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The Royal Library of Alexandria in Alexandria , Egypt , was once the largest Library in the world. It is generally thought to have been founded at the beginning of the 3rd Century BC , during the reign of Ptolemy II Of Egypt . The Library was likely created after his father had built what would become the first part of the Library complex, the temple of the Muse s — the Museion , Greek ''Μουσείον'' (from which the modern English word '' Museum '' is derived). It has been reasonably established that the Library, or parts of the collection, were destroyed by fire on a number of occasions (library fires were common and replacement of handwritten manuscripts was very difficult, expensive and time-consuming). To this day the details of the destruction (or destructions) remain a lively source of controversy. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina was inaugurated in 2003 near the site of the old Library. Bibliotheca Alexandrina website . LIBRARY AS A RESEARCH INSTITUTION According to the earliest source of information, the Pseudepigraphic '' Letter Of Aristeas '', the Library was initially organized by Demetrius Of Phaleron .''Letter of Aristeas'' 9–12. Demetrius was a student of Aristotle . Initially the Library was closely linked to a "museum," or research center, that seems to have focused primarily on editing texts. Libraries were important for textual research in the ancient world, since the same text often existed in several different versions of varying quality and veracity. The editors at the Library of Alexandria are especially well known for their work on Homer ic texts. The more famous editors generally also held the title of head librarian, and included, among others,Whibley, Leonard; ''A Companion to Greek Studies'' 1916 pp. 122–123.
The geographical diversity of the scholars suggests that the Library was in fact a major center for research and learning. In 2004 , a Polish-Egyptian team found what they believe to be a part of the Library while excavating in the Bruchion region. The archaeologists unearthed thirteen "lecture halls", each with a central podium. Zahi Hawass , the president of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said that all together, the rooms uncovered so far could have seated 5000 students;Whitehouse, David, " Library of Alexandria Discovered ," ''BBC News''. the picture thus presented is most certainly of a fairly massive research institution, especially for that time. The Library likely encompassed several buildings, with the main book depositories either directly attached to or located close to the oldest building, the Museum, and a daughter library in the younger Serapeum , which was also a temple dedicated to the god Serapis . It is not always clear in the sources whether a phrase refers to a particular building, or to the institution as a whole. This has served to add to the confusion about when and by whom the Library was "destroyed." By the early 2nd century BC, Eumenes II of Mysia had founded a competing library and research center in Pergamum .Whibley, Leonard; ''A Companion to Greek Studies'' 1916 pp. 123 COLLECTION A story concerns how its collection grew so large: by decree of Ptolemy III Of Egypt , all visitors to the city were required to surrender all books and Scroll s in their possession; these writings were then swiftly copied by official scribes. Sometimes the copies were so precise that the originals were put into the Library, and the copies were delivered to the unsuspecting previous owners. James Burke related this story in an episode of '' Connections ''. This process also helped to create a reservoir of books in the relatively new city. The Ptolemies also purchased additional materials from throughout the Mediterranean area, including from Rhodes and Athens.Erksine, Andrew. 1995. Culture and Power in Ptolemaic Egypt: The Museum and Library of Alexandria. ''Greece & Rome'', 2nd ser., 42(1), 38-48. The Library's collection was already famous in the ancient world, and became even more storied in later years. It is impossible, however, to determine how large the collection was in any era. The collection was made of , states that the Library contained nearly one million scrolls, though other experts have estimated a smaller number. No index of the Library survives, and it is not possible to know with certainty how large and how diverse the collection was. It is likely, for example, that even if the Library had hundreds of thousands of scrolls (and thus, perhaps, tens of thousands of individual ''works''), many of these were duplicate copies or alternate versions of the same texts. DESTRUCTION OF THE LIBRARY Ancient and modern sources identify four possible occasions for the destruction of the Library: # Caesar 's conquest 48 BC; #The attack of Aurelian in the 3rd century; #The decree of Theophilus in 391; #The Muslim Conquest in 642 or thereafter. Each of these has been viewed with suspicion by other scholars as an effort to place the blame on particular actors. Moreover, each of these events is historically problematic. In the first case, there is clear evidence that the Library was not in fact destroyed at that time. The third episode is attested by no ancient authors, and was more or less "deduced" by Edward Gibbon from a single vague sentence written by Paul Orosius that did not refer to the Serapeum at all. Gibbon's account , based on various sources, including Orosius . The fourth episode was not documented by any contemporary source, although some maintain that the final destruction of the Library took place at this time.Lionel