514 



THE CENTURY BOOK OF FACTS. 



Romanus. This celebrated manuscript, which 

 is now in the British Museum, belonged, as 

 early as 1098, to the library of the Patriarch 

 of Alexandria. In 1628 it was sent as a 

 present to Charles I. of England, by Cyrillus 

 Lucaris, Patriarch of Constantinople, who de- 

 clared that he got it from Egypt ; and that it 

 was written there appears from internal and 

 external evidence. 



Alexandrian Library contained in the 

 time of Cleopatra about 700,000 volumes or 

 rolls, and was founded at the suggestion of] 

 Demetrius Phalereus, a fugitive from Athens 

 in the reign of Ptolemy Soter. The greater 

 portion of this remarkable collection was de- 

 stroyed during the Alexandrine war. This 

 loss, however, was repaired by Mark Antony, 

 who presented to Cleopatra the library taken 

 at the siege of Pergamos. From this time 

 until about the year 391 A. D., the library in- 

 creased in size and reputation, and contained 

 treasures of learning in all known tongues. 

 At the burning of the Temple of Jupiter Ser- 

 apis by the Christians under Theodosius the 

 Great, about that year a portion of the library 

 was destroyed, and when the Arabs, under 

 Caliph Omar, took the city in 640 A. D., the 

 destruction of the remainder was completed. 



Egyptian Labyrinth was situated at 

 Crocodilopolis, near Lake Moeris, in the vicin- 

 ity of the present pyramid of Biakhmu. It 

 was built of polished stone, with many cham- 

 bers and passages, said to be vaulted, having 

 a peristyle court with 3,000 chambers, half of 

 which were under the earth and the others 

 above ground, which formed another story. 

 The upper chambers were decorated with re- 

 liefs ; the lower were plain, and contained, 

 according to tradition, the bodies of the twelve 

 founders of the building and the mummies of 

 the sacred crocodiles, conferring on the build- | 

 ing the character of a mausoleum, probably 

 conjoined with a temple that of Sebak, the 

 crocodile god. The Labyrinth stood in the 

 midst of a great square. Part was constructed 

 of Parian marble and of Syenitic granite ; it i 

 had a staircase of ninety steps, and columns of 

 porphyry, and the opening of the doors echoed 

 like the reverberation of thunder. There is 

 great difference of opinion among authors as 

 to the name of the king under whom this 

 remarkable work was constructed and the pur- ! 

 pose for which it was intended, and it is prob- 

 able that it was not built in a single reign. 

 According to some ancient authorities it was ' 

 supposed to have been inhabited by the Dodic- 

 archy, or twelve kings, who conjointly ruled 

 Egypt before Psammetichus I. ; while others 

 claim it to have been the place of assembly of 

 the governors of nomes, or districts twelve 



in number, according to Herodotus; sixteen, 

 according to Pliny ; and twenty-seven, accord- 

 ing to Strabo. The Labyrinth was extant in 

 the time of Pliny, A. D. 78, and was then, 

 according to that author, 3,600 years old. 

 The ruins of the foundations or lower cham- 

 bers have been found at the modern village of 

 Howara, in Fayoom. The next labyrinth in 

 renown to the Egyptian was the Labyrinth of 

 Crete, supposed to have been built by Daedalus 

 for the Cretan monarch, Minos, in which the 

 Minotaur was confined by his orders. The 

 third of the labyrinths of antiquity was the 

 Samian, constructed by Theodorus and artists 

 of his school, in the age of Polycrates, 540 B. 

 C., supposed to be a work of nature embel- 

 lished by art, having 150 columns erected by 

 a clever mechanical contrivance. Other infe- 

 rior labyrinths existed at Nauplia,at Sipontuin 

 in Italy, at Val d'Ispica in Sicily, and else- 

 where. 



Councils of Nice. The first Council of 

 Nice was held in the Emperor Constantino's 

 palace, June 19, A. D. 325, and was attended 

 by 318 bishops of the Catholic Church, and 

 resulted in the adoption of the Nicene Creed, 

 expounding the faith of the Church. August 

 17, A. D., 786, the second Council of Nice was 

 convened by order of the Empress Irene and 

 her son Constantine, at which there were .'576 

 bishops present. This council was held for the 

 purpose of establishing the use of images in 

 the churches, which had been interdicted by the 

 Emperor Leo and his son Constantine, but was 

 dissolved owing to the tumults raised by the 

 party in opposition. It was reconvened Sep- 

 tember 24, A. D. 787, when the use of images 

 was restored. 



Islam, or, as it is called, Eslam. is the 

 proper name of the Mohammedan religion. 

 The word is Arabic, and means " Submission 

 to God," or, according to some authorities, 

 " Salvation." Islam, it is held, was once the 

 religion of all men ; and every child, it is be- 

 lieved, is born in Islam, or the true faith, and 

 would continue in it till the end were it not for 

 the wickedness of its parents, " who misguide 

 it early and lead it astray toMagism, Judaism, 

 or Christianity." Whether wickedness and 

 idolatry came into the world after the murder 

 of Abel, or at the time of Noah, or only after 

 Amru Ibn Lohai, one of the first and greatest 

 idolaters of Arabia, are moot-points among 

 Moslem theologians. 



Albijjeiises. About the beginning of the 

 thirteenth century various sects of heretics 

 abounded in the south of France, and to these 

 wag applied the name Albigenses. The name 

 arose from the circumstance that the district 

 of Albigeois in Languedoc now in the de- 



