"Theophilus burned the Library"
Gibbon writes that when the Serapeum fell the valuable library of Alexandria was pillaged or destroyed, and reads Orosius's empty shelves as its remains. Later books say Bishop Theophilus burned the Library.
Told by Edward Gibbon, 1781, almost fourteen centuries after the Serapeum fell
What the evidence supports
The temple was destroyed in 391 or 392. No account of the destruction mentions books, and Ammianus, just before, already speaks of its libraries in the past tense.
Sources (3)
- Rufinus, Church History 11.22–30
- Socrates Scholasticus, Church History 5.16–17
- J. Hahn, "The Conversion of the Cult Statues: The Destruction of the Serapeum 392 A.D.", in J. Hahn, S. Emmel and U. Gotter (eds.), From Temple to Church (Leiden: Brill, 2008) 335–365