The Great Library at Alexandria was destroyed by budget cuts, not fire

[Philipnet]

In an interesting - nay illuminating - article, io9 reveals the demise of Great Library at Alexandria.

One of the great tragedies of ancient history, memorialized in myths and Hollywood film, is the burning of the great library at Alexandria. But the reality of the Library's end was actually a lot less pyrotechnic than that. A major cause of the Library's ruin was government budget cuts.


In 283 BC, the great library at Alexandria was born. Over decades, its librarians and scholars packed it with hundreds of thousands of scrolls. Academics from all over the Mediterranean and Middle East came to give lectures there, and to consult its texts. At one point, over 100 scholars lived there full time.

Read more: http://io9.com/the-great-library-at-...get-1442659066

[Jon Masters]

" The problem is that Alexandria library needs to move with the times. It's no good just having shelves and shelves of scrolls and expecting people to be happy with that. They need to think about what other services they could offer. Maybe some tablets of heiroglyphs that people could hire for a week and use to decorate their homes, or some flick scrolls of the latest plays. Or people could book an hour with the local gossip or soothsayer, to catch up with the latest news or plan their careers "

[SiHart]

It all sounds ever so familiar...

[Stuart Wallis]

It all sounds ever so familiar...

And when the emperor abolished their stipends

Some of us are still waiting for 6 years'-worth of backdated pay rises - very familiar!