The Library of Alexandria Didn't Burn. Here's What Really Killed It

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Some links below are affiliate links. Julius Caesar didn't destroy the Library of Alexandria. So what did? The real story is slower, stranger, and more unsettling than one night of fire. ⏱ Chapters 00:00 The fire that didn't do it 00:18 A library that stole books 02:13 48 BC: Caesar's fire 04:13 The quiet killers 06:12 272 AD: Aurelian 07:02 391 AD: The Serapeum 08:19 The myth that won't die 08:58 What really burned 📚 Sources & further reading Ancient: • Galen, Commentary on Hippocrates' Epidemics III (Kühn 17a.606–607) • Caesar, Civil War 3.111–112 • Plutarch, Life of Caesar 49 • Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind 9.5 • Cassius Dio, Roman History 42.38; 78.7.3 and 78.22–23 (Loeb) • Strabo, Geography 17.1.8 • Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 4.184b–c; 1.22d • Pliny, Natural History 13.70 • Ammianus Marcellinus 22.16.12–15 • Rufinus, Ecclesiastical History 11.22–23; Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History 5.16 and 7.15 • Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (c. 1203); Ibn al-Qifti, History of Learned Men (c. 1227) Modern: • Roger S. Bagnall, "Alexandria: Library of Dreams," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 146.4 (2002) • Roy MacLeod (ed.), The Library of Alexandria (2000) • Lionel Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World (2001) • Heather Phillips, "The Great Library of Alexandria?" (2010) – https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphi... • Daniel Heller-Roazen, "Tradition's Destruction," October 100 (2002) • Bernard Lewis, "The Vanished Library," NYRB (1990) • Alan Cameron, Callimachus and His Critics (1995); Rudolf Blum, Kallimachos (1991); F. J. Witty, "The Pínakes of Callimachus" (1958) 📖 Recommended reading (affiliate links) • Roy MacLeod (ed.), The Library of Alexandria: Centre of Learning in the Ancient World – https://www.amazon.com/dp/1850435944?... • Lionel Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World – https://www.amazon.com/dp/0300097212?... • Richard Ovenden, Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge – https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674271106?... • Irene Vallejo, Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World – https://www.amazon.com/dp/0593318897?... ▶ Next week: The Dancing Plague of 1518 –    • The Summer Strasbourg Couldn't Stop Dancin...   (subscribe so you don't miss it) 🌎 Spanish subtitles available (CC ⚙ Settings). Narration is AI-generated from an original, researched script. Visuals are custom-made. Music created with Eleven Music (ElevenLabs). More stories:    / @writtenhistorytv   #history #libraryofalexandria #ancienthistory