world
has nothing worthier of admiration.

13. In it were libraries of inestimable value; and the concurrent
testimony of ancient records affirm that 70,000 volumes, which had been
collected by the anxious care of the Ptolemies, were burnt in the
Alexandrian war when the city was sacked in the time of Caesar the
Dictator.

14. Twelve miles from this city is Canopus, which, according to ancient
tradition, received its name from the prophet of Menelaus, who was
buried there. It is a place exceedingly well supplied with good inns, of
a most wholesome climate, with refreshing breezes; so that any one who
resides in that district might think himself out of our world while he
hears the breezes murmuring through the sunny atmosphere.

15. Alexandria itself was not, like other cities, gradually embellished,
but at its very outset it was adorned with spacious roads. But after
having been long torn by violent seditions, at last, when Aurelian was
emperor, and when the intestine quarrels of its citizens had proceeded
to deadly strife, its walls were destroyed, and it lost the largest half
of its territory, which was called Bruchion, and had long been the abode
of eminent men.

16. There had lived Aristarchus, that illustrious grammarian; and
Herodianus, that accurate inquirer into the fine arts; and Saccas
Ammonius, the master of Plotinus, and many other writers in various
useful branches of literature, among whom Didymus, surnamed
Chalcenterus, a man celebrated for his writings on many subjects of
science, deserves especial mention; who, in the six books in which he,
sometimes incorrectly, attacks Cicero, imitating those malignant farce
writers, is justly blamed by the learned as a puppy barking from a
distance with puny voice against the mighty roar of the lion.

17. And although, besides those I have mentioned, there were many other
men of eminence in ancient times, yet even now there is much learning in
the same city; for teachers of various sects flourish, and many kinds of
secret knowledge are explained by geometrical science. Nor is music dead
among them, nor harmony. And by a few, observations of the motion of the
world and of the stars are still cultivated; while of learned
arithmeticians the number is considerable; and besides them there are
many skilled in divination.

18. Again, of medicine, the aid of which in our present extravagant and
luxurious way of life is incessantly required, the study is carried on
wi