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I don't know why people are so hung up about this. The amount of knowledge lost was very little to basically none. The express purpose of the Library of Alexandria was to COPY important works from around the known world. People would bring information from around the world to them, they would copy the work and the original would be returned. This meant that by definition for every piece of information there would be at least one copy at the time of recording. And because only important works were copied, it's likely a lot of copies existed. If the information was really pivotal, a lot of work would be based on it, so that's even more copies. Plus it wasn't the only place to do this, there were many more libraries around the ancient world that did the same thing. At the time it was burned, it had already been in decline for a while.
So for all the people going on about how our world would look like if it hadn't been lost, the answer is exactly the same. It had basically zero impact.
I don’t know why people are so hung up about this. The amount of knowledge lost was very little to basically none. The express purpose of the Library of Alexandria was to COPY important works from around the known world. People would bring information from around the world to them, they would copy the work and the original would be returned. This meant that by definition for every piece of information there would be at least one copy at the time of recording. And because only important works were copied, it’s likely a lot of copies existed. If the information was really pivotal, a lot of work would be based on it, so that’s even more copies.
Holy fucking shit I don't even know where to start.
The mythos around the Library greatly exaggerates its importance, and the impacts of the fire. By the time they killed Hypatia (and this was a political struggle, not a religious one as the internet likes to pretend), it was not in its prime.
The first-century AD Roman playwright and Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger quotes Livy's Ab Urbe Condita Libri, which was written between 63 and 14 BC, as saying that the fire started by Caesar destroyed 40,000 scrolls from the Library of Alexandria.
My shock and horror, however, was at the ideas that:
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"Losing a large number of copies at one of the greatest repositories of the ancient world is no big deal."
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"There is at least one copy so it's fine if the copy is lost"
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"If it was really important, there would be a lot of copies and we don't need to worry about it".
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"Very little knowledge was actually lost"
By the time they killed Hypatia (and this was a political struggle, not a religious one as the internet likes to pretend), it was not in its prime.
Oh, of course. Want to remind me what the political issue was that got them all riled up?
What was lost that you are concerned about?
Probably next to nothing, and certainly nothing of importance was lost. Alexandria was hardly the only library in the world, and the libraries at Pergamum and later Rome herself rivaled Alexandria in scale. Antony replaced the losses of the fire during the Alexandrine War with copies made from the library at Pergamum, and libraries in gymnasia or simply founded for citizens abound during that period in the Greek world, they're in like literally every city of any size. If anything at all was lost it was almost certainly mainly critical commentaries on various authors, as well as catalogs of their works--both the Alexandrian library and the Pergamene one were famous for producing such commentaries. Pretty much everything else of value would have existed elsewhere. It's possible that a few (at that time probably little-known) philosophical texts might have been lost, but even such texts are likely to have had other copies elsewhere. For example, Aristotle's didactic texts are practically unknown in the Hellenistic Period, before a first century, B.C. edition was compiled, but they existed at the very least probably both in Alexandria and the library of the Peripatetics themselves (probably also in Pergamum).
We do not lose texts because of catastrophic events that wipe out all copies of them. We lose texts because they stop being copied. Papyrus is really freaking old and even in Egypt doesn't preserve as well as we'd like. Fragmentary papyrus finds are extremely important to Classicists, but the overwhelming majority of our texts (and pretty much all our complete ones) are known from medieval copies. The destruction of the library, whenever exactly it happened, would have had next to no impact on the transmission of texts. Imagine if we went down to the Library of Congress right now--or better yet forty years ago before the Internet--and burned all the stacks and catalogs. That would be a big deal, but would it wipe out knowledge of what was there? Besides the catalogs themselves and any supplementary material that the library had put together for its own purposes...no, not really. Those books all exist elsewhere, except for a handful of extremely rare texts and the stuff the library puts together for its own purposes. Most texts that are lost now were already lost in late antiquity or the early Middle Ages, simply because they were not copied enough. Even a brief period of unpopularity might result in a sharp decline in the survivability of an author--Catullus, despite being unanimously praised by ancient and modern critics, briefly lost popularity under the Antonines and already by late antiquity authors were lamenting the difficulty in obtaining a copy of his poems. The most likely texts to survive were the ones used in the school curricula, which is why we have so many copies of Caesar, Virgil, and Homer, or foundational philosophical texts, especially Plato and Aristotle's didactic works (his exoteric texts had already been lost by the early Middle Ages). The loss of textual material has very little to do with catastrophic events.
