Meta Description: Join Dr. Jeff Winkle and Dr. David Noe in Ad Navseam Episode 193 as they demystify the Library of Alexandria, explore ancient bibliomania, and share resources to master the Latin language.
Introduction: Table of Contents and the Card Catalog
Welcome back, classical gourmands, to Episode 193 of the Ad Navseam Podcast! Broadcasting directly from Vomitorium Central—high on the slopes of Parnassus—your hosts, Dr. David Noe and Dr. Jeff Winkle, return to the microphones.
Recording on an unseasonably warm September day, the episode kicks off with the hosts playfully evaluating their middle initials. Dave suggests that the “T” in Jeffrey T. Winkle should stand for “table of contents,” while declaring that the “C” in David C. Noe stands for “card catalog.”
This prompts a deeply nostalgic digression into the sensory experience of the old library card catalog. The hosts reminisce about the specific smell of the wood, pulling out those impossibly long, narrow drawers, and the tactile sensation of unthreading the rod to flip through the index cards. Dave sounds like a grumpy old man yelling at a cloud, lamenting that modern technology and instant internet searches have completely eliminated the “thrill of the hunt” in academic research. He illustrates this with a story about recently tackling a massive, 1,200-page tome on Christianity by the brilliant Orthodox priest John Anthony McGuckin. Finding a fascinating footnote pointing to a different book—Eugene TeSelle’s Augustine the Theologian—Dave happily purchased the second book, read it entirely, and then returned to tackle the remaining 700 pages of the first. For the hosts, wandering through the footnotes and getting delightfully lost in the physical stacks is the true joy of scholarship.
Debunking the Great Library Myth
The primary focus of Episode 193 finally delivers on a listener request submitted years ago: the Library of Alexandria.
Jeff notes that whenever the Library is brought up in a classroom, the conversation immediately veers away from what the Library actually was and focuses entirely on its devastating destruction. The burning of the Library is frequently weaponized as a highly charged, religious conspiracy theory, with modern voices blaming either fundamentalist Christians or marauding Muslims for intentionally torching the ancient knowledge.
Playing the roles of classical Mythbusters, the hosts set the record straight. Quoting historians like Mostafa El-Abbadi, Diana Delia, and Luciano Canfora, the hosts explain that there is absolutely zero credible evidence that the Great Library was ever destroyed in a single, catastrophic event. Instead, its demise was a long, slow, and remarkably gradual process of bureaucratic decay and declining royal patronage.
The most famous fire—started accidentally by Julius Caesar in 48 BC when he burned his own fleet in the Alexandrian harbor to divert an attack—likely only destroyed a few warehouses containing scrolls down by the docks, not the main Library itself. The hosts speculate that these warehouses probably just contained the ancient equivalents of cheap, airport mind-numbing paperbacks by Jackie Collins and James Patterson, so the intellectual loss to humanity was minimal.
Childhood Libraries and Battlestar Librarica
Before tracking the specific historical timeline of the Library’s decline, the hosts share their own foundational library experiences. Jeff vividly remembers the Georgetown Township Library in Jenison, Michigan. Recognizing the summer reading programs as “cheap babysitting,” his parents dropped him off frequently. He was completely sucked into the gamification of reading, desperately trying to win cheap trinkets. He was crushed when his drawing of The Phantom Tollbooth failed to win the library’s art contest.
Dave recalls the Alvah N. Belding Library in Belding, Michigan, a magnificent sandstone structure named for a local silkworm magnate. Dave remembers playing chess in the basement while waiting for his mom, awestruck by the ornate carvings and sweeping staircases that signaled he was entering an august, important space.
Jeff contrasts these beautiful older buildings with his graduate school experience at Northwestern University. The modern addition to the library, built in the 1970s with brutalist architecture, featured three massive intersecting towers that earned the structure the nickname “Battlestar Librarica.” It was a soulless maze governed by an incredibly intense security guard who rigorously searched bags, a stark contrast to the older Deering Library on campus, which featured wood panels, a bust of Athena, and the distinct vibe of a classic gentleman’s study.
Ptolemy’s Swag and the Original Beta Male
So, how did the ancient Library actually function during its golden age?
Following the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC (a man who remarkably founded roughly 27 different cities named Alexandria), his empire was carved up by his generals. Ptolemy I Soter claimed Egypt and famously hijacked Alexander’s body, burying it in Alexandria to secure political legitimacy. It was his successor, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who truly turned the city into the intellectual crown jewel of the Mediterranean by building the Mouseion (the Temple of the Muses).
The Ptolemies were ruthlessly ambitious in their pursuit of knowledge. Any ship entering the Grand Harbor of Alexandria was systematically searched by royal authorities. If a scroll was found on board, the Ptolemies confiscated it, placed the original in the Library, and handed the furious owner a hastily copied duplicate.
This massive accumulation of wealth and texts attracted the greatest minds of the ancient world. Archimedes (who calculated the formula for the volume of a cone) and Eratosthenes flocked to the city. The hosts share a hilarious anecdote about Eratosthenes, who was nicknamed “Beta” (the second letter of the Greek alphabet) because he was famously considered the second-best poet, second-best mathematician, and second-best philosopher in the world. Despite this “beta male” status, Eratosthenes successfully calculated the circumference of the Earth to within 5% by paying a man to walk from Alexandria to the equator and meticulously measuring his steps.
