For the convenience of trade, there was built near Alexandria, in an island called Pharos, a tower which bore the same name.(315) At the top of this tower was kept a fire, to light such ships as sailed by night near those dangerous coasts, which were full of sands and shelves, from whence all other towers, designed for the same use, have derived their name, as, Pharo di Messina, &c. The famous architect Sostratus built it by order of Ptolemy Philadelphus, who expended eight hundred talents upon it.(316) It was reckoned one of the seven wonders of the world. Some, through a mistake, have commended that prince, for permitting the architect to put his name in the inscription, which was fixed on the tower, instead of his own.(317) It was very short and plain, according to the manner of the ancients. _Sostratus Cnidius Dexiphanis F. Diis Servatoribus pro navigantibus_: _i.e._ Sostratus the Cnidian, son of Dexiphanes, to the protecting deities, for the use of sea-faring people. But certainly Ptolemy must have very much undervalued that kind of immortality which princes are generally so fond of, to suffer, that his name should not be so much as mentioned in the inscription of an edifice so capable of immortalizing him. What we read in Lucian concerning this matter, deprives Ptolemy of a modesty, which indeed would be very ill placed here.(318) This author informs us that Sostratus, to engross in after-times the whole glory of that noble structure to himself, caused the inscription with his own name to be carved in the marble, which he afterwards covered with lime, and thereon put the king’s name. The lime soon mouldered away; and by that means, instead of procuring the architect the honour with which he had flattered himself, served only to discover to future ages his mean fraud and ridiculous vanity. Riches failed not to bring into this city, as they usually do in all places, luxury and licentiousness; so that the Alexandrian voluptuousness became a proverb.(319) In this city arts and sciences were also industriously cultivated, witness that stately edifice, surnamed the Museum, where the literati used to meet, and were maintained at the public expense; and the famous library, which was augmented considerably by Ptolemy Philadelphus; and which, by the magnificence of the kings his successors, at last contained seven hundred thousand volumes. In Cæsar’s wars with the Alexandrians, part of this library, (situate in the Bruchion,(320)) which consisted of four hundred thousand volumes, was unhappily consumed by fire.(321) Part The Second. Of the Manners and Customs of the Egyptians.