What Knowledge Did We Lose With the Library of Alexandria?
The famous story of the burning of the Library of Alexandria, and the centuries of knowledge that went up in flames along with it, is often told as a single dramatic event — but that’s somewhat misleading. While fires did occur, the library wasn’t destroyed all at once. Rather, it succumbed to a slow decline over centuries. Its destruction is now shrouded in myth and mystery, but what is certain is that the Library of Alexandria was one of the largest and most significant collections of the ancient world, and its eventual loss was an intellectual tragedy.
The Fabled Burning
Likely established during the reign of Ptolemy II in the early third century BCE, the Library of Alexander formed part of a larger research institute in Alexandria, Egypt, called the Mouseion (meaning “shrine of the Muses,” the origin of the word “museum”). This great undertaking represented humanity’s most ambitious attempt to collect and preserve human knowledge.
The library flourished for some six centuries, but by the fifth century CE it had all but ceased to exist. The infamous — and often overstated — fire occurred during Julius Caesar’s occupation of Alexandria in 48 BCE, when he ordered his troops to set fire to enemy ships in the harbor, possibly causing some collateral damage to the library. But Caesar certainly didn’t burn down the whole library. In reality, the collection’s slow demise was due to various factors, many of which were tied to Alexandria’s centuries-long decline as an intellectual center. The library’s books were sold or destroyed, its buildings were eventually razed or converted into churches or mosques, and, in the end, the library simply faded away.
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What Was in the Library?
Exactly what happened to the ancient library and precisely what was lost when it ceased to exist remain areas of debate among historians. We do know that the Ptolemy dynasty that ruled Egypt from 305 to 30 BCE sought books from far and wide. The bulk of the books were written in Greek, but other languages, including Egyptian, were also represented in the vast collection. Estimates of the total number of books vary, but it’s possible that the library, at its height, contained between 200,000 and 700,000 books — by far the greatest collection of human knowledge ever assembled at that time.
According to historical records, the archives contained works by many of the famous Greek writers of classical antiquity. This likely included the philosophers Plato, Aristotle, and Pythagoras; the historian and geographer Herodotus; and the dramatic poets Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The works of Aristotle were among the library’s biggest treasures, possibly acquired through a large sum of money. There were also medical texts by Hippocrates and scientific tracts by Thales, Democritus, and Anaximander.
What Knowledge Was Lost
It's worth noting that even if the library had burned down in its entirety, its major works would not all have been lost. In many cases, copies (or the originals) would have been kept in other collections, whether in Egypt or beyond. According to historian Garrett Ryan, all “the most important [works] were widely disseminated elsewhere. What perished with the library were, overwhelmingly, lesser-known works of literature and philosophy, commentaries and monographs: all the residue and introspection of an extremely sophisticated literary culture.”
One often-cited example of what was lost are the works of the Archaic Greek poet Sappho. Sappho composed 10,000 lines of poetry over her lifetime, which historians believe were collected into nine books held at the Library of Alexandria. Today, only about 650 of those lines survive. It’s sometimes claimed that her body of work was lost with the destruction of the library, but that is speculation; the nine-volume tome might have endured as far as the Middle Ages.
As with Sappho, there is a tendency for any lost ancient works to be linked with the Library of Alexandria, often without strong supporting evidence. It’s perhaps a testament to the library’s enduring influence and fame that so many lost tomes are connected with it — but in all likelihood, most of these texts were simply lost to time.
Still, the loss of any works valuable enough to be housed in the Library of Alexandria marks a significant blow to scholars both then and now. Each book or scroll destroyed — whether through fire, mishandling, or simple decay — represents untold stories, forgotten discoveries, and intellectual achievements now vanished. In this sense, the Library of Alexandria has long stood as a reminder of the fragility of human knowledge and the importance of preserving intellectual heritage.
