THE GREEK PERIOD
collections and perhaps the material of which they were made.
The library itself was smaller as well as later than the Museum library at Alexandria but reached the very respectable number of 200,000 rolls before it was, as alleged by Plutarch, given by Antony to Cleopatra for the library at Alexandria. It is alleged also that the invention of parchment was due to the zeal for enlarging this collection. The kings of Egypt, it is said, jealous of its rapid increase, over the Alexandrian library, cut off the supply of papyrus and led thus to the invention of parchment—which was after all little more than the perfecting of a treatment of leather, which had been long in general use especially in Asia, so that it could be used for writing on both sides.
This collection was public and was undoubtedly the same source, through copyings, of many of the books in the multitude of libraries which now sprang up, but
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