Of Aristotle, Strabo speaks in terms of highest praise, and I have already quoted his words. I also cited the statement from Athenaeus that Aristotle’s library came finally into the possession of the Ptolemies. Strabo and some others, however, seem to question this statement. “The books of Aristotle,” says Strabo, “which were left to Neleus, were finally handed on to certain descendants of his who were men of no learning. By them the books were kept under lock and key, and were not used. Then they were buried under ground and much injured by worms and mould; but finally were purchased at a great price by Apellicon of Teos. He had the books, now sadly worm-eaten and tattered, transcribed, though not faithfully or with good judgement, and published. On his death Sulla, then master of Athens, seized the books and sent them to Rome, where Tyrannion the grammarian made use of them and, so it is reported, rearranged them and to some extent corrupted their text.” Plutarch tells the same or a very similar story in his life of Sulla. If it is true, how could the books of Aristotle have come from Neleus to Philadelphus, as Athenaeus says they did in the passage quoted above? Perhaps we can reconcile the two statements, and this is my conclusion, by supposing that Neleus retained Aristotle’s own writings, his original manuscripts, as a precious heritage for his own family, and sold the rest of the books, written by others, to Philadelphus. I do not recall any other matters worth relating about the libraries of Greece. I do not need to say that the Romans, after they conquered the country, undoubtedly took to Italy many collections of books. Perhaps I should simply mention the Byzantine library of the time of the Emperors. Zonaras and Cedrenus say that under the Emperor Basiliscus, the library in Byzantium, into which had been gathered a hundred and twenty thousand volumes, was destroyed by fire. Among the books was the gut of a great dragon, one hundred and twenty feet long, on which was written in letters of gold the whole of the Iliad and the Odyssey. But this library, being in Thrace and not in Greece, ought not to be considered as among the Grecian libraries. CHAPTER IV _The Attalic Library, of which Eumenes was the founder. Certain errors of statement about it made by Pliny and Vitruvius. Its size and the length of time it existed._