A Commonplace Book

Alexandria became the second stage for the civil wars of Caesar; here the double drama of Antony and Cleopatra, then Caesar and Cleopatra played before the skeptical populace. During the latter, Julius Caesar supported Cleopatra against her brother Ptolemy XIV, and was besieged by the latter's army and fleet in the Royal Precinct where was the Museum. It was at this moment, in 48 B.C., that the most well-known "burning of the Library" occurred, although many subsequent disasters would later be hailed as the final destruction of the Library. The legend apparently rose from Livy's account of the Alexandrine war, now lost, but quoted by all subsequent scholars dealing with the topic, including Seneca. Apparently, Livy stated that 400,000 rolls were destroyed when, after Caesar set fire to the docks to block Ptolemy's fleet, the flames consumed some nearby warehouses in which scrolls as well as grain were being kept.[10] Scholars have debated hotly over this conflagration since Roman times, disputing whether an actual library was burned or whether these rolls had anything to do with the Museum. Fraser is one of the most pursuasive advocates of the theory that the Library, being in the Royal Precinct, was near enough to the docks to be ignited. He suggests that the loss of 40,000 volumes also explains why the Museum's library appears to gradually lost prestige to the younger Serapeion.[11] Others assert that the fire was apocryphal, or confused with later fires. Still others suggest that these books were in fact copies waiting to be shipped to private collectors or other libraries. Since, as Fraser points out during his discussion, Didymus, Tryphon, and Theon researched in the Museum not long afterwards, I lean towards the common theory that, if any books were lost in this fire, copies of important works must have survived and the library's collection not significantly damaged by the incident.