Cleopatra and the Great Library of Alexandria

Kathleen Furman HUMN 100-6980 Professor Elizabeth Pennington March 26, 2010

The REAL Story of Cleopatra and the Great Library of Alexandria, Egypt

Julius Caesar has just discovered that his Cleopatra has fallen in love with Marcus Antonius. Blind with rage, Caesar gives his centurions an incredible task

Centurions.Cleopatra has betrayed me with Marcus Antonius. She must be taught a lesson. I will take away the one thing she values more than male companionship. I command you to take a garrison to the Great Libraryand burn it to the ground!!!!

Meanwhile

Marcus Antonius, look! My historians have made an incredible find. Scrolls -that they verify have been written by Socrates! No one has ever found anything written by him before! We must immediately submit them to the Great Library for preservation. I will send my courier with the scrolls right away.

Cleopatras courier arrives at the Library and watches in horror as it burns

The courier rushes back to Cleopatras palace and enters, breathless

My Queenmy respected Marcus AntoniusI bring grievous news. The Great Library has burned, and Caesar is the cause. He is the one who ordered it, I heard it from Brutus himself!

civilizationmy beloved Libraryin ashes because of a jealous tyrant.

The knowledge of the entire world.the written history of human

I cannot live with this sorrow. The world has ended. The loss is too great to bear. Caesarand Romehave betrayed civilization.

Clever asp! Hasten my end. With my death, I protest aloud to all present the destruction of the Great Library. Beware, Caesar, for Brutus knows your crime, and I have commanded him to avenge me. Your death will be witnessed by the entire Senate.

Julius Caesars jealousy and anger destroyed thousands of papyrus scrolls -- knowledge collected from countless scholars, scientists, philosophers and artists. Caesar not only caused Cleopatra to take her own life, he also hastened his own demise. Cleopatra s last act was to plot with Brutus the murder of Caesar, thus avenging the librarys destruction. The real story of Cleopatra and the Great Library of Alexandria is now told.

Afterward
Okay, so I played with history. But at least its better than destroying history. Much speculation has been offered regarding who was behind the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. The fact remains that an incredible amount of writings, drawings and other written communication was lost forever with the burning of this tangible directory of human existence. Who knowsperhaps lost books of the Bible, or Torah, or Quran vanished in smoke. Perhaps the secrets behind the building of the pyramids existed in the Library. Maybe translations of Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek and other languages were available. Its been speculated that Socrates never wrote anything. How do we know? If he put a stylus to papyrus, it might just have existed in the Great Library. The main message of this presentation is that the preservation of human history is vital. Even if some created work is controversial, it should be preserved. One never knows who or what will have the power to destroy those worksor destroy the people who created them. I have a bumper sticker that says:

First they burn booksthen they burn people.

A Few Scholarly Notes

The Great Library of Alexandria actually consisted of two libraries, the mother library in the Brucheion palace area and the daughter library, located in the temple of Serapis (Heller-Roazen, 2002). These two locations might explain the multiple theories of the Librarys destruction. Three main theories about the Librarys demise seem to be popular among historians. The most popular theory seems to be that Julius Caesar was the culprit; it is thought that he inadvertently burned a part of the library in 47 B.C. (Thiem, 1979). Another suspect wasTheodosius, the Christian Roman emperor. In his article The Great Library of Alexandria Burnt, author Jon Thiem points out that another scholar indignantly recounted how the Christians in Theodosiuss reign had devastated the library. The other major suspect was Caliph Omar, the leader of the Islamic Empire at the time. Omar supposedly claimed that if the historic books of the Greeks agreed with Islams teachings, it was not necessary to retain them; if they disagreed with Islam, they should be obliterated (Thiem, 1979). Omars involvement in the burning of the library is disputed, however. Asma Afsaruddin states in his article that intellectual tolerance was a hallmark of Islam and reminds the reader that many Greek, Roman and Egyptian writings were preserved by translating them into Arabic (Afsaruddin, 1990). It seems that the loss of the Great Library will remain a mystery for a long time to come.

How I Did It
I sketched in pencil and colored pens and markers, then outlined my final proofs in ink and erased the pencil marks with a plastic eraser to get a reasonably clean illustration. Then I scanned my drawings. I added color and corrections in Photoshop and saved the illustrations in JPEG format. Then I dropped them into the PowerPoint presentation.

Bibliography
Afsaruddin, Asma. The Great Library at Alexandria. American Journal of Economics and Sociology. 49.3 (1990):291-292. JSTOR. Web. 22 Mar. 2010. Thiem, Jon. The Great Library of Alexandria Burnt: Towards the History of a Symbol. Journal of the History of Ideas. 40.4 (1979): 507-526. JSTOR. Web. 22 Mar. 2010. Heller-Roazen, Daniel. Traditions Destruction: On the Library of Alexandria. October. (2002). 133-153. JSTOR. Web. 22 Mar. 2010. Image:http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/ffximage/2008/04/21/EgyptNile Sailboats Image: www.amarnawest.com/.../photo?photoid=56541335 (Egyptian pillars) Image: http://shop.discoveringegypt.com/ (Luxor Temple)

And finally I have to give credit to the Manga University website (http://www.howtodrawmanga.com/), since I didnt know anything about drawing anime until a few days ago. Their online lessons are spectacular and easy to understand. These lessons enabled me to develop my characters, Cleopatra in particular, with a lot of sketching. There are many other websites that also offer lessons on drawing anime , and if you are interested in this form of art, I encourage you to visit as many anime/manga sites as possible.