DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26300#0096
PART I.
iEGYPTIACA.
65
ruins of fome ancient Edifice, they add, that “ there
“ was the Library which Amru Ebn El Aas
“ burnt by the command of the Khalif Omar”1.”
I conclude therefore, that both the burning, or more
flriCtly fpeaking, the defpoiling ”, of the Library by
Amru, and its actual Jituation, are indifputably afcer-
tained.
A fatisfa&ory anfwer having now, I hope, been given
to the fceptical infinuation of Mr. Gibbon, I advance a
ftep farther. As the library defpoiled by Amru was a
royal 0 library, and as the jirjl Ptolemsean library was
unfortunately burnt by Julius Caefar, this muft necef-
farily have been the J'econd Ptolemaean library; and
confequently part of the Temple of Serapis. We have
at length then, by the affiflance of Arabic writers, un-
expectedly difcovered the site of the Serapeum ; a
difcovery eagerly fought for by the curious for more
m See Mss. of Macrifi in the Bodleian Library, Pocock, N°. 394. p. 137.
Marjh, N”. 149. p. 183. and the printed editions of Abdollatif, p. 62, 63.
8™. or pag. no. 112. 4'10.
“ Abulpharajus affirms, that the books were ordered to be diftributed
amongft the baths, and ufed as fuel for heating them. It being then
explicitly ftated, that they were not burnt in the Library, we may
fairly infer, that the edifice itfelf, that is, its walls, rooms, and colon-
nades, remained, after the books were committed to the flames.
0 —Bibliothecis Regiis.—See p. 57.
K
iEGYPTIACA.
65
ruins of fome ancient Edifice, they add, that “ there
“ was the Library which Amru Ebn El Aas
“ burnt by the command of the Khalif Omar”1.”
I conclude therefore, that both the burning, or more
flriCtly fpeaking, the defpoiling ”, of the Library by
Amru, and its actual Jituation, are indifputably afcer-
tained.
A fatisfa&ory anfwer having now, I hope, been given
to the fceptical infinuation of Mr. Gibbon, I advance a
ftep farther. As the library defpoiled by Amru was a
royal 0 library, and as the jirjl Ptolemsean library was
unfortunately burnt by Julius Caefar, this muft necef-
farily have been the J'econd Ptolemaean library; and
confequently part of the Temple of Serapis. We have
at length then, by the affiflance of Arabic writers, un-
expectedly difcovered the site of the Serapeum ; a
difcovery eagerly fought for by the curious for more
m See Mss. of Macrifi in the Bodleian Library, Pocock, N°. 394. p. 137.
Marjh, N”. 149. p. 183. and the printed editions of Abdollatif, p. 62, 63.
8™. or pag. no. 112. 4'10.
“ Abulpharajus affirms, that the books were ordered to be diftributed
amongft the baths, and ufed as fuel for heating them. It being then
explicitly ftated, that they were not burnt in the Library, we may
fairly infer, that the edifice itfelf, that is, its walls, rooms, and colon-
nades, remained, after the books were committed to the flames.
0 —Bibliothecis Regiis.—See p. 57.
K