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Of Libraries
55
they conquered the country, undoubtedly took to Italy many collections of books.
Perhaps I should simply mention the Byzantine library of the time of the Emperors. Zonaras and Cedrenus say that under the Emperor Basiliscus, the library in Byzantium, into which had been gathered a hundred and twenty thousand volumes, was destroyed by fire. Among the books was the gut of a great dragon, one hundred and twenty feet long, on which was written in letters of gold the whole of the Iliad and the Odyssey. But this library, being in Thrace and not in Greece, ought not to be considered as among the Grecian libraries.
