Library of Celsus

The Library of Celsus in Ephesus was built around the year 117 by the consul Gaius Julius Aquila in memory of his father, Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, proconsul of Asia. The building served at the same time as a tomb: the sarcophagus with the body of Celsus stands in a crypt beneath the floor of the reading room, which was a rare exception to the Roman ban on burials inside a city. The niches in the walls held about twelve thousand scrolls, and double walls with an air gap protected them from damp. The two-tier facade with its alternating pediments is designed for an optical illusion: the columns at the edges are smaller than those in the centre and the base is slightly convex, which makes the building seem wider and taller. In four niches stand copies of the statues personifying wisdom, knowledge, intelligence and virtue; the originals are in Vienna. A fire in the 3rd century destroyed the interior, and an earthquake brought down the facade. Austrian archaeologists put it back together in the 1970s, raising the surviving blocks into their former places. Next to the library stand the Gate of Mazaeus and Mithridates, leading to the commercial agora.

On the map