It was the warehouse of the Alexandrian library, not the main library Museum.
The library of Alexandria was divided into the old library, a Mausoleum to Ramesses II, where early philosophers we’re recruited but considered Slaves (if you tried to leave without permission, they would drag your ass back). It wasn’t a library as we would consider it, but long halls with scrolls along it, and a great dome of the cosmos above in the central reading room, built in honor of Aristotle.
What burnt during Caesar’s poorly planned siege was the copyist library, where second sets of each work was produced, scrolls from ships taken and copied. If you we’re to visit the library of Alexandria, this is the one you would visit. If you wanted copies if books made, it’s slaves could reproduce a work, with undoubtedly fine calligraphy, for export.
I already pointed out Caesar was a pragmatist (the pragmatist, not a idealist, the opposite of Nietzsche’s ideals). He was a very well read military commander, I pointed out already in this thread, Cezar, that he had access the Aeneas Tactitus… and while Caesar was clumsy on the offensive (he really wasn’t a genius in offense), he was pretty good in the defense. His greatest victories were fought on the defensive, be it in the walls or in the surprise sally out. He took a very conservative approach to holding to the dictates of siege warfare, and we see later masterminds of Roman psychology and warfare, such as Frontinus, carry on this history on a level of expertise not too distant.
In regards if he respected different forms if government, while he degraded his own republic, he did allow for the soveignty of Crete to flourish, Egypt remained a indigenous monarchy, and Greece ABS Asia Minor territories maintained a certain amount of civil democracy on the municipal level, though it would be a pain in the ass to go through each territory.
Thus willingness to allow hybrid dynasties and states exist within Rome continued through to Nero. The Flavians we’re less tolerant, obviously, with them losing complete control of Jerusalem. The Severan Dynasty likewise was fairly advanced, perhaps the most advance, in juggling widespread differing form of government.
Rome entered into a period of sharp intellectual decline after Thrax assassinated Alexander (first Christian Emperor), and went off on trying to build a Pagan Empire, opposed to effimacy and ruled by military might. The Roman Senate freaked out hard, started appointing anyone and everyone willing to resist Thrax and his illegal tyranny in the field as the legitimate emperor.
It was during this period of the Pagan resurgency, that the empire entered into a sharp decline. Trade dropped, cities began to fortify. Enemies began pressing in hard on Rome, all because some Nietzschean like idealist Named Thrax laid the empire to waste. Emperors we’re repeatedly assassinated, few lasting more than a few months or years.
It was during thus lawless period Christianity took deep root, due to the scapegoating and moral decay of the pagans. Severus Alexander only learned of Christianity when he went to the Persian Border, he was still most tolerant and peaceful towards Paganism, merely wanted Christianity among Pagan sects, much like the Sun Worshippers or people who wanted Dear Syria or Isis worshipped… but from Thrax on, it was a persecution of Christianity, and if you know anything about Christians, we do quite well in the face of persecution. The pagans committed suicide, inmass on a intellectual level.
The only people around claiming to be pagans were sun worshippers, like Macrobius, or people involved in Alchemy, or Neo-Platonist, who already absorbed a very heavy dose of judiasm and Christianity in their Genesis.
Its not Chrustianity’s fault the Pagans died off, quite the opposite, Pagans only died off because no one took it seriously anymore, they had to resort to scapegoating it to keep it relevant. When you have to point to denying another idea to prove your own, it’s proof of weakness and validity of your own idea.
When the library if Alexandria fell after the pagan attacks on the Christians, the most important texts we’re removed to Constantinople, it wasn’t a free for all like in the movie Agora, the Christian Neo-Platonist we’re on good terms with the Pagan Neo-Platonist, even under Julian the Apostate. They read each others works. The library then was a branch library of the main, the main library having decayed over time.
Romans, the idle rich, stopped maintaining their libraries after Caesar… there isn’t much evidence to suggest they rebuilt the copyist efforts of the Ptolemies. One of Caesar’s lieutenants built a Greek and Latin library in Rome, in honor to Caesar after his death, but there isn’t much evidence Caesar himself was a intellectual beyond military concerns.
