The Once and Future Witches

by Alix E. Harrow

Alexandria, Antioch, Avicenna… They keep burning us. We keep rising again.”

Caesar burned the library of Alexandria in 48 BCE; The Royal Library of Antioch was destroyed in 363 CE by Emperor Jovian, supposedly for containing pagan/unChristian materials; the royal library of the Samanids was burned in the capture of the city of Isfahan in 1034--some people think the scholar Avicenna did it himself to prevent the books from falling into enemy hands.