Photos

Ephesus is the best preserved classical city of the Eastern Mediterranean, and amongst the best places in the world enabling one to genuinely 'soak in' the atmosphere of Roman times.

Gaius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus was the Roman governor of Asia Minor early in the 2nd century A.D.. In 110, after the govenor's death, his son, Consul Gaius Julius Aquila, erected this library in his father's honour; as says an inscription in Latin and Greek on the side of the building's front staircase. Celsus was buried under the west side of the library, where he rests to this day.

The library held 12,000 scrolls in niches around its walls. A one-meter gap between the library's inner and outer walls protected the valuable books from extremes of temperature and humidity. Though it now stands alone, the library was originally built between other buildings, and architectural legerdemain was used to make it look bigger than it is: the base of the façade is convex, adding height to the central elements; and the central columns and capitals are larger than those at the ends.

The niches on the façade held statues (now in Vienna's Ephesus Museum) representing the Virtues: Arete (Goodness), Ennoia (Thought), Episteme (Knowledge) 'and Sophia (Wisdom). The library was restored with the aid of the Austrian Archaeological Institute.

This shot of the library is taken through the Gate of Augustus, also called the Gate of Mazaeus and Mithridates, leads into the 110-metresquare commercial agora where food and craftwork items were sold. The monumental gate, dedicated to the honor of the Emperor Augustus, his wife and son-in-law, was apparently a favorite place for Roman ne'erdo-wells to relieve themselves, as an informal inscription curses `those who piss here'.