After all, what would have happened if the Library had survived? The collection would be long-decayed by now--the large papyrus finds at places like Oxyrhynchus are due to a large part not to Egypt as a whole but the fact that the climate combined with the garbage heaps in which these papyri are found causes the papyri to get stuck in airless pockets and stuff. So we would know the texts by copies anyway. Alexandria was cut off from the Byzantine scholars who copied Greek (and Muslim scholars generally worked from translation), so the survival of the collection would not have influenced their work significantly. And in any case, as I keep stressing, what was in there was already known elsewhere. Even within the city of Alexandria itself several copies of those texts existed in various locations, many of them on warehouses at the harbor ready to be exported (Badian, for example, conjectured that it was one of these warehouses that Caesar's troops set fire to, since he was nowhere near the palace complex). It might be nice to have some of the commentaries on various authors that we knew certain Alexandrian scholars put together for their private use, but commentaries are like reading footnotes, we'd rather have the texts themselves--and the texts on which the commentators were commenting existed elsewhere as well.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5t6op5/comment/ddkr2h6/
I doubt you'll get much information out of me, I have no idea. You'd be best served by posting a separate question. I'd be extremely surprised, however, to hear that the same is not true of the incident to which you're referring. Any important texts housed at Baghdad surely must have had copies elsewhere, if for no other reason than that they wouldn't have been that important otherwise. But that's a totally uninformed conjecture, what the hell do I know about it
Yes, he is quite apparently uninformed and doesn't know the hell about anything. Holy shit, saying the Library at Baghdad being lost either is no big deal? Jesus fucking Christ.
We do not lose texts because of catastrophic events that wipe out all copies of them. We lose texts because they stop being copied.
Hey, wanna guess what happens when a central repository for copies and copying is lost? There are fewer chances for copies to be made. This is... this is not exactly high-level historiography.
This is why I fucking hated AskHistorians back on Reddit. They'd remove actual well-researched comments for not being cited properly, and then leave up absolutely unsupported dogshit assertions up like this because it 'sounds right'.
The destruction of the library, whenever exactly it happened, would have had next to no impact on the transmission of texts. Imagine if we went down to the Library of Congress right now–or better yet forty years ago before the Internet–and burned all the stacks and catalogs. That would be a big deal, but would it wipe out knowledge of what was there? Besides the catalogs themselves and any supplementary material that the library had put together for its own purposes…no, not really. Those books all exist elsewhere, except for a handful of extremely rare texts and the stuff the library puts together for its own purposes.
Holy fucking shit, Does he not understand the difference between modern mass-printing and pre-modern script transmission?
After all, what would have happened if the Library had survived?
Tens of thousands of copies of works would have potentially hundreds of years' worth of copying added to their stock. The idea that there's a fucking boolean switch here is just... beyond stupid. God have mercy on this posters soul.
How many Classical works do we know of only because of one or two early copies of that managed to survive long enough to be transmitted by a more interested and more wealthy era? "Hurr hurr if they were important there would have been more copies". Jesus fucking Christ.
EDIT: Searched through the commenter's history out of curiousity. They seem to otherwise have informed takes, which makes their position on the library's importance all the more baffling.
Friend, you’re oddly hostile and emotional about this - especially considering your lack of knowledge concerning the historical event in question. Like many, you appear to have conflated the burning of the Library of Alexandria by Caesar in the 1st century with the decline of the Library and later murder of Hypatia in the 4th century.
I would suggest you check out Hypatia : the life and legend of an Ancient Philosopher by Edward Watts for more details of the nature of the political conflict involving her, Orestes, and Cyril. I would also suggest you calm down and learn more about historical events before you start cussing people out.
Friend, you’re oddly hostile and emotional about this - especially considering your lack of knowledge concerning the historical event in question. Like many, you appear to have conflated the burning of the Library of Alexandria by Caesar in the 1st century with the decline of the Library and later murder of Hypatia in the 4th century.
The meme says "still upset about the Library of Alexandria", and most people associate that with the burning of the Library of Alexandria, not 'the decline' afterwards. You were the one who brought up Hypatia, to which I only responded to demonstrate the absolute fucking absurdity of asserting that it was not a 'religious issue' when the core matter was that the Christian mob felt that the wretched pagan whore was leading poor Orestes astray from reconciling with God's Church (and Bishop Cyril, conveniently, who was definitely known for his tolerance /s)
I would suggest you check out Hypatia : the life and legend of an Ancient Philosopher by Edward Watts for more details of the nature of the political conflict involving her, Orestes, and Cyril. I would also suggest you calm down and learn more about historical events before you start cussing people out.
