|
The Library of Alexandria was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world.〔Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, Sagan, C 1980, ("Episode 1: The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean" )〕 Famous for having been burned, thus resulting in the loss of many scrolls and books, it has become a symbol of "knowledge and culture destroyed." Although there is a tradition of ''the'' burning of the Library at Alexandria, the library may have suffered several fires or acts of destruction, of varying degrees, over many years. Different cultures may have blamed each other throughout history, or distanced their ancestors from responsibility, and therefore leaving conflicting and inconclusive fragments from ancient sources on the exact details of the destruction. Experts differ on when books in the actual library were destroyed. Manuscripts were probably burned in stages over eight centuries. Ancient and modern sources identify four possible occasions for the partial or complete destruction of the Library of Alexandria: Julius Caesar's fire during his civil war in 48 BC; the attack of Aurelian in AD 270 – 275; the decree of Coptic Patriarch Theophilus in 391 AD; and the Muslim conquest of Egypt in (or after) AD 642.〔 〕 ==Caesar's conquest in 48 BC== The ancient accounts by Plutarch, Aulus Gellius, Ammianus Marcellinus, and Orosius indicate that troops of Caesar accidentally burned the library down during or after the Siege of Alexandria in 48 BC.〔Pollard, Justin, and Reid, Howard. 2006. ''The Rise and Fall of Alexandria, Birthplace of the Modern World.''〕 Plutarch's ''Parallel Lives'', written at the end of the 1st or beginning of the 2nd century AD, describes the Siege of Alexandria in which Caesar was forced to burn his own ships: However, the editor of Plutarch's translation notes that the "destruction of the Library can have been only partial", and that it occurred specifically in the Museum built by Ptolemy.〔 In the 2nd century AD, the Roman historian Aulus Gellius wrote in his book ''Attic Nights'' that the Library was burned by mistake after the siege when some of Caesar’s auxiliary soldiers started a fire. Aulus's translator similarly notes that, although auxiliary forces accidentally burned many books while stationed in Alexandria: "By no means all of the Alexandrian Library was destroyed (48 BC ) and the losses were made good, at least in part, by Antony in 41 B.C. A part of the library was burned under Aurelian, in A.D. 272, and the destruction seems to have been completed in 391."〔Aulus Gellius. Attic Nights (book 7 chapter 17 ).〕 William Cherf argued that this scenario had all the ingredients of a firestorm which set fire to the docks and then the library, destroying it. This would have occurred in 48 BC, during the fighting between Caesar and Ptolemy XIII. Furthermore, in the 4th century, both the pagan historian Ammianus〔See (Amm. 22.6 ); cf. (Dio 42.38 ).〕 and the Christian historian Orosius wrote that the Bibliotheca Alexandrina had been destroyed by Caesar's fire. The anonymous author of ''the Alexandrian Wars'' wrote that the fires set by Caesar's soldiers to burn the Egyptian navy in the port also burned a store full of papyri located near the port.〔Caesar, ''de bello alexandrino (the Alexandrian Wars)''.〕 However, a geographical study of the location of the historical Bibliotheca Alexandrina in the neighborhood of Bruchion suggests that this store cannot have been the Great Library. It is more probable that these historians confused the two Greek words ''bibliothecas'', which means “set of books”, with ''bibliotheka'', which means library. Whether the burned books were only some stored books or books found inside the library itself, the Roman stoic philosopher Seneca (c. 4 BC – AD 65) refers to 40,000 books having been burnt at Alexandria.〔Seneca, ''De Tranquillitate Animi (On Tranquility of Mind)''.〕 During Marcus Antonius' reign of the eastern part of the Empire (40–30 BC), he plundered the second largest library in the world (at Pergamon) and presented the collection as a gift to Cleopatra as a replacement for the books lost to Caesar's fire. Alexandria University History Professor Mostafa El-Abbadi uses this story as anti-Antony propaganda to show his loyalty to Egypt. Theodore Vrettos describes the damage caused by the fire: "The Roman galleys carrying the Thirty-Seventh Legion from Asia Minor had now reached the Egyptian coast, but because of contrary winds, they were unable to proceed toward Alexandria. At anchor in the harbor off Lochias, the Egyptian fleet posed an additional problem for the Roman ships. However, in a surprise attack, Caesar's soldiers set fire to the Egyptian ships resulting in the flames spreading rapidly and consuming most of the dockyard, including many structures near the palace. This fire resulted in the burning of several thousand books that were housed in one of the buildings. From this incident, historians mistakenly assumed that the Great Library of Alexandria had been destroyed, but the Library was nowhere near the docks... The most immediate damage occurred in the area around the docks, in shipyards, arsenals, and warehouses in which grain and books were stored. Some 40,000 book scrolls were destroyed in the fire. Not at all connected with the Great Library, they were account books and ledgers containing records of Alexandria's export goods bound for Rome and other cities throughout the world."〔Vrettos, Theodore. "Alexandria, City of the Western Mind". New York: The Free Press, 2001, pp. 93–94.〕 However, the Royal Alexandrian Library was not the only library located in the city. There were at least two other libraries in Alexandria: the library of the Serapeum Temple and the library of the Cesarion Temple. The continuity of literary and scientific life in Alexandria after the destruction of the Royal Library, as well as the city's status as the world’s center for sciences and literature between the 1st and the 6th centuries AD, depended to a large extent on the presence of these two libraries. Historical records indicate that the Royal Library was private (used by the royal family as well as scientists and researchers), but the libraries of the Serapeum and Cesarion temples were public and accessible to the people. Furthermore, while the Royal Library was founded by Ptolemy II in the royal quarters of Bruchion near the palaces and the royal gardens, it was his son Ptolemy III who founded the Serapeum temple and its adjoined "Daughter" Library in the popular quarters of Rhakotis. Florus and Lucan note that the flames Caesar set only burned the fleet and some "houses near the sea". Years after Caesar's campaign in Alexandria, the Greek geographer Strabo worked in the Alexandrian Library. The next account is from Strabo's ''Geographia'' in 28 BC,〔Strabo, (Book 17 1.7–10 )〕 which does not mention the library specifically, but does mention that he could not find a city map which he had seen when on an earlier trip to Alexandria, before the fire. Abaddi uses this account to infer that the library was destroyed to its foundations. The accuracy of this account is suspect. The adjacent Museum was, according to the same account, fully functional, even though the building next door was completely destroyed. Also, we do know that at this time the daughter Library at the Serapeum was thriving and untouched by the fire. Strabo also confirms the existence of the "Museum." But when he mentions the Sarapeum and Museum, Strabo and other historians are inconsistent in their descriptions of the entire compound or the specific temple buildings. So we may not infer that the library arm had been demolished. Strabo was one of the world's leading geographers, but it is possible that since his last visit to the library, the map he was referencing (quite possibly a rare or esoteric map considering his expertise and the vast collection of the library) might have been part of the library that was partially destroyed or simply a victim of a library that didn't have the funds to recopy and preserve its collection. Therefore, the Royal Alexandrian Library may have been burned after Strabo's visit to the city (25 BC) but before the beginning of the 2nd century AD when Plutarch wrote. Otherwise Plutarch and later historians would not have mentioned the incident and mistakenly attributed it to Julius Caesar. It is also most probable that the library was destroyed by someone other than Caesar, although the later generations linked the fire that took place in Alexandria during Caesar's time to the burning of the Bibliotheca. Some researchers believe it most likely that the destruction accompanied the wars between Zenobia of Palmyra and the Roman Emperor Aurelian, in the second half of the 3rd century (see below). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Destruction of the Library of Alexandria」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|