The Alexandria Library was one of the largest in the ancient world. Founded by the successors of Alexander the Great, it maintained its status as an intellectual and educational center back in the 5th century. However, over the course of its long history, time after time there were powerful of this world who tried to destroy this beacon of culture. Let us ask ourselves a question: why? …
Chief librarians
The Library of Alexandria is believed to have been founded by Ptolemy I or Ptolemy II. The city itself, which is easy to understand by its name, was founded by Alexander the Great, and this happened in 332 BC.
Alexandria of Egypt, which, according to the plan of the great conqueror, was destined to become the center of scientists and intellectuals, became, probably, the first city in the world completely built of stone, without the use of wood. The library consisted of 10 large halls and rooms for the work of researchers.
They still argue about the name of its founder. If we understand by this word the initiator and creator, and not the king at that time, the true founder of the library, most likely, should be recognized as a man named Demetrius of Phaler.
Demetrius of Phaler appeared in Athens in 324 BC as a tribune of the people and was elected governor seven years later. He ruled Athens for 10 years: from 317 to 307 BC. Demetrius issued quite a few laws. Among them is the law that limited the luxury of burials.
Promotional video:
In his time, Athens had 90,000 citizens, 45,000 admitted foreigners and 400,000 slaves. As for the personality of Demetrius of Phaler himself, he was considered the trendsetter of his country: he was the first Athenian to lighten hair with hydrogen peroxide.
Later he was removed from office and left for Thebes. There Demetrius wrote a huge number of works, one of which, which has a strange name - "On a light beam in the sky" - as ufologists believe, was the world's first work about flying saucers.
In 297 BC, Ptolemy I persuaded him to settle in Alexandria. It was then that Demetrius founded the library. After the death of Ptolemy I, his son Ptolemy II exiled Demetrius to the Egyptian city of Busiris. There the creator of the library died from the bite of a poisonous snake.
Ptolemy II continued to study the library, was interested in sciences, mainly zoology. He appointed Zenodotus of Ephesus as curator of the library, who performed these functions until 234 BC. The surviving documents allow extending the list of the main curators of the library: Eratosthenes of Cyrene, Aristophanes of Byzantium, Aristarchus of Samothrace. After that, the information becomes vague.
Over the centuries, librarians have expanded the collection, adding papyri, parchments and even, according to legend, printed books. The library contained invaluable documents. Enemies began to appear in her, mainly in ancient Rome.
First plunder and secret books
The first plundering of the Library of Alexandria was carried out in 47 BC by Julius Caesar. By that time, it was considered a repository of secret books, giving almost unlimited power.
When Caesar arrived in Alexandria, there were at least 700,000 manuscripts in the library. But why did some of them start to instill fear? Of course, there were books in Greek that were treasures of classical literature that we had lost forever. But there shouldn't have been any dangerous among them.
But the entire legacy of the Babylonian priest Berossus who fled to Greece could well have alarmed. Berossus was a contemporary of Alexander the Great and lived to the time of the Ptolemies. In Babylon, he was a priest of Bel. He was a historian, astrologer and astronomer. He invented the semicircular sun dial and created theories for the addition of sun and moon rays, anticipating modern work on the interference of light.
But in some of his works, Berossus wrote about something very strange. For example, about the civilization of giants and whether about aliens, or about a civilization underwater.
The library of Alexandria also kept the complete collected works of Manetho. Egyptian priest and historian, contemporary of Ptolemy I and Ptolemy II, was initiated into all the secrets of Egypt. Even his name itself can be interpreted as "favorite of Thoth" or "who knew the truth of Thoth."
This man kept in touch with the last Egyptian priests. He authored eight books and collected 40 carefully selected scrolls in Alexandria, which contained the secret Egyptian secrets, possibly including the Book of Thoth.
The library of Alexandria also contained the works of the Phoenician historian Mocus, who is credited with creating the atomic theory. There were also exceptionally rare and valuable Indian manuscripts, and no trace of these manuscripts remained.
