356 WARS OF THE CALIPHS. 



contrary, the circumstance is mentioned by Makrisi 

 and Abdollatif, both of whom have Avritten expressly 

 on the antiquities of E^ypt.* Taking the account 

 as recorded (for it is impossible to explode it as a 

 fiction invented by Abulfarage), it will not be easy to 

 estimate the loss which literature sustained. It is 

 true, that in talking of the libraries of antiquity, we 

 must not be misled by magnificent descriptions, or 

 the ample catalogues of their contents. The manu- 

 scripts were numerous, but the matter they con- 

 tained would in modern print be compressed within 

 a small space. The fifteen books, for example, of 

 Ovid's Metamorphoses, v>hich then composed as 

 many volumes, are now reduced to a few dozens of 

 pages. Yet we cannot renounce the belief that, 

 though much has fortunately escaped the ravages of 

 ignorance and the calamities of war, a great deal 

 must have perished in the sack of this famed metro- 

 poMs. The fall of Alexandria may be said to have 

 achieved the conquest of Egypt. A proportion of 

 taxes, for the benefit of the state, was deducted, 

 according to their annual income, from the clear 

 profits of the wealthier classes, and of those engaged 

 in the pursuits of agriculture and commerce. 

 At no season could the possession of this hostile 



* The Baron de Sacy, in a long note to his translation of Ab- 

 dollatif (Relation de I'Egypte, p. 240), has collected various tes- 

 timonies from the works of Arabian writers, preserved in the 

 Royal Libran,' at Paris, which concur in establishing the credi- 

 bility of Abulfarage's narrative. But these the arrogant Gibbon 

 had never seen. Professor Wliite, in his Egyptiaca (p. 56), 

 enters into an indignant refutation of Gibbon's doubts, and shows 

 that his references to Aulas Gellius, Ammianus, and Orosiua 

 are foreign to the purpose for which they are cited, as these wri- 

 ters only notice the accidental conflagration of the Alexandrian 

 library, in the time of Julius Caesar, when 400,000 volumes are 

 said to have been destroyed. A considerable number was saved 

 in the Temple of Serapis, and at the time of the Saracen invasion 

 the collection had increased to 700,000 volumes.- — Enfield's Hist, 

 of Philos. vol. ii. p. 227. Hornets Introd. to the Study of Biblio- 

 paphy. 



