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 ALEXANDRIAN CODEX ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY 291 of the Romans ; and, notwithstanding the re- moval of many of the most precious works of art to Rome, its greatness continued till the establishment of the seat of empire at Con- stantinople. From the rise of Constantino- ple, though still a centre of commerce, Alex- andria as a capital began seriously to de- cline. In A. D. 640 it was taken by the Sara- cens under Amru, the general of the caliph Omar, and in 969 Cairo was founded by the caliphs of the Fatimite dynasty, and made the capital of Egypt. The discovery of the route to India and the East by the Cape of Good Hope completed its decay. At present the under- ground cisterns for the preservation of the Nile water are the only perfect relics of the past. Modern Alexandria is situated on the causeway which once formed the communication between the mainland and the Pharos, and which by constant accumulation of sand and material is now formed into a neck of land. There are two ports, one at the extremity of an extensive roadstead west of the Pharos, in which ves- sels of the line may lie ; the other, the modern port, on the east of the Pharos, is less advan- tageous. Lake Mareotis was dried up by ac- cumulations of sand, but in 1801 the British army cut through the narrow strip which sep- arated it from the lake of Aboukir, and let in the sea again. Alexandria is fast becoming as populous as it was in the days of antiquity, and looks (1873) rather like an Italian than an ori- ental city. The ruins of the ancient city and the wretched habitations of the Arabs are no longer as conspicuous as they were formerly. Large streets well paved and lighted with gas are seen in the European quarter, and abound with fine residences. The great promenade of the Mehemet All square, formerly the square of the Consuls, is the central and most animated point of the city. The population was estimated in 1870 at 238,888, including, besides Arabs, Copts, Turks, Persians, Armenians, and Jews, 25,000 Greeks, 20,000 Italians, 15,000 French, 12,000 English Maltese, 12,000 Levantines of miscella- neous European descent, 8,000 Germans and Swiss, 8,000 various foreigners, comprising a number of American officers in the khedive's army and American engineers and mission- aries. Railways connect the city with Cairo and the Suez canal and with Ramleh. It is as a place of transit for passengers that Alex- andria is most remarkable, the steamers to and from India, the Mediterranean, and the Levant all contributing to the prosperity of the city. In 1869 there were 56,000 passengers in the 2,000 sailing ships, and nearly 80,000 in the 1,000 steamers which entered the port, besides men-of-war. ALEXANDRIAN CODEX, an uncial manuscript of the Old and New Testament, so named from the fact that it was found at Alexandria by Cyrillus Lucaris, the patriarch of Constantino- ple, who presented it in 1628 to Charles I. of England. It was written on vellum, in double columns, condensed and unaccented. It contains, besides the canonical books, slight- ly varied in their order, most of the apoc- rypha. Some writers have been of the opinion that the writer of this codex followed three dif- ferent editions the Byzantine in the gospels, the western in the Acts and catholic epistles, and the Alexandrine in the epistles of Paul and therefore speak disparagingly of its authority. Others consider it the most perfect copy of the Scriptures extant. The famous passage con- cerning the three witnesses (1 John v. 7) is not contained in this codex ; and there are several chasms in the text, more especially in the New Testament. A portion of the gospels of St. Matthew and of St. John, as well as of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, is wanting. On the first page of the text of Genesis is a declaration that the MS. was dedicated to the use of the patriarch of Alexandria, and an anathema of excommunication against him who shall remove it from the library. Cyrillus, the donor of the MS. to Charles, was a patriarch of Alexandria before his removal to Constanti- nople. By some he has been accused of for- gery in this whole matter. The MS. is in very good condition generally. It is the only one known which contains the genuine epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. This codex is now preserved in the British museum. ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY, a collection of books formed by Ptolemy I. and Ptolemy II. of Egypt, and probably the largest prior to the invention of printing. It was founded, it is said, at the suggestion of Demetrius Phale- reus, who, when a fugitive at the Egyptian court, spoke with admiration of the public li- braries at Athens. Demetrius was appointed superintendent, and diligently employed him- self in the collection of the literature of all nations, Jewish, Chaldee, Persian, Ethiopian, Egyptian; Greek, Roman, &c. According to Eusebius, there were 100,000 volumes in the library at the death of Ptolemy Philadelphus ; and subsequently the number was increased to 700,000. The volumina or rolls, however, contained far less than a printed volume ; as, for instance, the " Metamorphoses " of Ovid, in 15 books, would be considered as 15 volumes. During the siege which Csesar stood in Alexan- dria, a large part of the library was burned. Gibbon asserts that the old library was totally consumed, and that the collection from Perga- mus, which was presented by Mark Antony to Cleopatra, was the foundation of the new one, which continued to increase in size and repu- tation for four centuries, until dispersed by Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria, at the de- struction of the Serapeum, about A. D. 390. Still the library was reestablished ; and Alex- andria continued to flourish as one of the chief seats of literature until it was conquered by the Arabs in 640. The library was then burned, according to a story of very questionable au- thenticity, in consequence of the fanatic deci- sion of the caliph Omar : " If these writings of the Greeks agree with the Book of God,