title: The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind
author:  Garth Fowden 
description: "[T]he books ascribed to Hermes . . . fall into two divisions, the technical and the philosophical, which Fowden treats separately. . . . [His] scholarly survery makes an excellent foundation for further study of points of detail and of paganism in general." (<i>Shadow</i>)
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  ![](Clive%20Cussler%20-%20Dp09%20Treasure.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Clive Cussler - Treasure
  
  
  
  
  
  THE ALEXANDRIA LIBRARY truly existed, and if it had remained unravished by
  wars and religious zealots it would have given us not only the knowledge of
  the Egyptian, Greek and Roman empires, but those little-known civilizations
  that rose and fell far beyond the shores of the Mediterranean.
  
  
  
  
  
  In A.D. 391 Christian Emperor Theodosius ordered all books and art depicting
  anything remotely pagan, which included the teachings of the immortal Greek
  philosophers, burned and destroyed.
  
  
  
  
  
  Much of the collection was thought to have been secretly saved and spirited
  away. What became of it, or where it was hidden, remains a mystery sixteen
  centuries later.
  
  
  
  
  
  THE PRECURSORS
  
  
  
  
  
  July 15, A.D. 391
  
  
  
  
  
  A land unknown A small, flickering light danced eerily through the black of
  the tunneled passageway. A man dressed in a woolen tunic that dropped below
  his knees paused and raised an 