Page:A Brief Outline of the Histories of Libraries.djvu/72

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66
A Brief History

To Aemilius and Lucullus one may add the name of Cornelius Sulla, afterwards dictator, as a founder of libraries. He brought from Greece and Athens to Rome a very large number of books and arranged them to form a library. About this Lucian has written, as well as Plutarch.

But after all these things were done, a true public library for Rome had not yet been established. The thought of such an institution was first conceived by the great and glorious Julius Caesar, and would by him have been carried to its conclusion had not the fates forbidden. Suetonius says, "He planned to open to the public libraries formed of as many books in the Greek