ALEXAN'BRIAN LIBRARY. This remarkable collection of books, the largest of the ancient world, was founded by Ptolemy Soter, in the city of Alexandria, in Egypt. Even in the time of its first manager, Demetrius Phalereus, a banished Athenian, the number of volumes or rolls already amounted to 50,000 ; and during its most flourish ing period, under the direction of Zenodotus, Aristarchus of Byzantium, Apollonius Rhod ins and others, is said to have contained 400,000, or, according to another author ity, 700,000. The greater part of this library, which embraced the collected literature of Rome, Greece, India, and Egt, was contained in the museum, in the quarter of Alexandria called Brucheium. During the siege of Alexandria by Julius Cmsar, this part of the library was destroyed by fire; but it was afterwards replaced by the collec tion of Pergamos, which was presented to queen Cleopatra by Mark Antony, to the great annoyance of the educated Romans. The other part of the library was kept in the Sera peion, the temple of Jupiter Sempis, where it remained till the time of Theodosius the great.
When this emperor permitted all the heathen temples in the Roman empire to be destroyed, the magnificent temple of Jupiter Serapis was not spared. A mob of fanatic Chris tians, led on by the archbishop Theophilus, stormed and destroyed the temple, together, it is most likely, with the greater part of its literary treasures, in 391 A.D. It was at this time that the destruction of the library was begun, and not at the taking of Alexandria by the Arabians, under the caliph Omar. The story, at least, is ridiculously exaggerated which relates that the Arabs found a sufficient number of books remaining to heat the baths of the city for six months. The historian ()rosins, who visited the place after the destruction of the temple by the Christians, relates that he then saw only the empty shelves of the library. See Petit-Radel, Recherches sur les Bibliothkues Anciennes et Modernes (Paris, 1819); and Ritschl, Die Aleaxindrinisehen Bibliotheken (Berlin, 183S).