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Message:: [QUOTE="Herberto, post: 2780246, member: 74222"]Both of these are long disproven myths started by such outdated historians like Gibbon and some others, and especially the Athene-myth have been perpetuated by authors not properly educated in history because it is easy to memorizing so well that they're usually have passed over in popular culture and even some modern works made by non-experts. The Academy of Plato was already destroyed during the first century BCE by the Roman general Sulla. it was then “rebuilt” 500 years later by the Neo-Platonists in the late fifth century CE. There is no institutional connection or continuity to Plato’s school. So the idea that a school of Plato existed throughout 800 years and survived wars, pillages, burnings and then just to be shut down by Justinian is entirely wrong. What Justinian shut down was Neo-platonist philosophy that attacked Christianity. Other philospfical schools in Constantinople and Alexandria, that did not attack Christianity continued to exist. It is also from John Malalas that we hear Justinian closed down that Neo-Platonist activity, but he is not saying that Justinian closed down the entire philosophy and all schools. Euclid’s geometry, Hippocrates’ and Galen’s medical works, Ptolemy’s astronomical works, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Thucydides’ historical works, Demosthene’s rhetorical speeches, Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophical and natural philosophical works were studied and recopied throughout whole Byzantine timeline. – What was destroyed was works that attacked Christianity, no more different when Pagan Augustus ordered the destruction of the Sibylline Books. From “The Beginnings of Western Science”, David C. Lindberg address it. David C. Lindberg is a well-known name for us who study or read the history of science. So does Peter Brown, who is a well-known name for us who study late antiquity. It is a myth. Not actual history. The Great Royal Library and Serapeum are not the same building. The first one is a library and the second one is “just” a Pagan temple. The Great Royal Library was destroyed by Julius Caesar in 47 BCE. The source materials say so. Serapeum was destroyed in 391 CE by Theophilus. However Serapeum (a Pagan temple) is NOT the Great Royal Library. – We have in facts 7 sources about that event and none of these sources are mentioning anything about a burning library or burning books as they are only mentioning that a pagan temple was destroyed. – It was Edward Gibbon who get the wrong. In 1980 a guy named Carl Sagan read Gibbon uncritically and spread that myth in TV despite it has nothing to do with actual history: <a href="http://www.bede.org.uk/library.htm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.bede.org.uk/library.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.bede.org.uk/library.htm</a> <a href="http://armariummagnus.blogspot.dk/2009/05/agora-and-hypatia-hollywood-strikes.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://armariummagnus.blogspot.dk/2009/05/agora-and-hypatia-hollywood-strikes.html" rel="nofollow">http://armariummagnus.blogspot.dk/2009/05/agora-and-hypatia-hollywood-strikes.html</a> In “Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science And Religion” by Ronal L. Number(also a historian of science) it also rejects it. Just as Peter Brown does who is a scholar of late antiquity. It all can be boiled down to the fact that a lot of casual readers, inclusive Sagan, are learning their history from outdated materials such of Gibbon instead of relying on modern scholarships. If you are willing to give me some days i will create a thread about it to elaborate it more easily. I just need some days.[/QUOTE]

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