Editing Library of Alexandria (section)

===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>