Editing Library of Alexandria (section)

==Successors to the Mouseion==
[[File:Alexandrian World Chronicle - 6v.jpg|thumb|Drawing from the [[Alexandrian World Chronicle]] depicting Pope [[Theophilus I of Alexandria]], [[gospel]] in hand, standing triumphantly atop the [[Serapeum of Alexandria|Serapeum]] in 391 AD{{sfn|Watts|2017|page=60}}]]

===Serapeum===
The Serapeum is often called the "Daughter Library"<ref>{{cite book |last1=El-Abbadi |first1=Mostafa |last2=Fathallah |first2=Omnia Mounir |author-link=Mostafa El-Abbadi |date=2008 |title=What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria? |location=Boston |publisher=Brill |page=89 |isbn=978-90-04-16545-8}}</ref> of Alexandria. For much of the late fourth century AD it was probably the largest collection of books in the city of Alexandria.{{sfn|Watts|2008|pages=150, 189}} In the 370s and 380s, the Serapeum was still a major pilgrimage site for pagans.{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=189}} It remained a fully functioning temple, and had classrooms for philosophers to teach in.{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=189}} It naturally tended to attract followers of [[Iamblichus|Iamblichean]] [[Neoplatonism]].{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=189}} Most of these philosophers were primarily interested in [[theurgy]], the study of cultic rituals and esoteric religious practices.{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=189}} The Neoplatonist philosopher [[Damascius]] (lived {{circa}} 458 –after 538) records that a man named Olympus came from [[Cilicia]] to teach at the Serapeum, where he enthusiastically taught his students the rules of traditional divine worship and ancient religious practices.{{sfn|Watts|2008|pages=189–190}} He enjoined his students to worship the old gods in traditional ways, and he may have even taught them theurgy.{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=190}}

Scattered references indicate that, sometime in the fourth century, an institution known as the "Mouseion" may have been reestablished at a different location somewhere in Alexandria.{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=150}} Nothing, however, is known about the characteristics of this organization.{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=150}} It may have possessed some bibliographic resources, but whatever they may have been, they were clearly not comparable to those of its predecessor.{{sfn|Watts|2008|pages=150–151}}

Under the Christian rule of Roman emperor [[Theodosius I]], pagan rituals were outlawed, and pagan temples were destroyed. In 391 AD, the bishop of Alexandria, Theophilus, supervised the destruction of an old [[Mithraeum]].{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=190}} They gave some of the cult objects to [[Pope Theophilus I of Alexandria|Theophilus]],{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=190}} who had them paraded through the streets so that they could be mocked and ridiculed.{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=190}} The pagans of Alexandria were incensed by this act of desecration, especially the teachers of Neoplatonic philosophy and theurgy at the Serapeum.{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=190}} The teachers at the Serapeum took up arms and led their students and other followers in a [[Guerrilla warfare|guerrilla attack]] on the Christian population of Alexandria, killing many of them before being forced to retreat.{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=190}} In retaliation, the Christians vandalized and demolished the Serapeum,{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=191}}{{sfn|Theodore|2016|pages=182–183}} although some parts of the [[colonnade]] were still standing as late as the twelfth century.{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=191}} Whether an actual library still existed at this point, and if so how extensive it was, is not recorded. Jonathan Theodore has stated that by 391/392 AD there was "no remaining "Great Library" in the sense of the iconic vast, priceless collection".{{sfn|Theodore|2016|pages=182–183}} Only Orosius explicitly mentions the destruction of books or scrolls; sources probably written after the Serapeum's destruction speak of its collection of literature in the past tense.<ref>[[Paulus Orosius]], [http://www.attalus.org/translate/orosius6B.html#15 vi.15.32]</ref><ref>{{citation|last=El-Abbadi |first=Mostafa |year=1990 |title=The Life and Fate of the Ancient Library of Alexandria|edition= 2nd, illustrated|publisher=Unesco/UNDP|pages=159, 160|isbn=978-92-3-102632-4}}</ref> On the other hand, a recent article identifies the literary evidence suggesting that the original Ptolemaic library collection was moved to the Serapeum by the end of the second century AD and that a library is attested there until the Serapeum was destroyed along with the books it contained.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rohmann |first=Dirk |date=2022 |title=The Destruction of the Serapeum of Alexandria, Its Library, and the Immediate Reactions |journal=[[Klio (journal)|Klio]] |volume=104 |pages=334–362|doi=10.1515/klio-2021-0021 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

