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Of Libraries
45
earlier Alexandrian war" (here he is in error; it was in the later war, under Antony), "when the state was disrupted; and the burning was not intentional or premeditated, and possibly was done by the auxiliary soldiers." He excuses Caesar, and with some reason; for did ever any one love books and the humanities more than he? He also excuses the Roman soldiers, and lays the blame on the foreign auxiliaries.
If one consults Plutarch and Dion one may see that they do not think the burning took place during the sack of the city.
Such, then, was the end of this noble library; destroyed in the one hundred and eighty-third Olympiad, after enduring scarce-
