Before Chrlft 240. 9j 



had occupied in former ages. Tt became a little independent kingdom 

 or community of merchants and feamen ; and it was fo populous, that 

 the houfes covered the whole of the rock, and were raifed aloft in the 

 air to the height of feveral ftories, each a feparate habitation. About 

 this time, in confideration of afliflance given to Seleucus Callinicus king 

 of Syria, they got an afFurance from him, that he would never attempt 

 to force any perfon from them who fhould take refuge in their city, in 

 confequence of which much treafure was poured in upon them by weal- 

 thy criminals flying from juftice, as we learn from Strabo. [L. xvu,p. 

 1094.] He alio remarks, what is much more to their honour, that, be- 

 ing merchants and navigators, they never concerned themfelves with pi- 

 racy, like their neighbours the Cilicians. 



At this time Ptolemy Euergetes was king of Egypt. He imitated his 

 father and grandfather in their attention to the commerce and profperity 

 of the country, and in their tafte for literature and colleding books, 

 which he ufed to procure at a vafl expenfe from all countries, in order 

 to be tranfcribed for his library. Having borrowed the works of So- 

 phocles, Euripides, and ^fchylus, from the Athenians, with whom he 

 depofited fifteen talents (£2,^06 : 5 fterling) as a fecurity for their fafe 

 return, he fent them, inftead of the old books, new copies of them mag- 

 nificently executed, and at the fame time requefled their acceptance of 

 the fifteen talents. Such was the premium which he gave for the loan 

 of three books *. 



Euergetes was fo happy as to have his library under the care of Era- 



* Varro, as quoted by Pliny, fays, that the mod c. 29.] The variations, and the grofs abfurdities, 



valuable and important art of making paper from prove the whole of them to be bungling fiftions. 

 an aquatic plant, produced in the lower part of Thefe are fume of the many inllanccs of the an- 



Egypt, was not invented till after the foundation tients falling into grofs blunders from not confult- 



of Alexandria ; and he afcribcs the invention of ing Herodotus, who would have let them know, 



parchment or vellum for writing upon to an emula- [£. v, c. ^S^ that in times, which h^ thought an- 



tion between Ptolemy and Eumenes king of Perga- tient, both paper and ilcins were commonly ufed 



mus about their libraries, the former of whom hav- fur writing upon. 



ing invidioufly prohibited the exportation of paper, A fiflion is often of fume ufe, though generally 



the later had rccourfe to the fliins of animals as a very different from the intention of the contriver of 



fubftitute for it. it. The fable of Numa's books demonftrates, that 



PUny, not fatisfied with the a;ra affigned to the Hemina and the other Roman writers quoted by 



invention of paper by Varro, quotes an hiftorian Pliny and Livy, were totally ignorant of hiftory, 



called Hemina for a ftory of fome paper books and that the Romans of their times had not yet 



found (181 years before Chrift) in a coffin with determined what duration they Ihould aflign to 



the body of King Numa, wherein they had lain un- their city. It is alfo worthy of obfervatiun, that 



corrupted 535 years, as he reckons, thereby adding Pliny calls Hemina, who could not be above two 



about half a century to the Roman chronology of centuries older than himfelf, a moft antient annal- 



later times. According to Hemina thofe books ift (' vetulliflimus autor annalium') : and the fame 



contained the philofophy of Pythagoras, ('•who Pliny in the preceding chapter talks of manufcripts 



Jlourifhed about two centuries after the fuppofrd age of 200 years old as monuments of very remote anti- 



iVumd^ and they were burnt by the prKtor, ia.7!^ quity ('jlonginqua monumenta'). Do not thefe 



they contained philofophy. Pliny then quotes fome circumftances afford rather more than a ftrong 



other authors, who relate the itory with many va- prefumption, that the generally-received pompous 



nations; and Livy differs from all of them. \_Pi'm. hiflory of the Roman republic for the firft fix f«p- 



Hift. nal, L, xiii, ce. 11, i^.—Liv. HiJI. L. xl, pofed centuries is mere romance ? 



