The Library of Alexandria’s famous destruction during Julius Caesar’s occupation of Egypt between in 48 BCE has turned it into a symbol of the fragility of knowledge. Popular versions of these events portray Caesar ordering his troops to set a fire that destroyed the library’s expansive collection. The burning of the library has made a lasting impression on popular culture, being depicted in films like Cleopatra (1963) and inspiring literature like Ray Bradbury’s science fiction novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953).

But did it happen like this, or at all?

The Significance of the Library and Its Collection

The Mouseion, a scholarly institution whose campus included the Library of Alexandria, was founded in the reign of Ptolemy I, a Macedonian general who became king of Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great. Ptolemy I invited many leading scholars to Alexandria, where they enjoyed royal patronage. Among these scholars was the philosopher Demetrius of Phalerum, who played a major role in the creation of the Mouseion. It included study halls, common areas, and a growing collection of books from around the ancient world. Located in the Greek Quarter near the harbour, it was in close proximity to the royal palace precinct.

The texts collected by the library under royal prerogative included works by Greek, Jewish, Egyptian and Persian authors. The exact size of the collection is debated by modern scholars. Ancient sources estimate that it included hundreds of thousands of individual scrolls, but this would have included duplicates and single works that took up several scrolls. The actual number of complete, unique works may have been a fraction of the total number of books. The Letter of Aristeas, an apocryphal Jewish text from the 2nd century BCE, describes the library accordingly:

Demetrius of Phalerum, the president of the king’s library, received vast sums of money, for the purpose of collecting together, as far as he possibly could, all the books in the world. By means of purchase and transcription, he carried out, to the best of his ability, the purpose of the king. On one occasion when I was present he was asked, How many thousand books are there in the library? 10 and he replied, ‘More than two hundred thousand, O king, and I shall make endeavour in the immediate future to gather together the remainder also, so that the total of five hundred thousand may be reached.

Many of these books were purchased while others may have been taken from their owners by force. The Roman physician Galen claims that Ptolemy III borrowed the official manuscripts of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus from Athens, but decided to keep the originals and return only copies to the Athenians. He also reports that Alexandrian authorities customarily searched ships entering the harbor and seized any books onboard, providing the owners with copies and keeping the originals for the royal library (Commentary on Hippocrates’ Epidemics). Newly acquired books were probably stored in off-site warehouses in the Greek Quarter by the docks before being organized and catalogued.

Eventually, a daughter library was created as an offshoot of the original. This smaller library was part of the Serapeum, a temple in southwestern Alexandria built during the reign of Ptolemy III (246-222 BCE).

Fire of 48 BCE

In early October 48 BCE, Julius Caesar landed in Alexandria, the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt, with a force of 4,000 men. He was chasing his enemy Pompey the Great from the fields of Pharsalus, only to find that Pompey had already been murdered by the Egyptian army. Although Pompey’s murder was meant to appease Caesar, it had the effect of alienating him. Upon arriving, he also learned that Egypt’s co-rulers Ptolemy XIII and Cleopatra VII were embroiled in a civil war.

By this time, the Etesian winds were unfavorable and Caesar’s fleet was unable to sail from Alexandria. Caesar occupied the palace buildings in the city’s Greek Quarter and attempted to enforce a diplomatic conclusion to the Egyptian civil war by imposing his authority as a Roman magistrate. Caesar’s occupation of the city was met with hostility by the Alexandrian populace, who attacked Roman soldiers in the streets. The Egyptian vizier Pothinus recalled the army to Alexandria, where they besieged Caesar in the palace complex.

A series of skirmishes broke out over control of the city, particularly the harbor. To prevent the Roman fleet from being captured by the Egyptians, Caesar ordered his men to burn the ships, some of which were still in the harbor and some of which had been brought up on land (Caesar, The Civil War 3.111). This fire soon spread to dockside residential and commercial buildings.

Conditions might have resulted in a fire storm that would have consumed many of the buildings around the harbor, which is indeed what many corroborating sources indicate (Cherf 2008, pp. 70-72). The broader impact of the inferno is not mentioned in either Caesar’s or Hirtius’ accounts. It seems that our earliest source to claim that this fire consumed the royal library (possibly based on the near contemporary writer Livy) is Plutarch, writing in the 1st century CE (Life of Caesar 49.5):

in the second place, when the enemy tried to cut off his fleet, he was forced to repel the danger by using fire, and this spread from the dockyards and destroyed the great library

Cassius Dio later reported that “storehouses both of grain and of books were burned” by the docks, although he does not mention the actual library (Roman History 42.37).

Assessing the Damage

Modern historians remain divided as to the actual extent of the damage to the Museion. Since the royal library and other monumental buildings in the Greek quarter would have been made out of stone, their exteriors were somewhat resistant to fire damage. The physical library appears to have survived but its flammable contents may not have. On the other hand, the damage might have been limited to the more cheaply constructed warehouses of books near the docks, sparing the actual library.

The earliest accounts of the destruction are less extreme than later retellings. Referencing Livy, the 1st Century CE author Seneca the Younger claimed that only 40,000 books were burned (On Tranquility of Mind, 9). The 5th century writer Orosius multiplied this number to 400,000 books (Seven Books of History Against the Pagans 6.15.31). Meanwhile Aulus Gellius, writing in the 2nd century CE, claimed that the library’s entire collection was destroyed in the fire. He estimates the number of destroyed books to be 700,000, which is almost certainly exaggerated (Attic Nights 7.17). The same number is provided by the 4th century historian Ammianus Marcellinus:

“In this were invaluable libraries, and the unanimous testimony of ancient records declares that 700,000 books, brought together by the unremitting energy of the Ptolemaic kings, were burned in the Alexandrine war, when the city was sacked under the dictator Caesar.” (Ammianus Marcellinus, Histories, 16.13, trans. Rolfe)

The Museion remained a major scholarly institution throughout the rest of Cleopatra’s reign and into the Roman period. Under the Julio-Claudian emperors, scholars like Strabo had continued access to a vast repository of works through the royal library. However, the collection of the daughter library at the Serapeum is mentioned more frequently than the royal library in sources written after this point, which classicist Peter Fraser interprets as an indication that the latter might have declined in importance after being damaged by the fire. (1972, pp. 334-335)

Conclusion

Contemporary and near contemporary historical accounts state that during the Alexandrian War of 48 BCE, Caesar’s men started a fire that destroyed many buildings near the harbor. Later historical accounts claim that the Library of Alexandria was completely destroyed, however modern historians doubt this. The library continued to exist for generations after the war, possibly because the damage was restricted to off-site warehouses of books rather than the library itself. Because some books were burned but the library was not meaningfully destroyed, we have rated this claim “Half true”.