India, says Mr. Pennant, gave us Peacocks, and we are assured by Knox, in his History of Ceylon, that they are still found in the wild state, in vast flocks, in that island and in Java. So beautiful a bird could not be permitted to be a stranger in the more distant parts; for so early as the days of Solomon (1 Kings, x. 22.) we find among the articles imported in his Tarshish navies, Apes and Peacocks. A monarch so conversant in all branches of natural history, would certainly not neglect furnishing his officers with instructions for collecting every curiosity in the country to which they made voyages, which gave him a knowledge that distinguished him from all the princes of his time. Ælian relates that they were brought into Greece from some barbarous country, and that they were held in such high estimation, that a male and female were valued at Athens at 1000 drachmæ, or £32. 5s. 10d. Their next step might be to Samos; where they were preserved about the temple of Juno, being the birds sacred to that goddess; and Gellius in his Noctes Allicæ commends the excellency of the Samian Peacocks. It is therefore probable that they were brought there originally for the purposes of superstition, and afterwards cultivated for the uses of luxury. We are also told, when Alexander was in India, he found vast numbers of wild ones on the banks of the Hyarotis, and was so struck with their beauty, as to appoint a severe punishment on any person that killed them.
Peacocks’ crests, in ancient times were among the ornaments of the kings of England. Ernald de Aclent (Acland) paid a fine to king John in a hundred and forty palfries, with sackbuts, lorains, gilt spurs and peacock’s crests, such as would be for his credit.—Some of our regiments of cavalry bear on their helmets, at present, the figure of a peacock.
ANCIENT LIBRARIES.
Many events have contributed to deprive us of a great part of the literary treasures of antiquity. A very fatal blow was given to literature by the destruction of the Phœnician temples and the Egyptian colleges, when those kingdoms and the countries adjacent, were conquered by the Persians, about 350 years before Christ. The Persians had a great dislike to the religion of the Phœnicians and the Egyptians, and this was one reason for destroying their books, of which Eusebius says they had a great number.
The first celebrated library of antiquity was at Alexandria, and called from thence the Alexandrian library; it owed its foundation to Ptolemy Soter, king of Egypt, though his Son Ptolemy Philadelphus enjoys the reputation of being its founder. This was about 284 years before the Christian æra.
The palace of Ptolemy Philadelphus was the asylum of learned men whom he admired and patronized. He paid particular attention to Euclid, Theocritus, Callimachus, and Lycophron, and by increasing the library, of which his father had laid the foundation, he shewed his taste for learning and wish to encourage genius. This celebrated library at his death contained 200,000 volumes of the best and choicest books, and it was afterwards increased to 700,000 volumes. The method adopted for making this collection was the seizing of all the books that were brought by the Greeks or other foreigners into Egypt, and sending them to Ptolemy, who had them transcribed by persons employed for that purpose. The transcripts were then delivered to the proprietors, and the originals laid up in the library. Ptolemy Euergetes, for instance, borrowed of the Athenians the works of Sophocles, Euripides, and Æschylus, and only returned them the copies, which he caused to be transcribed in as beautiful a manner as possible; the originals he retained for his own library, presenting the Athenians with fifteen talents for the exchange, that is, with upwards of £3,000 sterling. As the Alexandrian academy was at first in the quarter of the city called Bruchion, the library was placed there, but when the number of books amounted to 400,000 volumes, another library within the Serapeum was erected, by way of supplement to it, and on that account called the daughter of the former. The books lodged in the Serapeum increased to the number of 300,000, and these two made up the number of 700,000 volumes, of which the royal libraries of the Ptolemys were said to consist.
In the war which Julius Cæsar waged with the inhabitants of Alexandria, the library of Bruchion was accidentally, but unfortunately, burned; but the library in the Serapeum still remained. The whole was magnificently repaired by Cleopatra, who deposited there the 200,000 volumes, forming the library of the kings of Pergamus, with which she had been presented by Antony. These, and others added to them from time to time, rendered the new library of Alexandria more numerous and considerable than the former, and though it was plundered more than once during the revolutions which happened in the Roman empire, yet it was as frequently supplied with the same number of books, and continued for many ages to be of great fame and use, until it was burnt by the Saracens, in the year 642 of the Christian æra.
There was a building adjoining to this library, called the Museum, for the accommodation of a college or society of learned men, who were supported there at the public expense, and where there were covered walks and seats where they might carry on disputations.
The next library of antiquity was that founded at Pergamus, by Eumenes, and considerably increased by the literary taste of his wealthy and learned successors, at whose court merit and virtue were always sure of finding an honorable patronage. This library which consisted of 200,000 volumes, was given by Antony to Cleopatra, as has been already mentioned.—Parchment was first invented and made use of at Pergamus to transcribe books upon, as Ptolemy had forbidden the exportation of Papyrus from Egypt, in order to prevent Eumenes from making a library as valuable and choice as that of Alexandria.
The first public library at Rome, and in the world, as Pliny observes, was erected by Asinius Pollio, in the Atrium of the Temple of Liberty on Mount Aventine. Augustus founded a Greek and Latin library in the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine Hill, and another in the name of his sister Octavia, adjoining to the Theatre of Marcellus.