The Cult of the Scroll and Learned Luxury
While the ancient author Ammianus Marcellinus claimed the Library held an astounding 700,000 volumes, the hosts are highly skeptical of the number. Papyrus was incredibly expensive, meaning it was frequently scraped clean and reused for shopping lists.
Dave illustrates the rarity of these texts by mentioning the papyrology collection at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where fragments dug out of the dry sands of Oxyrhynchus and Nag Hammadi are carefully preserved. He also notes the incredible carbonized scrolls found in the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, which modern scientists are only now reading using advanced spectrometry. Furthermore, ancient literacy hovered around a dismal 10%, making the concept of a massive, public reading room highly unlikely.
The Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger offered a brutally curmudgeonly take on the Ptolemies’ bibliomania. Seneca argued that the Library was not a noble monument to learning, but a display of “learned luxury.” He accused the kings of collecting books simply to make a show of their wealth, rather than actually reading them.
Dave fully agrees with Seneca, sharing a story about an arrogant stranger he met at a bookstore in Virginia. The man aggressively bragged, “I’ve probably read more books than you.” Dave notes that having your eyes glaze over a page does not equate to genuine education. It doesn’t matter how many unread books you hoard in your library with uncut pages like Jay Gatsby; what matters is whether you actually understand them and are nourished by them.
The Slow Death of the Library
By the time the Roman Emperor Aurelian recaptured Alexandria during a civil war in the 270s AD, the Library was already a shadow of its former self. Cut off from the massive royal funding of the Ptolemaic dynasty, the physical structure in the royal quarter was heavily damaged and the institution slowly crumbled.
Later, when the Christian Bishop Theophilus ordered the destruction of the pagan Serapeum (the “daughter library”) in 391 AD, the historian Rufinus notes it was largely in self-defense against a violent pagan mob, and the main library had long since vanished. Finally, the famous myth that the Arab Caliph Omar burned the remaining scrolls to heat the city’s bathhouses in 642 AD is universally dismissed by historians as a 13th-century fabrication. When the Arabs arrived, there was simply nothing left to burn.
Before concluding the academic segment, the hosts mention several other famous ancient libraries, including the Library of Ashurbanipal (featuring 30,000 durable clay cuneiform tablets in Nineveh), the gorgeous Library of Celsus in Ephesus, and the massive Library of Pergamum. Pergamum was famously raided by Mark Antony, who gifted its entire 200,000-scroll collection directly to Cleopatra in the ultimate romantic gesture.
Sponsors: Fueling the Classical Renaissance
Fearing an invasion from the American Library Association, the hosts quickly lock the bunker doors and thank their generous sponsors.
- Ratio Coffee: Dave highlights a recent interview in Entrepreneur Magazine featuring Ratio Coffee founder Mark Helweg. Helweg perfectly articulates that making coffee should be a beautiful, simple ritual. Rejecting plastic scorch pads and brackish tang, the hosts highly recommend the gorgeous Ratio 8 and the brand-new, space-saving Ratio 4. Visit ratiocoffee.com/adnavseam and enter the promo code ANRATIO2025 to receive $20 off your entire order.
- Hackett Publishing: For 54 years, Hackett Publishing has supplied students and scholars with erudite, affordable texts. Rejecting fictional competitors like “Crackett” and “Whackett” Publishing, the hosts praise Hackett for their brilliant cover art—such as placing Elvis Presley on the Bacchae, the D-Day landing on the Iliad, and the Moonshot on the Odyssey. They eagerly anticipate the brand-new edition of Aristotle’s collected works. Build your personal library at hackettpublishing.com and use the code AN2025 to receive a 20% discount and free shipping on your entire order.
- Della Chelpka Art: For custom, breathtaking oil paintings that capture your unique story, visit dellachelpka.art. Enter the coupon code APELLES to receive 10% off your order.
- Latin Per Diem: For listeners inspired to build their own mental libraries by mastering the Latin language and ancient Greek, Dave offers tailored educational solutions. Students can visit latinperdiem.com and use the code 10PLUS for an immediate discount on courses ranging from Juvenal’s satires to the brilliant Moss Method for Greek, successfully taking students from neophyte to erudite.
The Gustatory Parting Shot
To officially close out Episode 193, the hosts remind listeners to email dave@adnavseam.com with the subject line “Plato” to be entered into the drawing for a free Hackett A Plato Reader. They extend their gratitude to Mishka the sound engineer and to the brilliant musician Jeff Scheetz for providing the screaming “Thrillseeker” intro and the “Rush Hour” bumper music. Next week, the podcast will return to Carl Richard’s The Golden Age of the Classics in America to explore the antebellum intersection of classics and Christianity.
Jeff then delivers the Gustatory Parting Shot, courtesy of the late, great comedian John Pinette.
Regarding the absolute futility of eating leafy greens, Pinette offers this brilliant observation:
“Salad is not food. Salad is a promissory note that food will soon arrive.”
With that perfect summary of the classical gourmand ethos, the hosts sign off. Check out the “Lurch with Merch” section on the website to grab a QVAE NOCENT DOCENT t-shirt, beware of engaging in deadly linguistic duels, and keep taking in the classics. Valete!
