Shame be to Caesar for having brought about, even though without intent, this irreparable loss! Yet he himself does not mention it in the third book of his _History of the Civil War_; and, later, Hirtius did not speak of it. But others did; Plutarch, for example, and Dion; and Livy also, as may easily be shown by a reference to Seneca, who says, after the words above quoted, “Another has praised the library, even Livy, who says that it had been a splendid monument to the culture and the enlightened zeal of kings.” These are the very words used by Livy in speaking of the fire, and of the praise due the library itself and the kings who had collected it. Ammianus also speaks of this lamentable conflagration, and says: “Among all the temples in Alexandria the Serapeum was preëminent; in it was formerly a library of inestimable value containing, according to the concurrent testimony of the ancient monuments, seven hundred thousand volumes, collected with patient zeal by the Ptolemaic kings. All of these books were consumed by fire when the state, under the dictatorship of Caesar, was disrupted by the Alexandrian war.” He wishes to make it appear that this happened while the city was being plundered. A. Gellius says the same: “All these books were burned in the earlier Alexandrian war” (here he is in error; it was in the later war, under Antony), “when the state was disrupted; and the burning was not intentional or premeditated, and possibly was done by the auxiliary soldiers.” He excuses Caesar, and with some reason; for did ever any one love books and the humanities more than he? He also excuses the Roman soldiers, and lays the blame on the foreign auxiliaries. If one consults Plutarch and Dion one may see that they do not think the burning took place during the sack of the city.