I'd suggest you take your tone policing and shove it up your ass. I don't give misinformation asspats and a hall pass just because it's stated without emotional terms.
People don't stop passing around misinformation because it's politely corrected and implicitly legitimized and treated with dignity. They stop passing it around because they learn that it's not welcome where they're trying to pass it around.
EDIT: I was curious, so I actually did check out Hypatia: The Life and Legend of an Ancient Philosopher. It's quite good. It's also quite explicit in placing her killing within a religious context, so, thanks for reinforcing my point, I guess.
Well it would help if instead of being a dick about it and being all gasp shock and horror, maybe post some sources supporting your claims? "I don't even know where to start" Oh humbug this misinformation! About something that happened thousands of years ago and has zero modern day relevance.
Maybe the whole library of Alexandria thing is an American thing? I had hardly heard of it until later on the internet. In the ancient history classes I had it was only briefly mentioned and more because of the politics around the thing than the thing itself.
Every source I can find (and I'm not counting any Reddit post as a source) says not much was actually lost, the library had been in decline for a long time before the fire and there were a lot of libraries. Just because it was a prestigious and big one, doesn't mean it's important when there are libraries in every city which combined hold even more knowledge. Moreover it is widely accepted that the libraries didn't contribute that much to the survival of ancient knowledge to modern day, but instead the many copies floating around. Especially medieval monks who did nothing all day except for making copies.
And I have to wonder what knowledge you think was actually lost? It isn't like the ancients were known for their application of the scientific method. Some of the things the ancients did were really impressive and cool, but they didn't have a whole lot of knowledge compared to the past 100 years. No doubt some cool stories and poems were lost, which is a shame, but not something to get this worked up about.
Well it would help if instead of being a dick about it and being all gasp shock and horror, maybe post some sources supporting your claims? “I don’t even know where to start” Oh humbug this misinformation! About something that happened thousands of years ago and has zero modern day relevance.
Jesus fucking Christ. Why are you even here in a History community if that's how you feel?
Every source I can find (and I’m not counting any Reddit post as a source) says not much was actually lost, the library had been in decline for a long time before the fire
The decline of the library as an academic institution and the loss of a significant portion of its collection (and by some accounts a significant portion of the storage of the building itself) are two different things, and most people talk about the latter, not the former.
and there were a lot of libraries.
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Just because it was a prestigious and big one, doesn’t mean it’s important when there are libraries in every city which combined hold even more knowledge.
Oh, okay, like how if a warehouse with the largest (and non-neglible) portion of the world's silk reserves burns down, it's okay, because there's more silk elsewhere. Definitely doesn't effect anything, not even with a fungible commodity. Phew! I was worried for a moment that a large number of works with an already small number of copies were destroyed in one of the most centralized and well-known repositories in the world at a time when navigation even within a polity could be dicey! Good thing that's definitely not what happened, otherwise it might be a real tragedy for the preservation of human works!
Moreover it is widely accepted that the libraries didn’t contribute that much to the survival of ancient knowledge to modern day,
What the fuck.
but instead the many copies floating around. Especially medieval monks who did nothing all day except for making copies.
Holy shit. Where do you think those 'medieval monks' (which is a really odd one to hone in on, but we'll let that slide) copied scripts from? Where do you think those copies were stored?
For that matter, a great deal of knowledge was lost due to those same 'medieval monks' quite literally scraping off text to reuse vellum for their own works.
And I have to wonder what knowledge you think was actually lost? It isn’t like the ancients were known for their application of the scientific method. Some of the things the ancients did were really impressive and cool, but they didn’t have a whole lot of knowledge compared to the past 100 years. No doubt some cool stories and poems were lost, which is a shame, but not something to get this worked up about.
"Who cares? It's just history and literature! It's not like it's something important, like STEM."
Stop. Get help.
Have you cited a single source in this conversation? Do you have anything other than hostility? I’ve read some spicy history papers, but usually the insults are a bit less foaming at the mouth. I don’t think it’s “tone policing” to ask you to avoid insults in a conversation about history. Even my most dickish professor in grad school attacked arguments, not people.
This isn’t a “STEM” versus history thing. I have a degree in history, and have done substantial post grad work. No classicist that I’ve met gets worked up about the Library of Alexandria. The way that texts were preserved was by copying - important texts were copied more. There might have been some commentaries on Plato or Aristotle that could have been interesting, maybe some lost poetry, but folks have almost turned this into mythology.
Instead of writing whatever screed you are typing at this moment, why not spend that time reading that book I linked? Why not spend that time reading about the contents of the library?
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