I've seen lots of movies with horrible, terrifying scenes. Scenes hard to watch, making you want to turn your head.
But the destroying of the library of Alexandria made me feel sick and angry. I couldn't watch, it was too painful. Requiem for a Dream and Apocalypse Now are nothing compared to this.
Read Timothy O'Neill's article on Agora.
http://armariummagnus.blogspot.ca/2009/05/agora-and-hypatia-hollywood- strikes.html
Totus Tuus O Maria!!! Totus Tuus O Jesu!!!!
Read Timothy O'Neill's article on Agora.
"It's a truly conceited "article" supposedly "refuting" the events portrayed in the movie from someone who hasn't seen the movie and goes by the press release"
Give that it was written before the movie was released, it would have been hard for me to have seen it. But perhaps you'll be happier with this follow up, wirtten after I'd watched the film:
http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com.au/2010/05/hypatia-and-agora-redux.html
Then again, perhaps not.
"endlessly quotes books from authors who have no more evidence than Sagan to argue their version of the story. "
Utter nonsense. Sagan puts the destruction of the Serapeum (which he wrongly claims was "the Great Library of Alexandria") AFTER Hypatia's death. How something that happened in 391 can occur after something that happened in 415 I have no idea. Perhaps Sagan had some different conception of time to the rest of us.
"We are left with interpretations and theories. "
Luckily for us we have these people called "historians" who specialise in the analysis of the evidence to help us. Those of us who have a clue that is.
"I don't see why his, which is merely a collage of huffs and puffs and other people's theories, is real while the movie's is not. ":
And there's your problem. Most people can see why. If you can't, that tells us a great deal about you.
http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com.au/2010/05/hypatia-and-agora-redux.html
I don't think they were criticising you for your follow-up article. They were criticising you for making a refutation of a film you hadn't seen, based solely on the press release. Sounded like a fair criticism to me.
shareI made it perfectly clear in my initial article that I was commenting on what I could ascertain about the film from the material available before its release. It is full of careful language along the lines of "if the film depicts this it is perpetuating the old myths about Hypatia and the Great Library". The bulk of my initial article is about those myths, not the film. So it isn't a valid criticism at all, since I made it absolutely clear what I was criticising and the limits of my criticism.
Then once I'd seen the film I wrote my follow up, which demonstrated that what I suspected initially was absolutely correct. So no, it isn't a fair critcism at all. It's weak and petty nonsense.
http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com.au/2010/05/hypatia-and-agora-redux.html
And by the way, since you outted yourself in another thread, do you usually speak of yourself in the third person?
[deleted]
The author of the article states he is not criticizing the film, that he is criticizing what the director and the star were themselves saying about the film. He himself says he would withhold overall judgment until seeing the film.
shareThere are many theories for the end of the Alexandrian Library. Romans, Christians, Muslims have been implicated. What it shows is that ignorance is not the exclusive domain of the uneducated. Religious fanaticism, bureaucratic shortsightedness, military brutality and ignorance, and simple greed remain the enemies of the human mind and spirit.
By the power of what perverted god do clerics, politicians, and soldiers retain their elevated level of respect in our society?
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/04/loot-a19.html
But the library was already destroyed, centuries before the movie takes place. The daughter library that is implied in this film was also already derelict at the time of the movie. But hey, can't let very obvious facts get in the way of a good movie. Or in this case, a seen meant to make people sick and angry, like yourself. But seeing what I knew of history, plainly obvious (even from playing games like Rome: Total War and doing the readings of cultures/buildings, etc) the scene doesn't have the same effect.
shareThe movie is WRONG in the depiction of the destruction of the library, so no need to feel sick and angry about that.
They probably did destroy statues/idols and loot treasures, as most mobs do - especially when driven by ideology (see Taliban today or French Revolution).
The burning/wholesale destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria is a myth. There is ample evidence that there was still a functioning library, and learning, and librarians working hard, in 6th Century AD in Alexandria.
The famous 'burning' by Ceaser around 42 AD when he burnt his ships in the port for military reasons appear (modern scholars believe) to have also burned warehouses of scrolls belonging to the library. Every ship that docked in Alexandria had to give up any scrolls/books on board to the library. They were copied and the originals retained at the library. Thus the library had extensive warehouses at the docks for this purpose.
The 'daughter library' (at Serapis) was in any case in a different part of the city to the main library and are often confused. Libraries required huge sums of money to maintain, and lots of well educated staff to do that. Alexandria was especially expensive because so many of the scrolls were on papyrus, which does not survive well in that type of hot/humid Climate, so would have to be copied and recopied often.
The number one reason for the disappearance of the library was most likely economic decline of the Roman Empire.
Read more by googling Richard Carrier, or thishttp://io9.gizmodo.com/the-great-library-at-alexandria-was-destroyed-by-budget-1442659066.