What if the Library of Alexandria Survived?
I’ve always been fascinated by time travel stories which often deal with the possibility of alternative histories. In the typical story line, a time traveler journeys back in the past and accidently changes the course of history. The potential outcomes are fascinating. What if the South prevailed during the Civil War? What if the Germans in WWII had successfully completed their nuclear research and produced the first atomic bomb? What if Monica Lewinsky passed up that opportunity to work as an intern in the Clinton administration? I would surmise that Al Gore would have been elected President in 2000 and a gentlemen named Barack Obama would be a fairly obscure junior Senator from Chicago. And so on.
Well, try this on for size. What if the Library of Alexandria had never been sacked and burned to the ground? That alternative history might have changed the world as we know it more than any other event.
The Library of Alexandria was built in the third century BC and supposedly conceived of by a student of Aristotle. It was the world’s first library and was said to contain a massive collection of scrolls from the ancient world.
This was the time of the golden age in Greece which gave birth to such luminaries as Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Aristophanes, and Archimedes. These brilliant scholars invented the Scientific Method which is the foundation of modern science. Philosophers speculated on the nature of the universe, logic, and set the stage for modern medicine and physics. Playwrights and poets performed their works in elaborate theatres built into the rocky countryside.
All of this knowledge was deposited in a singular location which was…. burned to the ground much like the Taliban destroyed the ancient statues in Afghanistan, a wonder of the world obliterated because it was deemed inconsistent with this radical variant of Islam.
Who destroyed the Library of Alexandria? Well there a lots of suspects representing the major power brokers including the Romans, Christians, and Muslims. Although attribution for this horrific act is often conferred upon the Muslims who conquered Egypt and its environs in the year 642 AD it could also have been accomplished by Julius Caesar himself in 48 BC (accidently, I might add) or at the behest of a Christian Emperor in 391 AD charged with eradicating any evidence of pagan society, i.e., all science and culture prior to the birth of Jesus.
For those who have read the great literary works of Sophocles (Oedipus Rex), the brilliant philosophical treatises of Aristotle (father of life sciences) or Plato (philosophy), or the scientific musings of Hippocrates (father of modern medicine) you will find this fact as surprising as it is jarring. Only a small fraction (under 5%) of these works survived the great sacking/fire/destruction of the Library of Alexandria.
Now, imagine what could have been deposited in that library? Hundred of plays by Sophocles, untold treatises by Plato or Aristotle, and scientific writings of which we can only speculate. One of my heroes of modern science, the late Carl Sagan, often speculated what the world of today would be like if this remarkable library and body of knowledge had not been lost. Sagan thought that all of our marvels from electricity to genetics to computers to spaceflight would have been accomplished over two thousand years ago!
Think about that for a second. In this alternative history it is more likely than not that all disease would have been eradicated long ago. Cancer would be viewed as threatening as a common cold. Human lifespan could be in the hundreds or thousands of years- and most important- maybe mankind would have discarded its primitive instinct to murder other human beings eons ago.
So why this speculation? Truth be told, I don’t prefer the timeline in which I was born. I know this is a very odd statement, but sometimes it seems like my predecessors took a horribly wrong turn somewhere. Most of all, it feels like we got cheated somewhere along the line.
At the very least, this time travel/alternative universe speculation fires up my imagination and opens the creative door to so many possibilities of what humankind can become. Once upon a time, the human mind was able to transcend its limitations and primitive tendencies. For a brief period in our history, we transformed the world and ourselves.
That same spark of genius and hope exists today. So does our insatiable desire to suppress, kill, and conquer. Where is the next great library of knowledge… and will it be sacked or saved?
Think about it.
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