VI · The Serapeum · 297–298 CE
Diocletian's siege; the books on gold-making burned; Zosimos
Known · AttestedKnown · AttestedThe siegeKnown · ProbableThe burning of the books on gold-making, from a 10th-century source
Diocletian takes Alexandria after a siege. The Suda says he had the old Egyptian books on making gold and silver burned. Within a few years Zosimos of Panopolis writes the first alchemical books to survive under a real author's name.
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Sources (4)
- Suda χ 280; δ 1156
- Zosimos of Panopolis, Authentic Memoirs ed. Mertens 1995
- M. Mertens (ed. and trans.), Zosime de Panopolis: Mémoires authentiques, Les alchimistes grecs IV.1 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1995)
- L. M. Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013)