THE LEGACY OF THE GREEKS 153 



equally true of the Latin metropolis. As late as the fourth 

 century of our era, it is said there were twenty-eight public 

 libraries in Rome. One of these had been the fine Ulpian 

 library, another that of the Palatine. Even in minor cities 

 throughout the empire do we read of collections of considerable 

 value and extent. 



Mournfully does the lover of books contemplate the fate of 

 one and all. Three hundred years after the first destructive 

 fire, the Alexandrian Library was pillaged, and in large part 

 destroyed, by a wild rabble under the lead of the fanatical 

 Bishop Theophilus, and countenanced by that Saint Cyril who 

 instigated the atrocious murder of Hypatia. Three hundred 

 years later still, its remnants were fed to the flames by order of 

 the conquering Omar. Even then, so great was the number 

 of papyri remaining, that, used to fire the baths of Alex- 

 andria, it is recorded that six months were barely sufficient 

 to consume them. An insane and burning hatred of learning 

 seemed to inflame the heart of Christian and Mohammedan 

 alike. Doubtless the great majority of these works were of 

 mediocre value. Some few were not ; and to no man is it 

 given to anticipate what will be held of most worth a thousand 

 years beyond his age. It is with difficulty that he who reads 

 now restrains his resentment against the destroyers of these 

 interesting relics of the ancient mind. 



What the zealot left the hand of fate seemed to seize. The 

 history of the libraries of Rome is a history of fires, which came 

 as a part of the incessant conflagrations which visited the 

 imperial city. Scant wonder is it then, that, suffering such 

 adversities, so slight a portion of ancient literature should have 

 come down to us, that the immensely larger part more than 

 ninety- nine per cent., we may imagine should have been utterly 

 and irretrievably lost. It hardly needs be added that the 

 portion which appealed to the scholar and to the reading public 

 least, that which dealt with the several sciences, should have 

 been the most neglected and the least preserved. 



Of great libraries we hear no more until the rise of the 

 Saracens and at the close of their era of conquest, along in the 

 eighth and ninth centuries. Then it was that their more en- 

 lightened Khalifs began again the sedulous hoarding of books. 

 Al-Maimun, son and successor of the distinguished Haroun 

 Al-Raschid, is reported to have brought into Bagdad hundreds 



