Show how it started by JEAN NEWTON THE FIRST LIBRARY TO THOSE who believe the present system of things Is all Is there Is no more that ours Is the only really civilized period the world has ever known it might be enang to learn that a few centuries before the advent of christ there was established a library containing between six and seven hundred thou sand volumes or rolls this was the great library or twin libraries of alexandria founded by the first of the Ptole mies during the siege of aiex andrla in 48 B C when julius ceasar burned the shipping in the harbor a large part of the library was destroyed although most of the temples of Babylon la which was the seat of a learned and literary people many hundreds of years before the advent of christ contained a library of clay toilets in the cuneiform writing of the day the library at alexandria with its half million rolls of manu scripts Is the first known library in the modern sense of the word after its destruction the library at alexandria was replaced by that of Perga mum in asia minor which was presented by antony as a gift to cleopatra subsequently we have the various libraries in rome which represented usually the spoils of war the great library of constantinople founded in the fourth century by constantine lne then the monastic libraries of the mid die ages and beginning with the fit century in germany the versley libraries which bear the closest resemblance that had yet been reached to libraries as we know them today by bell syndicate |