8. At Inibis the air is wholesome, the sky pure and undisturbed; and, as the experience of a long series of ages proves, there is scarcely ever a day on which the inhabitants of this city do not see the sun.
9. The shore is shifty and dangerous; and as in former times it exposed sailors to many dangers, Cleopatra erected a lofty tower in the harbour, which was named Pharos, from the spot on which it was built, and which afforded light to vessels by night when coming from the Levant or the Libyan sea along the plain and level coast, without any signs of mountains or towns or eminences to direct them, they were previously often wrecked by striking into the soft and adhesive sand.
10. The same queen, for a well-known and necessary reason, made a causeway seven furlongs in extent, admirable for its size and for the almost incredible rapidity with which it was made. The island of Pharos, where Homer in sublime language relates that Proteus used to amuse himself with his herds of seals, is almost a thousand yards from the shore on which the city stands, and was liable to pay tribute to the Rhodians.
11. And when on one occasion the farmers of this revenue came to make exorbitant demands, she, being a wily woman, on a pretext of it being the season of solemn holidays, led them into the suburbs, and ordered the work to be carried on without ceasing. And so seven furlongs were completed in seven days, being raised with the soil of the adjacent shore. Then the queen, driving over it in her chariot, said that the Rhodians were making a blunder in demanding port dues for what was not an island but part of the mainland.
12. Besides this there are many lofty temples, and especially one to Serapis, which, although no words can adequately describe it, we may yet say, from its splendid halls supported by pillars, and its beautiful statues and other embellishments, is so superbly decorated, that next to the Capitol, of which the ever-venerable Rome boasts, the whole world has nothing worthier of admiration.
13. In it were libraries of inestimable value; and the concurrent testimony of ancient records affirm that 70,000 volumes, which had been collected by the anxious care of the Ptolemies, were burnt in the Alexandrian war when the city was sacked in the time of Cæsar the Dictator.
14. Twelve miles from this city is Canopus, which, according to ancient tradition, received its name from the prophet of Menelaus, who was buried there. It is a place exceedingly well supplied with good inns, of a most wholesome climate, with refreshing breezes; so that any one who resides in that district might think himself out of our world while he hears the breezes murmuring through the sunny atmosphere.
15. Alexandria itself was not, like other cities, gradually embellished, but at its very outset it was adorned with spacious roads. But after having been long torn by violent seditions, at last, when Aurelian was emperor, and when the intestine quarrels of its citizens had proceeded to deadly strife, its walls were destroyed, and it lost the largest half of its territory, which was called Bruchion, and had long been the abode of eminent men.
16. There had lived Aristarchus, that illustrious grammarian; and Herodianus, that accurate inquirer into the fine arts; and Saccas Ammonius, the master of Plotinus, and many other writers in various useful branches of literature, among whom Didymus, surnamed Chalcenterus, a man celebrated for his writings on many subjects of science, deserves especial mention; who, in the six books in which he, sometimes incorrectly, attacks Cicero, imitating those malignant farce writers, is justly blamed by the learned as a puppy barking from a distance with puny voice against the mighty roar of the lion.
17. And although, besides those I have mentioned, there were many other men of eminence in ancient times, yet even now there is much learning in the same city; for teachers of various sects flourish, and many kinds of secret knowledge are explained by geometrical science. Nor is music dead among them, nor harmony. And by a few, observations of the motion of the world and of the stars are still cultivated; while of learned arithmeticians the number is considerable; and besides them there are many skilled in divination.