Page:A Brief Outline of the Histories of Libraries.djvu/40

34 Homer: a certain Naucrates accused Homer of plagiarism, and said that when the latter went to Egypt he found there the books of a woman, Phantasia, who had written the Iliad and the Odyssey and placed them in the temple of Vulcan at Memphis; and that there Homer saw them, appropriated them, and published them as his own. As far as Homer is concerned I think this story false; but it establishes the fact in question, that it was the custom in Egypt to have libraries.