additions of the Gate of Mazaeus and Mithridates and then the Neronian
Hall led to a complete change in the area’s function. For one thing, soon
after the Gate’s construction its floor level had to be raised and culverts
installed under it, as rain erosion was washing down the hillside to the
south and east and getting into the Agora.^29 Raising the floor level of
the Gate meant that wheeled traffic could no longer pass through it into
the Agora, but had to veer off and take the northbound street instead. This
isolated the space in front of the Gate, making it more of a pedestrian
thoroughfare than a through street. Perhaps now people began to gather
here for meetings, speeches, or legal proceedings which did not require the
large spaces offered by the great square Agora. By the early second century,
new benefactors recognized and furthered the change in the area by
eliminating the peristyle house, blocking the westward street, and building
a third bilingual monument here, the Library of Celsus (figure 4.4).
This is one of the best preserved and best known libraries of the ancient
world, as well as the most photographed spot in all Ephesos.
30
But
familiarity may mask what a very unusual building it is. It was built in
honor of Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemeanus, one of the first easterners to
become consul at Rome, in 92C.E. When he died, his son, Tiberius Julius
Aquila, himself consul in 110, began the project, and when the son died
soon after, it was finished by his heirs. The family of Celsus likely came
from Sardis, not Ephesos, so Aquila had chosen to put his father’s monu-
ment and burial place at Ephesos, a rival city, rather than their ancestral
home. He placed it where his father had enacted one of the greatest
offices of his life: after his suffect consulship, Polemeanus had returned
to his province as its highest Roman official, as Proconsul of Asia in 106/7.
Was this spot chosen, at sacrifice of a rather large house and at consider-
able expense, because this was close to where Celsus had enacted some of
his responsibilities as proconsul?
The front of the library bears a Greek dedication written only on the
lower story and on the largest of the three fasciae of the front-facing
architrave, making it legible and comprehensible to a viewer standing
before the building, with no need to follow along the sides of the facade’s
aediculae.
31
This inscription is unusual in naming Celsus in the accusa-
tive, as if the building were a statue base; it then states that Aquila built
- Inscription of [Herakleides] Passalas, who altered the Gate of Mazaeus and
Mithridates to keep floods out of the Agora and keep the ‘‘Triodos’’ passable: Knibbe,
Engelmann, and Iplikc ̧ioglu 1993, 123 4 no. 13. See Knibbe and Langmann 1993, 55;
Engelmann 1995, 87 n. 33; Halfmann 2001, 31 2. - Wilberg et al. 1953; Strocka 1981, esp. 322 9; 2003; Hoepfner 2002. Thanks to
George Houston for information and advice on libraries during and after the conference.
31.IvE5101:ÔØ:’Éïýº½Øïí ̊ݺóïí —ïºåìÆØÆíeíoðÆôïí IíŁýðÆôïí’óßÆòÔØ:’ÉïýºØïò ’ŒýºÆò oðÆôïò › ıƒeò ŒÆôåóŒåýÆóåí ôcí âØâºØïŁÞŒÅí;½ôe æªïí IðÆæô½ØóÜí½ôøí ôHí’ŒýºÆ ŒºÅæ½ïíüìøí;KðØìåºÅŁÝíôïò ÔØ: ̊º:’æØóôßøíïò;ª^0 IóØÜæåïı:
For all inscriptions of the Library of Celsus, Keil in Wilberg et al. 1953, 61 80.
78 Situating Literacies