I read Ariston’s translation of the Oracle’s scroll, and a shiver ran up my body. Wadjet had foreseen that her treasured box would be forgotten in a cavern of our library. She had asked me—by name—to make sure her symbols survived time. She tasked me with many things I had no idea how to accomplish.
At the time I didn’t know what to think, being singled out by a voice from a world that had long ago faded away. Not only had Wadjet foreseen that I would find her treasured box, she said I was born with the ability to divine the future. Her symbols, she said, were mine to master. The scroll explained, in detail, the meaning of each divinity symbol—how they worked together to form the geometry of life, and how within that ever-changing geometry, I could discern the answer to any question.
To appease my doubt, I spent untold hours in the library, researching divination in earnest. I read the stories written by famous oracles and seers who had attempted to bridge the barrier between humanity and the heavens. I found the seers of the past to be the most powerful.
In the long-ago world, seers believed divination to be the mother of all knowledge, the soul of philosophy, and the heart of religion. Their mysteries had been preserved in the library’s caverns, wisdom from the ancients who knew how to access the primordial knowledge that surrounds us.
I read countless scrolls that detailed how to interpret dreams, how to read birds’ signs in the sky. I read about powerful seers who had gone to war with their generals and foretold the future of battles before a single sword was ever wielded. I read lists of omens and portents. I learned about the differences between soothsayers—those who made predictions—and oracles, those who spoke from altered states of mind, such as the Pythia at Delphi. I studied accounts from seers who could interpret nature, who could read the messages hidden in a crash of thunder or a bolt of lightning, and the ones who were gifted with prophetic knowledge—the most rare seers of all.
As I read I became even more unsure of where I belonged. Wadjet believed I had the sight. She had written to me directly, as a teacher would a student. But how could I be a seer? Seers were from the families of wealthy politicians and were apprenticed at a young age to those who were already masters. I did not have the charisma or ambition to travel from city to city, gaining followers and prominence. I was just a girl who had found an ancient set of symbols.
If I were truly to become the seer that Wadjet had portended, then I needed to know more. So I began to spend all my time in the lower galleries, learning everything I could from seers whose accounts stretched far back into the shadows of time.
As I put myself through the rigors of my private studies, I failed to notice Egypt was in the midst of even greater turmoil. Perhaps if I had, I could have foreseen the tragedy that was to come.
* * *
When Cleopatra’s father, Ptolemy XII, died, Cleopatra took control of the throne and married her ten-year-old brother, Ptolemy XIII. They were husband and wife in name only, so they could rule together.
Overnight she transformed into the goddess Isis herself. No longer did she wear simple gowns and roam the library freely with an open scroll in hand, as she had in childhood. Instead she dressed as if she were part of a pageant that never ended. She adorned her body with ornate jewels, armbands, and necklaces. Even her wigs were works of art.
At my family’s dinner table I learned about the gossip—the struggle for power between sister and brother, the manipulations of the royal ministers, who were determined that Cleopatra remain only a figurehead. But Cleopatra was too strong-willed, too smart, to let that happen. She could debate a man four times her age and win.
Cleopatra fled Egypt for Syria to escape the plotting of her ministers. Her plight and the people’s outrage over her exile caught Rome’s eye.
The Ptolemy who had ruled before Cleopatra’s father officially bequeathed Egypt to Rome in his will. But instead of assuming control, Rome had allowed the Ptolemies to continue their reign under its watchful eye: the empire was too busy with problems of its own. When Caesar arrived in Alexandria to assess the situation, Cleopatra seized the opportunity and snuck back into the city to plead her case. Caesar had the power to decide the fate of her country.
No one had ever denied Cleopatra, and it seemed Caesar couldn’t either. She was twenty-one now, a woman in her full glory and revered by the people as their queen and a living goddess.
News quickly spread that Caesar had become Cleopatra’s lover and protector. He returned Cleopatra to the throne and reestablished the joint rule she once shared with her brother. But Caesar had miscalculated the royal ministers, who were secretly fortifying the Egyptian army to sever their ties and end their subservience to Rome.
Caesar had not come to Alexandria with enough men to fight, and his reinforcements from Syria would not arrive in time to save them from defeat. So when the ministers’ treachery became apparent, Caesar picked the most strategic place in the city, a cluster of mansions by the water, and barricaded himself there with his troops. He took control of the adjacent isle of Pharos, where the great lighthouse stood. After securing the entrance to the port, he ordered that both harbors be burned.
Alexandria was the finest port city in the world, with deep waters. Its two harbors could hold a thousand ships, which lit like kindling and stoked the fires for days. We tried to continue on while flames engulfed the ships on the water.
In the throes of worry, I didn’t think to consult the Oracle’s symbols. It’s true but I didn’t think of myself as a seer back then. Seers grasp the future and pull it back into the present, while the rest of us wait for it to find us. I waited. No one knew what tomorrow held. No one knew who would win this war.
* * *
The night the flames took the city I joined my father outside our home to watch the harbor. We lived in the Brucheion near the royal complex and had a clear view of the port.
Before us an endless sea of red fire stretched across the water like a titan’s arms, traveling in all directions. The flames leaped, full of rage and a strange kind of beauty that both repelled and mesmerized me at the same time. I would never see anything so magnificent again.
