format traditional to each language is used correctly and with some ease;
for example, Celsus’s name is in the dative in the Latin, accusative in the
Greek. Interestingly, despite some small differences, the two bases’ close
spacing, circular rounded letters, and tendency to end lines at word
endings make them look remarkably similar; the Latin retains its long
‘‘I’’s and interpuncts, but even the Greek gets interpuncts in its attention-
getting front first line, for Celsus’s name. Save for the right hand statue
base, all the other inscriptions on the building were in Greek.
The Library carried explicit messages about Celsus, not just in text, but
in statues and decor. In addition to the one in the inner apse and the
equestrian pair on the outside, at least three other statues of Celsus
and one of Aquila stood on Greek-inscribed bases in the upper story of
the monument, likely wearing the various costumes of their offices. An
over-life-sized statue of a laurel-crowned man in full general’s outfit
with senator’s shoes is likely one of those (Celsus commanded the
fourth legion Scythica under Titus and Domitian).
36
The twelve fasces
of Celsus’s proconsular office, with hooded axes, are carved among the
decorative scrollwork on six of the pilasters flanking the doors into the
building, and in the labeled niches between stood figures of his personified
Wisdom (Sophia), Excellence (Arete), Knowledge (Episteme), and another
quality (replaced by a late antique inscription of the Forethought,Ennoia,
of one Philippos). These are not the virtues usually trumpeted for em-
perors or portrayed on coins and honorific shields, but the literary ones
that hailed the crowning of Homer on the Relief of Archelaos.^37 They
heroize a man for his high Hellenic culture. The statues now set up in the
reconstructed niches are copies, but not of the originals, which were likely
destroyed in a third-century earthquake. They were replaced with mis-
cellaneous females, including a reused Hygieia, and can’t tell us what
attributes identifiedSophiaorArete.^38
(ato) Aug(ustorum) / divorum Vespasiani et Titi provinciae Cappadociae et Galatiae
Ponti / Pisidiae Paphlagoniae Armeniae Minoris, leg(ato) divi Titi leg(ionis) IIII Scythicae,
procos. / Ponti et Bithyniae, praef(ecto) aerari militaris, leg(ato) Aug(usti) pro pr(aetore)
provinciae Ciliciae, XVviro s(acris) f(aciundis), cur(atori) / aedium sacrarum et operum
locorumque publicorum populi Romani, Ti. Iulius Aquila Polemaeanus cos. / patrem suum,
consummaverunt heredes Aquilae.
Kearsley 2001, 51 3 no. 73 gives texts and English translations of the two statue bases,
though she calls them the ‘‘epitaph’’ of Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus.
- Eichler in Wilberg et al. 1953, 57 9 Abb. 101; Smith 1998, 73 5. For portrait
statues’ dedication and reception, supra n. 24. - BothSophiaandAreteappear in the relief of Archelaos of Priene, ca. 130B.C.E.,
for which see Pinkwart 1965, 72 5, and Newby 2007, 158, 175. A statue ofAretestood
next to Ptolemy in the procession of Ptolemy II as described by Kallixeinos of Rhodes in
Athenaeus,Deipnosophistae5.201d. For the iconography of Celsus’s virtues, infra n. 38. - This is not accounted for by J. C. Balty in his articles inLIMC, s.v. ‘‘Arete,’’
‘‘Ennoia,’’ and ‘‘Episteme’’; but noted by M. Xagorari s.v. ‘‘Sophia.’’
Reading, Hearing, and Looking at Ephesos 81