Many people are aware that the library of Alexandria is hugely overblown. Sure, there’ll always be people insisting that it was a magical place

Kiwi Hellenist: The library of Alexandria and its reputation

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2023-01-25 11:30:06

Many people are aware that the library of Alexandria is hugely overblown. Sure, there’ll always be people insisting that it was a magical place that held the secrets of Göbekli Tepe, Doggerland, and blond blue-eyed Europeans building pyramids in Mexico and Bolivia: there’s no point engaging with people like that. The thing is, pretty much everyone has heard of it.

Last week the History subreddit paid some attention to a piece I wrote in 2015 dispelling some myths about the Alexandrian library. Which is nice. Some people misread it and thought I was claiming it was true that ‘the burning of the library of Alexandria was “the most destructive fire in the history of human culture”’. That’s a pity, but understandable. (One reader was angry at my claiming to be a Kiwi and a hellenist: that was entertaining.)

On a more serious note, several readers pointed out that there were other library losses in history that were far more destructive. And that’s absolutely correct. Any time books are destroyed that don’t exist in other copies in other libraries, that’s a catastrophic and irreversible loss.