_The Libraries of Augustus, the Octavian and the Palatine. Their
Librarians and Custodians._
It was, then, under Augustus that this the first public library was
established. Soon there were two others, also due to him. The first,
the Octavian, he founded in honour of his sister, and gave it her
name. Of this Dion Cassius says, in his chronicle of the year 721,
“Augustus built a colonnade and in it established a library, which
he named after his sister Octavia.” Plutarch seems to ascribe this
work to Octavia herself, when he says, “In honour of Marcellus, his
mother Octavia built a library and dedicated it to his memory;
Augustus built a theatre and gave to it the name of Marcellus.” I
think Plutarch is here in error, for the note of Dion’s places the
erection of the Colonnade of Octavia ten whole years before the death
of Marcellus. He adds that these memorials were erected from spoils
of the Dalmatians, and his words draw attention to the remarkable
fact that the first and second libraries of Rome were both due, in a
certain sense, to barbarians.
Suetonius, in speaking of Melissus the grammarian, says that after he
was freed he soon became intimate with Augustus, and at the latter’s
request undertook, and very efficiently, the task of arranging the
library in the Colonnade of Octavia. It is my opinion that it was in
the upper part of the colonnade, as safer and more appropriate, since
the lower part was used as a promenade. Ovid again makes his little
book of verse say, “I seek another temple, near the theatre; and this
also was forbidden to my feet.” The book complains that it is spurned
by the library, and incidentally tells where the library was,--near
the theatre of Marcellus. He calls the building, which was in fact
a portico, a temple, because in it, as Pliny says, was an altar to
Juno, and certain beautiful statues.
Still another library was founded by this same Augustus, the
Palatine, so called because it was in the royal palace itself.
Suetonius says, “He built the temple of Apollo in that part of his
house on the Palatine Hill which had been struck by lightning, and
was thereby, as the priests interpreted the fact, marked out as a
spot dear to God. To the temple he added porticoes, in which he
placed a library of books in Latin and in Greek.” This happened in
the seven hundred and twenty-sixth year of the city, as one may learn
from the opening lines of Dion’s _History_, book LIII.
It seems, then, that Ovid followed the order of the dates of their
establishment in his reference to the libraries of Rome, when he
named, in the following quotation, first the Asinian, next the
Octavian, and last the Palatine.
From thence we to Apollo’s temple went,
To which by steps there is a faire ascent:
Where stand the signs in faire outlandish stone,
Of Belus and of Palammed the sonne.
There ancient bookes, and those that are more new,
Doe all lye open to the Reader’s view.
I sought my brethren there, excepting them,
Whose haplesse birth my father doth condeme.
And as I sought, the chiefe man of the place,
Bid me be gone out of that holy space.[3]
Here Ovid shows, among other things, that there was a librarian or
custodian of the Palatine library. Suetonius tells us he was C.
Julius Higinus. In his _Celebrated Grammarians_ he says, “This man
presided over the Palatine library; though meanwhile he followed his
profession and taught many.” Later there was a special custodian for
the books in Greek, and another for those in Latin. On an ancient
marble tablet are inscribed these words:
ANTIOCHUS
IN CHARGE OF THE LATIN BOOKS
IN THE LIBRARY OF
TI. CLAUDIUS CAESAR
IN THE TEMPLE OF APOLLO
On another:
C. JULIUS FALYX
IN CHARGE OF THE GREEK BOOKS
OF THE
PALATINE LIBRARY
There are other similar inscriptions.
To this Palatine library Pliny refers when he says, “We may see in
the library in the temple of Augustus a Tuscan statue representing
Apollo, fifty feet in height.” This quotation, however, may point to
the library of Vespasian Augustus, which was in the temple of Peace.
But Pliny refers very plainly to the Palatine library when he says,
“The old Greek letters were almost the same as the Latin letters of
the present time, as is shown by an ancient Delphic tablet of bronze,
dedicated to Minerva, which is now in the Palatine--that gift of
emperors--in the library.” I am led to believe, from the words of
John of Salisbury, that this library was in existence in Rome for a
very long time, since he writes, “The learned and most holy Gregory
not only banished astrology from the court; but also, as is reported
by them of old time, gave to the flames those writings of approved
merit, and whatever else the Palatine library in Apollo’s temple
possessed. Preëminent among these were some which seemed designed to
reveal to men the will of the celestial beings and the oracles of the
higher powers.”
This quotation is worthy of note.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] _W. Saltonstall’s translation_, 1637.