Hueber has suggested that the U-shaped building is the Auditorion.^55
His restoration is not impossible, but the side aisles are too narrow to be
used, the vaulted central space is so imaginary that no roof has been drawn
in on its reconstruction, and the result resembles a Renaissance pavilion
like the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence. One wonders how legal cases could
have been heard there; certainly the postulated statue of an emperor at
the back would have had to be replaced by the proconsul’s tribunal.
Hueber also downplays the fact that the building’s interior is only about
19 feet deep. In Rome, basilicas used as courtrooms were both enclosed
and far larger, as they needed to accommodate the magistrate, his con-
silium, and all the jurors; in Asia as in Rome, juries of a hundred are
known.
56
The U-shaped building’s ground plan resembles the type of exedra
decorated with columns that is found on gymnasium palaestrae in Asia
Minor, and has been incorrectly termed ‘‘Kaisersaal.’’ I have argued else-
where against the supposed association between these rooms and imperial
cult, and have been looking for the real function(s) for such exedrae.
57
It
is likely that at least some of them were lecture rooms for the men of
learning whose natural haunts were gymnasia. Though we know of no
other use of the word ‘‘auditorion’’ than the Ephesos inscription, we know
of a few akroateria in Asia Minor, and two are specifically in gymnasia.^58
Like the building in the plaza, gymnasium exedrae had support for an
aediculated column display—like that on the front of the Library of
Celsus—on three walls, and were unwalled but columned on the broad
fourth side. This would have provided seating for honored guests—or
jurors—in the interior, but also allowed standees to listen to the declam-
ation from the pavement beyond.
As no other building that shared a pavement with the Library of Celsus
seems as appropriate—indeed, as no other building other than the ones
mentioned has yet been found, though surprises are always possible with
further excavation—the U-shaped building is likely to have been the
Auditorion mentioned in the inscription. But even if its function and
official status was Roman, its design probably met specifically Asian
desires. We know that those who brought cases before the governor of
Asia’s tribunal took care to employ professional orators to argue for them,
and that fans of these sophists would travel far and wide to hear them.
59
- Hueber 1997a, 83 5. Thanks to Elizabeth Riorden for her thoughts on the
architecture. - Philostratus,Lives of the Sophists1.22, section 524. On the provincial justice system
of Asia, see Burton 1975. - Burrell 2006.
- At Chios (IGRR4.1703) and at Aigai in Aeolis (Ameling et al. 1995, 427 8 nos. 357,
357 [A]). See also Robert 1937, 79 80; Delorme 1960, 324 5; Hellmann 1988, 243;
Korenjak 2000, 31. - Philostratus,Lives of the Sophists1.22, section 525: as an old man, Dionysios of
Miletos traveled from his home in Ephesos to the assize court held in Sardis to hear Polemon
86 Situating Literacies