The Speculist

I know it's a form of nostalgia that's probably unwarranted, but ever since I was a child I've been fascinated about what knowledge was lost when the library at Alexandria burned. Where would we be today had that knowledge not been lost? Would we have gone through the Dark Ages?

I'm sure much of what was lost was useless arcane stuff like alchemy and astrology, but there seems little doubt that this was the biggest intellectual catastrophy that the West has ever experienced.

Barring an all-out nuclear war, such a catastrophy would be virtually impossible today because knowledge is decentralized. Today you could utterly destroy the entire Library of Congress and the intellectual community (outside of Washington) would hardly feel the bump.

BATT

At least this answers one thing. The Library of Alexandria did exist and it was more than just an overhyped library of the time. Having lecture facilities capable of handling 5000 students is at least a university in function and indicates to me that the Library was handling more than just the local population. It is interesting to note that Archimedes of Syracuse spent time there. Perhaps the Library educated people from all over the Mediterranian? That would make it powerful indeed.

It's interesting to note that there's several theories as to who destroyed the Library. Julius Caesar, Christian mobs, or the triumphant armies of Islam are all blamed for this. What is known for sure is that Julius Caesar did burn the Library. But the rest appears to be anti-religious propaganda and the real actions lost to time. I recall reading that to my surprise no contemporaries of the supposed times of burning mentioned it. Some of the contemporaries had axes to grind, and it seems strange that they wouldn't exploit such a notable destruction.
Library was allowed to linger in some reduced form for centuries there after.

Still it's clear that notable scholars came out of the Library long after the burning by Julius Caesar. Perhaps, the death of the Library of Alexandria wasn't due to a short period of violence, but a slow lingering death over many centuries.

In Cosomos, Carl Sagan blamed an early church leader. One of the Clements, I believe.

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