Library of Samuel Teleki: Part One

They point to the Lacedaemonians, who, once the leaders of all Greece for their praise of invincible fortitude, devoted no effort to books and the liberal arts; 1.) indeed, even among the Romans themselves before the Punic Wars, when they already held all of Italy subdued by their arms, 2.) the study of these things was almost unknown. Finally, they point to the Goths, who were second to no nation in martial virtue: when they were ravaging Greece and had come upon libraries and had gathered a great quantity of books to be burned, they were admonished by one of their elders to desist from their purpose and allow the books to be left unharmed. For, he argued, these were most useful for this purpose: that they might make the Greeks soft, effeminate, and completely idle for the future. As proof of this, they point to the fact that they themselves had conquered the Greeks, who, by perpetually poring over booklets, had been made weak for handling arms and resisting. 3.) Hence

1.) Aelian. Varia Historia, XII. 50.
2.) Aulus Gellius, Book XVII, chapter 21.
3.) Camerarius, Meditationes Historicae, Century III, chapter LXVIII.