Who Burned Alexandria Library And When Did It Happen?

As someone who loves digging into historical mysteries, the fate of the Library of Alexandria is endlessly intriguing. The popular image of it being burned in one dramatic event isn't quite accurate. The library suffered multiple blows over several centuries. The earliest was during Julius Caesar's time in 48 BCE when his tactical fire got out of control. Then, in 391 CE, Archbishop Theophilus led a Christian mob to destroy the Serapeum, which held many remaining scrolls. The Muslim conquest in the 7th century is often blamed too, though historians debate how much was left by then.

What's heartbreaking is imagining the lost works – entire plays by Sophocles, scientific treatises, historical records. The library wasn't just books; it was a living center of learning where scholars like Euclid and Archimedes worked. Its gradual decline mirrors how easily knowledge can slip away when societies fracture. While we'll never know exactly what was lost, the library's legend reminds us to cherish and protect knowledge in our own era.

I've always been fascinated by ancient history, especially the mysteries surrounding the Library of Alexandria. The library was one of the greatest repositories of knowledge in the ancient world, and its destruction is a topic of much debate. The most commonly cited event is the burning during Julius Caesar's civil war in 48 BCE. Caesar set fire to his own ships to prevent them from falling into enemy hands, and the flames spread to parts of the city, including the library. However, the library wasn't completely destroyed then. Over the centuries, it suffered further damage from conflicts, including attacks by Roman Emperor Aurelian in the 3rd century and later by Christian mobs in the 4th century. The final blow likely came during the Muslim conquest in the 7th century. The library's demise wasn't a single event but a series of tragic losses over time.

The destruction of the Library of Alexandria is one of history's greatest intellectual tragedies. The library, part of the larger Mouseion, was a hub of scholarship in the ancient world. The first major incident occurred in 48 BCE when Julius Caesar's forces clashed with Ptolemy XIII. Caesar ordered his ships burned to block the enemy fleet, but the fire spread to the docks and parts of the city, damaging the library. Some accounts suggest up to 40,000 scrolls were lost, though the library wasn't completely destroyed.

Later, in 272 CE, Emperor Aurelian's troops sacked Alexandria during his war with Queen Zenobia, causing further damage. Then, in 391 CE, Christian zealots destroyed the Serapeum, a temple that housed a secondary library collection, under Emperor Theodosius I's anti-pagan decrees. The final chapter came in 642 CE when Arab forces under Caliph Omar captured Alexandria. While the famous story of Omar ordering the books burned is likely a myth, the library's decline was already complete by then. The truth is, the library faded over centuries due to neglect, political turmoil, and shifting priorities rather than a single catastrophic event.

What makes the library's story so poignant is the irreplaceable loss of works by thinkers like Aristarchus, who proposed a heliocentric solar system centuries before Copernicus, or Hipparchus, the father of trigonometry. The combined knowledge lost would have filled an estimated 100,000 to 700,000 scrolls – a staggering amount for the ancient world.