Linguist Christophe Rico, PhD in ancient Greek, professor of Greek Philology at the French Biblical School in Jerusalem and dean of the Polis Institute in Jerusalem, addressed this question, surrounded by myth, in his lecture today at UIC Barcelona. The expert in ancient languages offered a presentation for the Faculty of Humanities titled “The Birth, Splendour and Fall of the Library of Alexandria. Who Destroyed the Library?”, in which he shed light on the myth of its disappearance: “Everything points to the end being in 48 B.C.”
Dr Rico shared the conclusions of his study of the ancient texts, returning to primary sources in order to determine that it was possibly Julius Caesar himself who was responsible for the destruction of the library: “Caesar himself, in the bellum civile, speaks of having to set fire to the enemy’s fleet, but he does not speak of the burning of the library, since his writings are propaganda. Even so, we can assume that the library was destroyed during that fire in the first Alexandrian war.”
The professor put the destruction of the great centre of knowledge into context for the students, reviewing the appearance of the first libraries up to the creation of the Alexandrian centre: “Demetrius of Faleus was the mind behind the project, with the backing of kings Ptolemy I and II,” he explained.
Dr Rico then spoke of the glorious stage of the Library, that despite being “a huge place, all the information it housed would fit in a simple pen drive today. The number of volumes that Alexandria had is not known, but accounts such as Seneca’s lead us to believe that there were about 40,000,” says the expert.
The dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Judith Urbano, introduced Dr Rico and stressed the significance of the professor's conclusions coming from "an investigation of ancient texts, going to primary sources and attempting to be as contemporary as possible, which is most important", she explained.
In conclusion, Dr Rico sent a reassuring message to the students after explaining the disappearance of the Library of Alexandria, stating that if it had not been burned, it would have disappeared anyway by falling into disuse or even by the moisture of the Nile affecting the papyri: “The most important thing was not lost, since at that time there were already other libraries, even some private ones, and important texts are always circulated, so they cannot disappear,” the expert confirmed.
