The Museum, where men of letters lived in common and at the royal charge, (Strabo, xviii. 794. Gillies’ Hist. of the World, i. 496.) was founded by Ptolemy Lagi, and the library enlarged by Philadelphus and succeeding kings, till it amounted to 400,000 volumes. The Serapeum contained 300,000 more. The library in the Bruchium was burnt in the wars of Cæsar; that in the Serapeum suffered much in the religious dissensions, and what remained was destroyed by the Saracens. That the population of Alexandria has not been overrated by the author, at 600,000 souls, may be inferred from what Diodorus says, that when he was in Egypt, (60 B. C.) it appeared from the registers that there were 300,000 free men in Alexandria. Now in ancient cities the slaves were commonly at least double the number of the free inhabitants. Hume Ess. i. p. 442. It was the second city of the Roman world after Rome itself. Diod. xvii. 52. Page 23.—_Aramæan Jews._] _Aram_, in its largest sense, comprehended Syria, Mesopotamia, and Palestine, all whose languages are closely allied. (Deut. xxvi. 5. Ezra iv. 7.) Though politically distinguished from Syria, Palestine has no geographical demarcation, and hence was often reckoned to belong to it. (Reland, Pal. p. 42.) Of the hatred which the Jews of Palestine bore to those of Egypt, who had attached themselves to the temple, see Maimonides de Reg. Hebr. c. 5. and the commentary in the Fascic. Hist. and Phil. Sacr. ix. p. 63. seq. The Greek learning was as odious to the zealous Aramæans, as to Cato himself. Ernesti op. Phil. xxiii. “Ut gliscenti malo, quod genuisse Ægyptiacas synagogas querebantur, obicem ponerent, sanxere _Maledictus esto quisquis filium suum sapientiam Græcanicam edoceat_.” (Brucker, ii. 705.) The inveteracy of the two sects against each other appeared immediately in the Christian church. Acts vi. 1. Wetstein in loc. Page 23.—Of the origin of the love of allegory among the Jews of Alexandria, from their acquaintance with a corrupted form of the Platonic and Pythagorean philosophy, see Brucker, Hist. Phil. ii. 690. “Cum reliquæ Græcorum sectæ a Judaica theologia nimis distare crederentur, et nec Peripatetica mundi æternitas, nec Stoica mundi anima cum placitis Mosaicis, etiam allegoriarum ope satis conciliari posse videretur, sola Pythagorico-Platonica doctrina saniora et digniora Mosaicis præceptis afferre existimata est, eo quod sublimius de Deo divinisque et spiritualibus substantiis philosophari putabatur. Ast magnum cum esset inter Pythagorico-Platonica dogmata et legem Mosaicam discrimen, adhibita est regionis docendi methodus, et allegoriæ beneficio in concordiam ire jussa sunt præcepta longe diversissima.” Eichhorn Allge. Bibl. v. 233.