at the port should
surrender their manuscripts to the
authorities. Copies were then made by
official scribes and delivered to the original owners, the originals being
filed away in the library. An often
quoted figure for the library holdings
at its peak is half a million documents,
though whether this refers to the
amount of books or the number of papyrus scrolls is unclear. However, in
view of the fact that many papyrus
rolls were needed to make up an entire book, it is more likely that it refers to the number of scrolls. Even
500,000 scrolls has been thought too
high by some scholars, as the construction of a building with such a vast
amount of storage space would be an
immense-though not impossibleundertaking. Nevertheless, during the
reign of Ptolemy II the collection at the
Royal Library became so vast that a
daughter library was established. This
library was situated in the precincts
of the temple of Serapis, in the Egyptian district of Rhakotis, in the southeastern part of the city. During the
librarianship of the Greek writer
Callimachus (c. 305 B.c.-c. 240 B.C.), the
daughter library contained 42,800
scrolls, all of which were copies of
those in the main library.

The alleged total destruction by
fire of the Library of Alexandria, with
the consequent loss of the most complete collection of ancient literature
ever assembled, has been a point of
heated debate for centuries. What exactly happened to this amazing storehouse of ancient knowledge, and who
was responsible for its burning? The
first point that needs to be mentioned
is that "the greatest catastrophe of
the ancient world," may never have
taken place on the scale often supposed. Nevertheless, the library did
disappear practically without a trace,
so obviously a disaster of some kind

befell it. The most popular suspect in
the case is Julius Caesar. It is alleged
that during Caesar's occupation of the
city of Alexandria in 48 B.C., he found
himself in the royal palace, hemmed
in by the Egyptian fleet in the harbor.
For his own safety he had his men set
fire to the Egyptian ships, but the fire
got out of control and spread to the
parts of the city nearest the shore,
which included warehouses, depots,
and some arsenals. After Caesar's
death it was generally believed that it
was he who had destroyed the library.
Roman philosopher and dramatist
Seneca, quoting from Livy's History of
Rome, written between 63 B.C. and A.D.
14, says that 40,000 scrolls were destroyed in the fire started by Caesar.
Greek historian Plutarch mentions
that the fire destroyed "the great Library." Roman historian Dio Cassius
(c. A.D. 165-A.D. 235) mentions a warehouse of manuscripts being destroyed
during the conflagration.

In his book, The Vanished Library,
Luciano Canfora interprets the evidence from ancient writers not to indicate that the great library itself was
destroyed, but manuscripts stored in
warehouses near the port waiting for
export. The great scholar and stoic
philosopher, Strabo, was working in
Alexandria in 20 B.c., and from his writings it is obvious that the library was
not the world-renowned center for
learning it had been in previous centuries. In fact, Strabo does not mention a library as such at all, though he
does mention the museum, which he
describes as "part of the royal palace."
He goes on to say that "it comprises
the covered walk, the exedra or portico, and a great hall in which the
learned members of the museum take their meals in common." If the great
library was attached to the museum,
then Strabo obviously felt there was
no need to mention it separately, and,
perhaps more importantly, if he was
there in 20 B.C., the library had obviously not been burned down by Caesar 28 years previously. The existence
of the library in 20 B.C., though perhaps
in a less grand form, means that we
have to look to someone other than
Caesar as the destroyer of Alexandria's
ancient wonder.

Early fifth century illustration of
Theophilus and the Serape um.

In A.D. 391 Emperor Theodosius I,
as part of his attempt to wipe out Paganism, officially sanctioned the destruction of the Serapeum, or Temple
of Serapis at Alexandria. The destruction of the temple was carried out under Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria,
and afterward a Christian church was
built on the site. It has been hypothesized that the daughter library of the
museum, located close to the Temple,
and the royal library itself, were also
razed to the ground at this time. However, while it is plausible that manuscripts from the Serapeum library may
have been destroyed during this purge,
there is no evidence that the Royal
Library still existed at the end the
fourth century. No ancient sources
mention the destruction of any library
at this time, though 18th century English historian Edward Gibbon mistakenly attributes it to bishop Theophilus.

The last suggested perpetrator of the
crime is the Caliph Omar. In A.D. 640
the Arabs (under General Amrou ibn
el-Ass) captured Alexandria after a
long siege. According to the story, the
conquering Arabs heard about a magnificent library containing all the
knowledge of the world and were

anxious to see it. But the Caliph, unmoved by this vast collection of learning, apparently stated "they will either
contradict the Koran, in which case
they are heresy, or they will agree with
it, so they are superfluous." The manuscripts were then gathered together
and used as fuel for the 4,000 bathhouses in the city. In fact, there were
so many scrolls that they kept the
bath-houses of Alexandria heated for
six months. These incredible facts
were written down 300 years after the
supposed event by Christian polymath
Gregory Bar Hebraeus (1226-1286).
However, while the Arabs may have
destroyed a Christian library at Alexandria, it is almost certain that by the
mid-seventh century the Royal Library
no longer existed. This is made clear
by the fact that no mention is made of such a catastrophic event by contemporary writers such as Christian chronicler John of Nikiou (a Byzantine monk),
writer John Moschus, and Sophronius
(the Patriarch of Jerusalem).

In fact, attempting to identify one
devastating fire that destroyed the
great library and all of its holdings is
a futile task. Alexandria was often a
volatile city, especially during the Roman period, as witnessed by Caesar's
burning of the ships, and also in the
violent struggle between the occupying forces of Queen Zenobia of Palmyra
and the Roman Emperor Aurelian in
A.D. 270/27 1. Aurelian eventually recovered the city for Rome from Queen
Zenobia's armies, but not before many
parts of Alexandria had been devastated, and the Bruchion district, which
contained the palace and the library,
were apparently "made into a desert."
The city was again sacked a few years
later by Roman Emperor Diocletian.
Such repeated damage, spread over
several centuries, along with neglect
of the library's contents as opinions
and affiliations changed, means that
the catastrophe was gradual, taking
place over a period of 400 or 500 years.
The last recorded director of the great
library was scholar and mathematician
Theon (c. A.D. 335-A.D. 405), father of
the female philosopher Hypatia, who
was brutally murdered by a Christian
mob in Alexandria in A.D. 415. Perhaps

one day, in the deserts of Egypt, scrolls
that were once part of the great library
will be discovered. Many archaeologists believe that the buildings that
once composed the legendary seat of
learning at Alexandria, if not buried
under the modern metropolis, could
still survive relatively intact somewhere in the northeastern part of the
city.

In 2004, a Polish-Egyptian archaeological team made the news when they
claimed to have discovered a part of
the Library of Alexandria while excavating in the Bruchion region. The archaeologists discovered 13 lecture
halls, each with an elevated central
podium. However, the structures date
to the late Roman period (fifth/sixth
century A.D.) so are unlikely to represent the celebrated museum or Royal
Library, though investigations in
the area are still taking place. In 1995,
construction work began on the
Bibliotheca Alexandrina, a major library and cultural center located close
to the site of original library. The huge
complex was officially opened on October 16, 2002, and was established to
commemorate the vanished Library of
Alexandria, and reignite some of the
intellectual brilliance that the original center represented. Hopefully, the
existence of a new universal library
will show that at least the spirit of the
ancient library has not been lost.