_Statues of Learned Men sometimes placed in Libraries; a
praiseworthy Custom which originated with Asinius._
A most appropriate method of decorating a library, one which ought
to be imitated by us to-day but unhappily is not, is that of placing
in it and near their writings the statues or busts of great authors.
How delightful it must have been to the readers to see them, and how
stimulating to the mind! We all wish to become familiar with the
features and the general appearance of great men, with those material
bodies in which dwelt their celestial spirits, and, lifting our
eyes from their books, here they are before us! You could read the
writings of Homer, Hippocrates, Aristotle, Pindar, Virgil, Cicero,
and others, and at the same time feast your eyes upon the counterfeit
presentment of each one. Again I say, a most beautiful custom, and
why, Most Illustrious Friend, do we to-day not imitate it, under your
leadership?
This idea seems to have originated with the Romans--not every
good thing, after all, has come from the Greeks! Pliny is of this
opinion. “Nothing,” he says, speaking in his most happy vein, “is
more delightful than to have knowledge of the face and bearing of the
authors one reads. Asinius Pollio, at Rome, apparently originated
this idea of placing statues in libraries; that same Asinius who was
the first, by founding a free library, to make the wisdom of mankind
free to all. Whether the kings at Alexandria and Pergamum, who showed
great zeal in the founding of libraries, had done the same before,
I find it impossible to learn.” So it seems, as I have said, that
Asinius was the originator of the idea; and Pliny says that he placed
in a library, the first public one opened in the city (not, in the
world, as some absurdly render the phrase), the statue of a living
man, Marcus Varro, the first person to have that honour. Afterwards
the same distinction was shown to others, either through courtesy
or because it was justly due them; for example, to the poet Martial,
who boasted that Stertinius wished to place a statue of him in his
library. But for the most part this honour has been reserved for
the dead, and for those who have, by common consent, proved their
greatness.
Pliny says, “A certain custom, now just established, ought not to
be passed by in silence. I refer to the fact that they place in
libraries, not only the statues in gold, silver, or bronze of those
whose immortal souls may be said to be speaking there through their
books, but also the statues of those whose books are not there; and
even imaginary statues of those of whom no portraits have been
preserved.” He calls the custom a new one, meaning that it originated
with Pollio. He says also that these statues of the dead were for
the most part made of metal. I would add that they were also made of
plaster, in which they were easily duplicated for private libraries.
Juvenal says, “Though you may find everywhere busts of Chrysippus in
plaster.”
Indeed I think the portraits were sometimes paintings, and that
perhaps they placed portraits at the beginnings of books. Seneca
says, “Those exquisite works of highest genius, illustrated with the
portraits of their authors.” Suetonius says of Tiberius, “He placed
their writings and their portraits in the public libraries among
the old and accepted authors.” And Pliny in his letters remarks,
“Herennius Severus, a most learned man, is very desirous to place in
his own library the statues of Cornelius Nepos and Titus Atticus.”
So, according to these two writers, both statues and portraits
were used. Pliny also says, in speaking of Silius Italicus, “He
owned many villas in these same places, and in them he had many
portraits; moreover, he not only owned them, he almost worshipped
them, especially the portrait of Virgil.” Vopiscus says of Numerian
that a certain oration of his was held to be so eloquent that it was
decided that a statue be made of him as an orator, not as emperor,
and placed in the Ulpian library with this inscription: “To Numerian,
Emperor, the greatest Orator of his time.” Sidonius, justly boasting
of a statue erected to himself in the same place, says, “Nerva Trajan
has seen fit to place an enduring statue of me, in honour of my
writings, among other authors in both libraries.” By “both libraries”
he means that his statue was set up in the Greek as well as in the
Latin library.
Small portraits or statues were, it seems, often placed on brackets
projecting from the cases or shelves on which stood the works of the
writers they represented. I quote a line from Juvenal, “And bids the
bust of Cleanthes guard the shelf on which his works repose.”
The same custom is referred to in the distich which was inscribed
on a bust of Virgil: “No harm can come to a poet who is honoured by
having both his verse and his bust upon the library shelf;” meaning
that he has attained to lasting fame who lives both in his books and
in his sculptured likeness. Note also the seals or medallions above
the shelves referred to by Cicero in a letter to Atticus. In Cicero’s
day they ornamented libraries with statues of the gods as well as of
authors.