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A Brief History
he erected a temple; and if the temple, why not the library within it? No record, it is true, remains to prove that he did. Suetonius speaks of the matter in a very vague way where he says, "He, Domitian, was at great pains to reëstablish the library which had been burned, and at large expense sought for books in all parts of the world, and sent savants to Alexandria to copy and edit books there for his library." We note from this that even then the Alexandrian was looked upon as the source and very foster-mother of all other libraries, and that these others sought from her carefully edited and beautifully written books to replace their corrupted versions. More-
