Synesius the scholar walks the streets of Alexandria with a strange figure at his side. An Oxford don with the unlovely garments of the twentieth century looks oddly out of place among the tunics, cloaks, and togas that fill those brilliant fourth-century streets. They are on their way to the library, in which, of all the sights of the city, the Oxonian has shown the keenest interest. Together they disappear within its pillared portico. An hour passes; the purple shadows creep along the glistening pavement. At length they emerge. The don's pockets are filled with papyrus rolls from the cedar-scented pigeonholes of the library, and Synesius is pressing upon him a fine parchment codex as a parting gift from the most famous of ancient libraries to the most famous of modern ones.