| | "Hey Phil, can you recount the details of the library of Alexandria? And the burning of it?"
Lance, trying valiantly to wrest this thread back from the nefarious clutches of the black hand of the black-bearded, saturnine, conspiracy-loving, black-souled evil Catholic Humorist Robertus Bidinottus . . .
I don't have a reference work handy, so this is from memory: The Great Library of Alexandria was created during the Hellenistic period, the last centuries B.C., in Egypt on the shores of the Mediterranean. This was a wealthy period of great trade and science. The successful goal was be the greatest library that had ever existed, to hold all of the world's knowledge, collect all of the books (well, scrolls) known to man.
I don't recall the details of the library's destruction. Probably centuries later, around 400 or 500 A.D.? As ancient civilization wound down into the Dark Ages, the following factors destroyed monuments and literature, art and institutions: (1) Christian mobs, (2) invading barbarians, (3) Lack of money and organization and will in the face of poverty, decline, and decay.
I recall it as having been burned, but by which of 1, 2, 3, you'd have to go to one of today's unburned libraries to find out.
Phil
(Edited by Philip Coates
on 4/20, 12:26pm)
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