Then the sea breeze shifted and the black smoke began to roll toward us like viscous waves, causing me to choke.
“The winds are turning,” my father said, his voice filled with dread.
For days, ever since Caesar had given the order to burn the harbor, everyone worried that the fire would make its way to the library. The wind was now full of malice.
My father called to my brothers. “Ring the bells!” Then he ran after them to the library. He was too seized with panic to notice that I had followed.
Within minutes, the bells were ringing. My brothers had been quick. Soon crowds of people came running to help.
Imagine the flames of Hades. I have no other words to describe the devastation.
We all rushed inside together like a Greek chorus, suddenly players in an unbelievable tragedy, grabbing every scroll and codex we could carry in our arms. Outside we threw the bundles high into the air and far into the distance, hoping to get as many of the works as we could to safety.
I raced back inside to the lower gallery, intent on saving the Oracle’s box. As I rounded the corner, I saw my father unlocking the secret door to the lower gallery. I called out to him. When he turned, I saw the truth in his eyes. He knew I had a key, and he knew I had been down there before. He had let me go with his blessing.
“Stay back, Ionna!” he yelled.
Then I saw him disappear down the stairwell. I screamed and tried to run after him, but a shelf fell in front of me, blocking the entrance.
A man called out behind me. His robes had caught fire while he was trying to save a collection of scrolls. He ran toward me, but a wall of flames enveloped him.
I stood crying, waiting for my father to return, but the smoke forced me to go back outside. I collapsed on the ground and gasped for air. People dashed past me carrying buckets of water. At least a third of the library had already been destroyed, if not more. People were still trying to salvage what they could.
The Oracle’s stone box, her writings and symbols, were now surely gone. My father must have known what priceless treasures the lower galleries held. That was why he’d risked his life to save them.
I don’t remember when I was told to leave or by whom. My clothes were singed and covered in ash. When I arrived home, I fell asleep on a pallet by the door so I could hear when my brothers returned and, with the gods’ will, my father.
* * *
The next morning stillness greeted me.
I rose to wash my hands and feet and wiped my face. I changed robes and drank two cups of water. Dizzy, I sat down. I wanted to cry but knew if I started to weep I would never stop. What the day would hold, I could not fathom. I had foreseen my mother’s death, but not this.
When I returned to the library the blackened walls told the story. An eerie calm rested in the air, as if a great storm had blown through, and then left us.
In one night, nearly all the knowledge, all the dreams of dreamers had been extinguished like stars in the sky no longer shining. I saw bedraggled men staggering from exhaustion as they tried to organize the salvaged scrolls and codices blanketing the lawns. The wreckage was a giant puzzle that could never be put right again.
The director of the library saw me, and his face fell. “Ionna, go home,” he said gently. “I will have my daughter come.”
His daughter was of my mother’s generation. I did not understand why he would send her to me.
“Thank you, but there is no need,” I said. “We will be fine.”
He did not speak, but the anguish on his face told me my brothers would not be coming home either. I backed away, unable to believe that, in one night, I had lost them all.
I don’t remember where I went. I just remember the deep well of grief. For days I moved in a stupor. Eventually the director’s daughter did come with food and wine. She cooked and cleaned and offered me a place to stay with her family. But I didn’t want to abandon my house, the last remaining piece of my life.
The director felt a responsibility to me. My father was a lifelong friend and close assistant. Most likely, he would have taken over the library when the director passed away. Now all that had changed.
While I mourned, Alexandria worked hard to restore order. Caesar had been victorious against the Egyptian army, so we were forced to forget our losses and celebrate Caesar and Rome’s ingenuity. The war ended by January, but the city had paid a price. The library was hardly the only casualty.
Our people accepted this fate. Hundreds of libraries had existed throughout our history, many achieving great prestige and then perishing. I grew up listening to their stories by candlelight—all true, my father insisted. My favorite was about the library in Persepolis, the great city in Persia. Their library contained the Avesta, a sacred book that, supposedly, could grant man immortality.
“Is the book in our library now, Father?” I would ask him, wide-eyed.
“Oh no, no, no.” He would shake his head gravely. “When Alexander defeated Darius III, he burned down the library out of vengeance and the Avesta was destroyed.”
My father would stare into the fire with a sad, faraway look as if he had witnessed the act himself. Alexandria’s library would be no different from those that had fallen before it. I imagined a girl, like me, being told our story far in the future.
How would the record remember us?
My father’s favorite saying had always been “Sweet is the truth.” With so much of it now gone, I could taste only bitterness. He believed that knowledge could never be lost, that other libraries would rise to fill the void. But could the same words be written? Hundreds of thousands of scrolls were lost—our recorded history wiped away in one night.
Aristarchus had tried to prove that the earth revolved around the sun, and that the universe was many times bigger than we had thought. His research was supported by the ancient Babylonian texts our library had housed, all of which had been destroyed in the fire. Every year volatile debates broke out about whether or not the earth did in truth revolve around the sun; Aristarchus’ scrolls and the Babylonian texts were the proving points. Now students would never read those theories.
How Seshat, the goddess of knowledge and the written word, must be weeping. Our library had been a House of Life, and now that life was gone.