It is known that before the destruction of the library: there were 532,800 scrolls. It is known that there were departments that could be called "Mathematical Sciences" and "Natural Sciences". There was also a common directory, which was also destroyed. All this destruction is attributed to Julius Caesar. He took some of the books: he burned some, kept others for himself.
Thomas Cole “The Way of the Empire. Destruction 1836.
There is still no complete certainty about what exactly happened then. And two thousand years after Caesar's death, he still has supporters and opponents. Proponents say he did not burn anything in the library itself; some books may have been burned in a port warehouse in Alexandria, but it was not the Romans who set them on fire.
Opponents of Caesar, on the other hand, argue that a huge number of books were destroyed on purpose. Their number is not precisely defined and ranges from 40 to 70 thousand. There is also an intermediate opinion: the fire on the library spread from the quarter where the fighting took place, and it burned down by accident.
In any case, the library was not completely destroyed. Neither opponents nor supporters of Caesar talk about this, nor do their contemporaries; the stories about the event that are closest to it in time, nevertheless, are two centuries away from it. Caesar himself does not touch on this topic in his notes. Apparently, he "removed" individual books that seemed to him the most interesting.
Accidents or Men in Black?
The most serious subsequent devastation of the library was most likely perpetrated by Zenobia Septimia, Queen of Palmyra, and Emperor Aurelian during their war to rule over Egypt. And again, fortunately, the matter did not come to complete destruction, but valuable books were gone.
The reason why the emperor Diocletian took up arms against the library is well known. He wanted to destroy the books that contained the secrets of making gold and silver, that is, all works on alchemy. If the Egyptians are capable of producing as much gold and silver as they want, then, the emperor reasoned, they are capable of equipping a huge army and defeating the empire.
Emperor Diocletian, who destroyed alchemical manuscripts.
The grandson of the slave Diocletian was proclaimed emperor in 284. It seems that he was a born tyrant, and the last decree, signed by him before his abdication from power on May 1, 305, ordered the destruction of Christianity.
In Egypt, a major rebellion broke out against Diocletian, and in July 295 the emperor began a siege of Alexandria. He took Alexandria, however, according to legend, the emperor's horse, entering the conquered city, stumbled. Diocletian interpreted this incident as a sign of the gods commanding him to spare the city.
After the capture of Alexandria, a frantic search for alchemical manuscripts began, and all that were found were destroyed. Perhaps they contained the main keys to alchemy, which are now lacking for the comprehension of this science. We do not have a list of destroyed manuscripts, but the legend attributes some of them to Pythagoras, Solomon and even Hermes Trismegistus himself. Although this, of course, should be treated with a certain degree of skepticism.
The library continued to exist. Despite the fact that it was destroyed over and over again, the library continued to work until the Arabs finally destroyed it. And the Arabs knew what they were doing. They have already destroyed many secret works on magic, alchemy and astrology both in the Islamic empire itself and in Persia. The conquerors acted according to their motto: "No other books are needed except the Koran."
In 646, the Library of Alexandria was set on fire by them. The following legend is known: Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab in 641 ordered the commander Amr ibn al-As to burn down the Alexandrian library, saying: "If these books say what is in the Koran, then they are useless."
Burning of the Library of Alexandria in 391. Illustration from 1910.
French writer Jacques Bergier said that books died in that fire, possibly dating back to the pre-civilization that existed before the present, human. Alchemical treatises perished, the study of which would really make it possible to achieve the transformation of the elements.
Works on magic and evidence of the encounter with aliens that Berossus spoke of were destroyed. He believed that this whole series of pogroms could not be accidental. It could be carried out by an organization that Bergier conventionally calls "men in black". This organization has existed for centuries and millennia and seeks to destroy knowledge of a certain kind.
The few remaining manuscripts may still be intact, but are carefully guarded by secret societies from the world.
Of course, it may very well be that Bergier simply allowed himself to dream up, but it is possible that behind all this there are some real, but hardly amenable to reasonable interpretation of facts.
Valdis PEYPINSH