For example, there is Tyrannion the grammarian, in the reign of Sulla, who had three thousand volumes. Epaphroditus of Chaeronea, also a grammarian by profession, is another example. Suidas says of him that he lived at Rome from the time of Nero to that of Nerva, and was so assiduous a purchaser of books that he collected thirty thousand of them, and they of the best and rarest. I applaud this last example, not so much, of course, for the great number of books he collected as for the good taste he showed in choosing them. I should like to believe that this Epaphroditus was the one who had among his slaves Epictetus, the very head of the true philosophy. Certainly they were contemporaries. But the rank and occupation of the two men were very different, the book-collector being a grammarian, according to Suidas, while the owner of Epictetus was one of the bodyguards of Nero. Whoever he was, Samonicus Serenus surpassed him in his zeal for book-collecting, for he had a library in which there were sixty-two thousand volumes. When he died he left his books to Gordian the Less, afterwards emperor. The gift is reported by Capitolinus with these words of praise, “This has immortalized Gordian; for men of letters will never cease to speak of the gift of so vast and splendid a library.” Consider, O Most Illustrious Prince, how this love of books brings favour and high renown,--such favour and renown as should be granted without limit to great men like yourself. Those I have named, and a few besides, are known to have had notable libraries. There were, of course, many others of whom we know nothing. Seneca shows that the habit of book-collecting was very common in his time, and condemns it. You ask, why did he condemn it? “Because,” he says, “they acquired books not that they might enjoy them, but simply for show. To most of these newly rich, ignorant even of the elements of _belles-lettres_, books are not aids to study, but simply ornaments of dining-rooms.” A little further on he adds: “Why, in the homes of the idlest of the rich you will find all that orators or historians have written, with bookcases built clear to the ceiling! Formerly a library gave a home an air of culture; one is now put in, like a bathroom, simply as a necessary part of the equipment of a house.” A sad state of affairs, I admit. And yet it is to be wished that our own rich men had the same taste in luxuries; for a collection of books can always be of use and value to some one, even if not to the owner.