There Are Various Accounts of How the Great Library of Alexandria Was Destroyed
For centuries, it was widely accepted that the Great Library of Alexandria was burned down or was otherwise destroyed in some cataclysmic event. One of the earliest accounts, by the Greek historian Plutarch (46 – 120 AD), holds that the library was accidentally destroyed by Julius Caesar during the siege of Alexandria in 48 BC. However, the geographer Strabo wrote 30 years after the siege of Alexandria about the Mouseion to which the Great Library was attached, and mentioned no such destruction. Another supposed culprit is Christian zealotry. In some accounts, after the Emperor Theodosius banned pagan practices in 391, gangs of Christians celebrated with anti-pagan riots, during which they torched the library.
However, the accounts of the riots actually refer to the Christians’ destruction of the Serapium, or temple of Serapis, which is not the Great Library, or even a library at all. Another culprit is the Muslim Caliph Omar. Supposedly, after Muslim forces conquered Egypt in the seventh century, somebody asked their general, Amr, for the books in the royal library. Amr wrote the Caliph for instructions, and Omar reportedly replied “If the books are in agreement with the Quran, we have no need of them, and if they are opposed to the Quran, destroy them“. However, there is no support for this story other than a single account by a Syrian Christian writer, who probably wanted to tarnish the Caliph’s image. So, what happened to the Great Library of Alexandria?