Augustus expanded the Roman treasury, also established a library in the Senate and treasury, making for three libraries in Rome open to “the public”. He also heavily funded access to these libraries to scholars, imported philosophers to Rome, and had poetry competitions, and open readings of scholars he funded.
One thing this regiem was not known for, at least till Caligula went mad, was it’s libertine excesses. To find this, you would have to go to private libraries in villas, in epicuruan gardens. The ideas Nietzscheans rail hardest against in Christianity, were solidified in this regiem. Monagamy, monotheism, philosophy (Nietzscheans absolutely hate philosophy, it’s evident in your ignorant posts), a appreciation for history.
Basic ideas central to modern states, such as state funded museums and libraries, centers for research point to Thomas Jefferson and the Montecello. Jefferson got his idea from Augustus, including the fossil collection.
Its only because the Romans didn’t take public libraries seriously that they declined… we can in part blame Caesar for .desroyung the copyist library, but schools of philosophy existed all over the empire, slaves copied works everywhere. Mausaleum libraries were occasionally built in great cities… but the Romans noted, prior to Christianity rising, many great works we’re disappearing.
Why? Slavery…
Romans enslaved the Greeks, brought Greek slaves over to do intellectual work. Many Romans competed to be more Hellenistic, but didn’t want to look effiminent either.It wasn’t until Diocletian and Marcus Aurelius that you see Romans openly embracing philosophy again in the ruling class… libraries were allowed to decay… not a thing to use, but to possess. Books we’re read out loud by slaves, and philosophers and scholars we’re slaves, or poor wandering mendicants occasionally funded by a local rich man to come study in their inherited library, and gain renown for their patronage.
The ancient world decayed because of slavery. Not Christianity, Christianity built the first universities at Antioch and Constantinople (the most important texts we’re transferred to Constantinople from Alexandria). The Persian also had a library in this era. Rome had a few, Asia Minor was full of them, one existed in Carthage.
The ideas only died because nobody read them, the ancients didn’t connect the idea libraries were essential to preserving ideas. It was Boethius and Cassiodorus who started the salvage operation when it occurred to them that the divisions between the Latin speaking west and Greek east (hit hard by Persia, and the Giths/Huns on two fronts) wouldn’t be able to retain the information, that the great schools of knowledge we’re dying off… so they rebooted the idea of copying texts, producing definitive texts, rebuilding libraries (usually in monasteries). Charlemagne took up the crusade.
The reason the ancient world grew stupid was slavery… we enslaved intellectuals in that era, and thus degraded the worth of knowledge. Books we’re a symbol of refinement, not worth actually reading. Both Christians and especially the pagans who started this trend, were at fault. But it was the Christians who realized what was happening, and came up with a plan for it not to get worst.
The real burning of Alexandria took place under the Muslim caliphate. The Christians begged to stop it. A library survived at St. Catherine’s in the Sinai, protected by a treaty Muhammad himself made with the monastery, so it has survived. We shipped a lot of books internationally too, but countries like India didn’t preserve western works unless it was related to astrology, or had a sect such as Christianity there or Buddhism to maintain increasingly dwindling fragments, the climate in hot and humid, not good for libraries. A lot if found occasionally in Egypt. Muslims began a copyist period after Christians did too, and had a few philosophers who carried on the traditions.
And Jakob… it’s you who don’t belong in any discussion about Caesar. You proven yourself to know absolutely nothing about the ancient world or Caesar, and your ideas are infantile and incompatible with the man your discussing. Nietzscheans are a fish out of water when discussing history for some damn reason, despite Nietzsche’s roots as a Philologist. It makes little sense.
If you want to come up with a plan if doing evil things, by taking drugs, sacrificing squirrels, getting AIDS and other STDs, and spreading them with wild, Dionysian abandon, then you can do so without pointing to the authority of Caesar, who in reality would have absolutely nothing to do with the backwardness of your ilk. Nietzscheans are only interested in magical penus play and finger painting, not real history, and certainly not real philosophy. If Nietzsche was alive, and saw the crap put out by his supposed adherents on this forum, he would freak out, likely die of embarrassment. You took his bad ideas, and made them worst. Your supposed to do better, not worst, than him Jakob.