===School of Theon and Hypatia===
[[File:Hypatia (Charles Mitchell).jpg|thumb|upright|''Hypatia'' (1885) by [[Charles William Mitchell]], believed to be a depiction of a scene in [[Charles Kingsley]]'s 1853 novel ''[[Hypatia (novel)|Hypatia]]''{{sfn|Booth|2017|pages=21–22}}]]

The ''[[Suda]]'', a tenth-century [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine]] encyclopedia, calls the mathematician [[Theon of Alexandria]] ({{circa}} AD 335–{{circa}} 405) a "man of the Mouseion".{{sfn|Watts|2008|pages=191–192}} According to classical historian Edward J. Watts, however, Theon was probably the head of a school called the "Mouseion", which was named in emulation of the [[Hellenistic period|Hellenistic]] Mouseion that had once included the Library of Alexandria, but which had little other connection to it.{{sfn|Watts|2008|pages=191–192}} Theon's school was exclusive, highly prestigious, and doctrinally conservative.{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=192}} Theon does not seem to have had any connections to the militant Iamblichean Neoplatonists who taught in the Serapeum.{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=191}} Instead, he seems to have rejected the teachings of Iamblichus{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=192}} and may have taken pride in teaching a pure, [[Plotinus|Plotinian]] Neoplatonism.{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=192}} In around 400 AD, Theon's daughter [[Hypatia]] (born c. 350–370; died 415 AD) succeeded him as the head of his school.{{sfn|Oakes|2007|page=364}} Like her father, she rejected the teachings of Iamblichus and instead embraced the original Neoplatonism formulated by Plotinus.{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=192}}

Theophilus, the bishop involved in the destruction of the Serapeum, tolerated Hypatia's school and even encouraged two of her students to become bishops in territory under his authority.{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=196}} Hypatia was extremely popular with the people of Alexandria{{sfn|Watts|2008|pages=195–196}} and exerted profound political influence.{{sfn|Watts|2008|pages=195–196}} Theophilus respected Alexandria's political structures and raised no objection to the close ties Hypatia established with Roman prefects.{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=196}} Hypatia was later implicated in a political feud between [[Orestes (prefect)|Orestes]], the [[List of governors of Roman Egypt|Roman prefect of Alexandria]], and [[Cyril of Alexandria]], Theophilus' successor as bishop.{{sfn|Novak|2010|page=240}}{{sfn|Cameron|Long|Sherry|1993|pages=58–61}} Rumors spread accusing her of preventing Orestes from reconciling with Cyril{{sfn|Novak|2010|page=240}}{{sfn|Cameron|Long|Sherry|1993|page=59}} and, in March of 415 AD, she was murdered by a mob of Christians, led by a [[Reader (liturgy)|lector]] named Peter.{{sfn|Novak|2010|page=240}}{{sfn|Cameron|Long|Sherry|1993|pages=59–61}} She had no successor and her school collapsed after her death.{{sfn|Watts|2017|page=117}}

===Later schools and libraries in Alexandria===
Nonetheless, Hypatia was not the last pagan in Alexandria, nor was she the last Neoplatonist philosopher.{{sfn|Booth|2017|pages=151–152}}{{sfn|Watts|2017|pages=154–155}} Neoplatonism and paganism both survived in Alexandria and throughout the eastern Mediterranean for centuries after her death.{{sfn|Booth|2017|pages=151–152}}{{sfn|Watts|2017|pages=154–155}} British Egyptologist [[Charlotte Booth]] notes that many new academic lecture halls were built in Alexandria at Kom el-Dikka shortly after Hypatia's death, indicating that philosophy was clearly still taught in Alexandrian schools.{{sfn|Booth|2017|page=151}} The late fifth-century writers [[Zacharias Scholasticus]] and [[Aeneas of Gaza]] both speak of the "Mouseion" as occupying some kind of a physical space.{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=150}} Archaeologists have identified lecture halls dating to around this time period, located near, but not on, the site of the Ptolemaic Mouseion, which may be the "Mouseion" to which these writers refer.{{sfn|Watts|2008|page=150}}