[Illustration:  116.jpg TEMPLE OF PHILAE]

The Museum of Alexandria held at this time the highest rank among the Greek schools, whether for poetry, mathematics, astronomy, or medicine, the four branches into which it was divided.  Its library soon held two hundred thousand rolls of papyrus; which, however, could hardly have been equal to ten thousand printed volumes.  Many of these were bought by Philadelphus in Athens and Rhodes; and his copy of Aristotle’s works was bought of the philosopher Nileus, who had been a hearer of that great man, and afterwards inherited his books through Theophrastus, to whom they had been left by Aristotle.  The books in the museum were of course all Greek; the Greeks did not study foreign languages, and thought the Egyptian writings barbarous.

At the head of this library had been Demetrius Phalereus, who, after ruling Athens with great praise, was banished from his country, and fled to Ptolemy Soter, under whom he consoled himself for the loss of power in the enjoyment of literary leisure.  He was at the same time the most learned and the most polished of orators.  He brought learning from the closet into the forum; and, by the soft turn which he gave to public speaking, made that sweet and lovely which had before been grave and severe.  Cicero thought him the great master in the art of speaking, and seems to have taken him as the model upon which he wished to form his own style.  He wrote upon philosophy, history, government, and poetry; but the only one of his works which has reached our time is his treatise on elocution; and the careful thought which he there gives to the choice of words and to the form of a sentence, and even the parts of a sentence, shows the value then set upon style.  Indeed he seems rather to have charmed his hearers by the softness of his words than to have roused them to noble deeds by the strength of his thoughts.  He not only advised Ptolemy Soter what books he should buy, but which he should read, and he chiefly recommended those on government and policy; and it is alike to the credit of the king and of the librarian, that he put before him books which, from their praise of freedom and hatred of tyrants, few persons would even speak of in the presence of a king.  But Demetrius had also been consulted by Soter about the choice of a successor, and had given his opinion that the crown ought to be left to his eldest son, and that wars would arise between his children if it were not so left; hence we can hardly wonder that, on the death of Soter, Demetrius should have lost his place at the head of the museum, and been ordered to leave Alexandria.  He died, as courtiers say, in disgrace; and he was buried near Diospolis in the Busirite nome of the Delta.  According to one account he was put to death by the bite of an asp, in obedience to the new king’s orders, but this story is not generally credited; although this was not an uncommon way of inflicting death.