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44
A Brief History
who had collected it.
Ammianus also speaks of this lamentable conflagration, and says: "Among all the temples in Alexandria the Serapeum was preëminent; in it was formerly a library of inestimable value containing, according to the concurrent testimony of the ancient monuments, seven hundred thousand volumes, collected with patient zeal by the Ptolemaic kings. All of these books were consumed by fire when the state, under the dictatorship of Caesar, was disrupted by the Alexandrian war." He wishes to make it appear that this happened while the city was being plundered. A. Gellius says the same: "All these books were burned in the
