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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;David Atherton, post: 2785455, member: 82616&quot;]Nice article Herberto! You present a lot of interesting things to think about!</p><p><br /></p><p>I do want to take up one point about the Library&#039;s destruction.</p><p><br /></p><p>Luciano Canfora in &#039;The Vanished Library&#039; asserts it was warehouses of stored books (and grain) waiting for export near the port which were accidentally burned by Caesar, not the library itself.</p><p><br /></p><p>Strabo mentions the Museum was still in existence in his day. The Library was attached to the Museum - would Strabo make a distinction between the two or assume the reader knew they were part of the same entity?</p><p><br /></p><p>Canfora believes the Library was destroyed not by one single event but a series of mishaps and abuse over the centuries. I think this is a sounder way to go than following in the footsteps of an ancient writer with a Caesarean axe to grind.</p><p><br /></p><p>Heather Phillips wrote this very poignant paragraph about the Library&#039;s end: &#039;Though it seems fitting that the destruction of so mythic an institution as the Great Library of Alexandria must have required some cataclysmic event . . . in reality, the fortunes of the Great Library waxed and waned with those of Alexandria itself. Much of its downfall was gradual, often bureaucratic, and by comparison to our cultural imaginings, somewhat petty.&#039;</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m not trying to take anything away from your article Herberto, but just wanted to add another perspective about the Library&#039;s end.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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