Casson, ''Libraries in the Ancient World'' (Yale University Press, 2001) and Luciano Canfora, ''The Vanished Library'' (University of California Press, 1989). Caesar's conquest 48 BC Plutarch's '' Lives '', written at the end of the first or beginning of the second century, describes a battle in which Caesar was forced to burn his own ships, which in turn set fire to the docks and then the Library, destroying it.Plutarch, ''Life of Caesar'' 49.3. This would have occurred in 48 BC, during the fighting between Caesar and Ptolemy XIII ; Ammianus Marcellinus may be an independent witness to this fact (see below). Only 25 years later Strabo saw the Library and worked in it; however, Plutarch also explains this. During Marcus Antonius ' rule of the eastern part of the Empire (40-30 BC), he plundered the second largest library in the world (that at Pergamon )and presented the collection as a gift to Kleopatra as a replacement for the loss of the original Museum library. Attack of Aurelian , 3rd century The Library seems to have been maintained and continued in existence until its contents were largely lost during the taking of the city by the Emperor Aurelian (270–275), who was suppressing a revolt by Queen Zenobia of Palmyra ."What happened to the great Library of Alexandria," ''The Straight Dope'', 6 December 2005. The smaller library located at the Serapeum survived, but part of its contents may have been taken to Constantinople to adorn the new capital in the course of the 4th Century . However, Ammianus Marcellinus, writing around 378 AD seems to speak of the library in the Serapeum temple as a thing of the past, and he states that many of the Serapeum library's volumes were burnt when Caesar sacked Alexandria. As he says in Book 22.16.12-13: "Besides this there are many lofty temples, and especially one to Serapis, which, although no words can adequately describe it, we may yet say, from its splendid halls supported by pillars, and its beautiful statues and other embellishments, is so superbly decorated, that next to the Capitol, of which the ever-venerable Rome boasts, the whole world has nothing worthier of admiration. In it were libraries of inestimable value; and the concurrent testimony of ancient records affirm that 70,000 volumes, which had been collected by the anxious care of the Ptolemies, were burnt in the Alexandrian war when the city was sacked in the time of Caesar the Dictator." While Ammianus Marcellinus may be simply reiterating Plutarch's tradition about Caesar's destruction of the library, it is possible that his statement reflects his own empirical knowledge that the Serapeum library collection had either been seriously depleted or was no longer in existence in his own day. Decree of Theophilus in 391 In 391 , Emperor Theodosius I ordered the destruction of all pagan temples, and Patriarch Theophilus Of Alexandria complied with this request Gibbon , ''Decline and Fall'', ch. 28. . Socrates Scholasticus provides the following account of the destruction of the temples in Alexandria in the fifth book of his ''Historia Ecclesiastica'', written around 440: The Serapeum once housed part of the Library, but it is not known how many, if any, books were contained in it at the time of destruction. Notably, the passage by Socrates Scholasticus, unlike that of Ammianus Marcellinus, makes no clear reference to a library or library contents being destroyed, only to religious objects being destroyed. The pagan author Eunapius of Sardis witnessed the demolition, and though he detested Christians, and was a scholar, his account of the Serapeum's destruction makes no mention of any library. In short, there is simply no evidence whatsoever to support the contention that Christians destroyed the Library. Paulus Orosius admitted in the sixth book of his ''History against the pagans'': "Today there exist in temples book chests which we ourselves have seen, and, when these temples were plundered, these, we are told, were emptied by our own men in our time, which, indeed, is a true statement." But Orosius is not here discussing the Serapeum, nor is it clear who "our own men" are (the phrase may mean no more than "men of our time," since we know from contemporary sources that pagans also occasionally plundered temples). As for the Museum, Mostafa El-Abbadi writes in ''Life and Fate of the ancient Library of Alexandria'' (Paris 1992): riots in Alexandria that transpired after the imperial decree of 391 (p314). Muslim conquest in 642 Several historians told varying accounts of a Muslim army led by argued that the original account is not true, but that it survived over time because it was a useful myth for the later Muslim leader, Saladin , who also found it necessary to destroy a library. Lewis proposes that the story of the caliph Umar's support of a library's destruction may have made Saladin's actions seem more acceptable to his people. Bernard Lewis article CONCLUSION Although the actual circumstances and timing of the physical destruction of the Library remain uncertain, it is however clear that by the 8th century, the Library was no longer a significant institution and had ceased to function in any important capacity. Alexandria was not a major research center for the Islamic world. Moreover, if the collection had survived to the early 700s, it would very likely have been incorporated into the library of the Al-Azhar Mosque (and later university) in Cairo. This collection has come down to the present intact, but does not include Alexandrine texts.Al-Azhar website, {Link without Title} . SEE ALSO NOTES REFERENCES
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