A new history of Byzantium reveals the inner workings of a late antique empire

Re:A new history of Byzantium reveals the inner workings of ... by Keysh on Monday March 14, 2022 @06:05AM (#30670490)

Note that the oldest version of that story is due to a Christian Arab writing centuries later, complaining about all the bad things Muslims have done. There's no credible evidence from a non-axe-grinding source that anything like that happened.

Not to mention the fact that the Library had ceased to exist by the 4th Century, long before Omar showed up.

(Though I agree with you that the original comment looks like a recycled version of the Omar story.)

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Re:A new history of Byzantium reveals the inner workings of ... by KoftaBob on Monday March 14, 2022 @06:15AM (#30670556)

For sure, I should've mentioned that even the quote by Omar itself is suspect in terms of whether it was ever said, let alone whether it was Omar who had anything to do with the demise of the Library of Alexandria.

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