Who did more to destroy the Great Library of Alexandria? The Romans or Christians?
Fire
>>1361247
The fire that the Romans started or the fire that the Christians started?
>>1361262
The one time Christians burned the Library it no longer had any books.
Also the only time the library itself was purposefully burned was during a Muslim invasion.
>>1361269
>The one time Christians burned the Library it no longer had any books.
Why are you telling lies on the internet? The internet is not for lies.
Jews.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitos_War
>Lukuas, leader of rebel Jews, moved towards Alexandria, entered the city, which had been abandoned by the Roman troops in Egypt under the leadership of governor Marcus Rutilius Lupus, and set fire to the city. The Egyptian temples and the tomb of Pompey were destroyed.
A Roman put out the fire and the Christians stomped on the Embers
Still though, it was an accident when the Roman did it.
>>1361344
>intentionally setting a city on fire
>"oh but it was an accident, we swear guyz"
Everyone keeps talking about the meme library and no one talks about the dozens of larger libraries that got torched, most of them in modern times, like the Summer Palaces in Beijing, which notably housed the Yongle Encyclopedia (11,000 volumes):
"In 1860, the Anglo-French invasion of Beijing resulted in extensive burning and looting of the city,[6] with the British and French soldiers taking large portions of the manuscript as souvenirs.[2] 5,000 volumes remained by 1875, less than half of the original, which dwindled to 800 by 1894. During the Boxer Rebellion and the 1900 Eight-Nation Alliance occupation of Beijing, allied soldiers took hundreds of volumes, and many were destroyed in the Hanlin Academy fire. Only 60 volumes remained in Beijing.[2]"
"Fewer than 400 volumes survive today,[3] comprising about 800 chapters (rolls), or 3.5 percent of the original work.[6] "
They also destroyed the Summer Palace's copy of the Siku Quanshu, something like 35,000 volumes. Thankfully the one in the Forbidden Palace survived.
Library aside:
"We went out, and, after pillaging it, burned the whole place, destroying in a vandal-like manner most valuable property which [could] not be replaced for four millions. [...] You can scarcely imagine the beauty and magnificence of the places we burnt. It made one's heart sore to burn them; in fact, these places were so large, and we were so pressed for time, that we could not plunder them carefully. Quantities of gold ornaments were burnt, considered as brass. It was wretchedly demoralising work for an army."
"British and French looters preferred porcelain (much of which still graces English and French country houses[14]) while neglecting bronze vessels prized locally for cooking and burial in tombs. Many such treasures dated back to the Shang, Zhou and Han dynasties and were up to 3,600 years old."
>>1361465
Because there are still people out there who believe that if the meme library didn't burn we'd be having space colonies.
>>1361465
>Implying the chinks didn't have it coming
>>1361465
>>1361489
Of course the Chinese are no less guilty of destroying their own libraries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_books_and_burying_of_scholars
"Of the various categories of books mentioned, history suffered the greatest loss. Extremely few state history books before Qin have survived. Li Si stated that all history books not in the Qin interpretation were to be burned. It is not clear whether copies of these books were allowed to stay in the imperial archives. Even if some histories were preserved, they would have been destroyed in 206 B.C. when enemies captured and burned the Qin imperial palaces in which the archives were most likely located"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_Inquisition
"The scale of the destruction cause by this "literary holocaust" is uncertain due to gaps in the imperial archives, however as many as 3,000 works may have been lost. An estimated 151,723 volumes were destroyed by the inquisition in this period. [...] Writers who criticised the Qing dynasty could expect to have their entire work erased, regardless of content."
>>1361465
The fact they are more modern libraries is why no one cares. Imagine burning down a library today full of million volumes versus burning a library thousands of years ago full of a mere few thousand volumes. Everything is redundant today. The loss of the older library would be the greater loss.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Antioch
"The library, along with the city itself, was considered by some to be the cultural capital of the ancient world, even more prestigious than Pergamon
The Royal Library of Antioch was destroyed in 363 AD by Christian Emperor Jovian, “at the urging of his wife, burned the temple with all the books in it with his concubines laughing and setting the fire,” which greatly displeased the citizens of the city as they could only watch angrily as the collection went up in smoke. Johannes Hahn in his work Gewalt und religiöser Konflikt (pp. 178–180) relates:
"Jovian ordered the destruction of the Traianeum, which Julian had converted to a library, because he wanted to gain the favour of the Antiochians. However, he failed completely: not only the pagans but also the Christians interpreted this as a barbaric act." [3]
The Royal Library of Antioch had been heavily stocked with “unholy” literature by the aid of his non-Christian predecessor, Emperor Julian the Apostate. This collection also included the pagan works of the library of Gregory, Bishop of Alexandria, who was murdered by an anti-Christian mob in 361. The Emperor Julian then procured his library—replete with classical texts—and added them to the library of Antioch."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wisdom
"By the second half of the ninth century al-Ma'mun's Bayt al-Hikma was the greatest repository of books in the world and had become one of the greatest hubs of intellectual activity in the Middle Ages"
"Along with all other libraries in Baghdad, the House of Wisdom was destroyed by the army of Hulagu during the Siege of Baghdad.[11] The books from Baghdad’s libraries were thrown into the Tigris River in such quantities that the river ran black with the ink from the books.[12] Nasir al-Din al-Tusi rescued about 400,000 manuscripts which he took to Maragheh before the siege.[13]"
>>1361538
>Everything is redundant today
Libraries weren't exactly redundant in the 19th century, especially in countries that hadn't massively adopted printing yet.
In fact it was only in the last 50 years or so that we really started backing up our existing manuscript collections with modern technology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_University_of_Leuven_(1834–1968)
"In 1914, during World War I, Leuven was looted by German troops. They set fire to a large part of the city, effectively destroying about half of it. The library was lost, as well as about 300,000 books, about 1000 incunabula;[7] and a huge collection of manuscripts, such as the Easter Island tablet bearing Rongorongo text E. In the early stages of the war, Allied propaganda capitalized on the German destruction as a reflection on German Kultur."
Thankfully someone took a pic of the Rongorongo tablet.
"During World War II, Japanese military forces destroyed or partly destroyed numerous Chinese libraries, including libraries at the National University of Tsing Hua, Peking (lost 200,000 of 350,000 books), the University Nan-k'ai, T'ien-chin (totally destroyed, 224,000 books lost), Institute of Technology of He-pei, T'ien-chin (completely destroyed), Medical College of He-pei, Pao-ting (completely destroyed), Agricultural College of He-pei, Pao-ting (completely destroyed), University Ta Hsia, Shanghai (completely destroyed), University Kuang Hua, Shanghai (completely destroyed), National University of Hunan (completely destroyed)"
