The Greatest Tragedy of the Ancient World
The Royal Library of Alexandria in Egypt was the intellectual capital of the ancient world. Established in the 3rd century BC, it was designed to hold “all the books in the world.” At its peak, it is estimated to have housed between 40,000 and 400,000 scrolls, containing knowledge on mathematics, astronomy, physics, medicine, and history. Then, it burned down. The destruction of the library is often cited as the event that set humanity back by 1,000 years.
Who Burned It?
History isn’t clear on a single culprit. The library likely suffered from a series of disasters rather than one giant fire.
- Julius Caesar (48 BC): During the Siege of Alexandria, Caesar set fire to his own ships to block the Egyptian fleet. The fire spread to the docks and allegedly consumed part of the library.
- Theophilus (391 AD): The Coptic Pope Theophilus ordered the destruction of the Serapeum (a sister library) as part of a campaign against pagan temples.
- Caliph Omar (642 AD): A legend states that when Muslims conquered Egypt, Caliph Omar ordered the books burned, reasoning that if they agreed with the Quran, they were redundant, and if they disagreed, they were heresy. Most historians consider this story apocryphal.
What Did We Lose? The loss is incalculable. We know we lost the works of Aristarchus (who proposed the earth revolved around the sun 1,800 years before Copernicus) and the engineering designs of Hero of Alexandria (who built a steam engine prototype). If the library had survived, the Industrial Revolution might have started in antiquity.