The legend that attributes the arson of the Library of Alexandria to Julius Caesar is questioned today. We have seen clearly, to the contrary, that the intellectual movement of Alexandria knew a second fruitful period under the Roman Empire. In this period, it is a procurator supra museum et ad Alexandrina Biblioteca, named by the Roman prefect, who administers the Museum and the Library.[204] [205] It is generally accepted that the period of greatest creativity at the institution was in the 2nd century of our era.
However, we should remember that it is only a short time before the capture of the city by the Arabs, in 642, that one finds Jean Philopon’s most virulent critique of the Physics of Aristotle. Thus to the extent that periods of intellectual decadence are reflected in the absence of a critical view of the treatises of the ”ancient greats”, Alexandria remained a great intellectual center to the very end.
But in a world that insists on rushing toward a precipice, important discoveries and ideas are destined for oblivion. The legendary burning of the Library is a symbol of this headlong rush: did the books merely burn, or was it the intellectual drought of troubled times that prevented the survival of the theories of Heron, Jean Philopon, and so many others?[206] There certainly were episodes of book destruction during the period of the last centuries of Roman domination, either as acts of war, or as the ravages of religious fanaticism. In 290 AD, during the re-taking of Alexandria after it had been conquered by Zenobia, queen of Palymyra, an entire section of the city is set aflame. In 391, the bishop Theophilos intentionally destroys the library of Serapeion. And in 640, after the taking of Alexandria by the Arabs, the remaining 54,000 books are burned as fuel for the public baths, on the order of the caliph Omar. According to the tradition reported by Arab historians, Jean Philopon tried in vain to persuade the conquerors to spare the
books.[207]
