The buildings of Metellus were altered, if not entirely rebuilt, by Augustus, b.c. 33, out of the proceeds of his victorious campaign against the Dalmatians; with the additional structures above enumerated. The schola is believed to have stood behind the temples, and the libraries behind the schola, with the curia between them[34]. Thus the colonnades, which Metellus had restricted to the two temples, came at last to serve the double purpose for which they were originally intended in connexion with a library as well as with a temple.
The temple and area of Apollo on the Palatine Hill, which Augustus began b.c. 36 and dedicated b.c. 28, exhibit an arrangement precisely similar to that of the Porticus Octaviæ. The size was nearly the same[35], and the structures included in the area were intended to serve the same purposes. The temple stood in the middle of a large open peristyle, connected with which were two libraries, one for Greek, the other for Latin books; and between them, used perhaps as a reading-room or vestibule, was a hall in which Augustus occasionally convened the Senate. It contained a colossal statue of Apollo, made of gilt bronze; and on its walls were portrait-reliefs of celebrated writers, in the form of medallions, in the same material[36].
Of the other public libraries of Rome—of which there are said to have been in all twenty-six—I need mention only three as possessing some peculiarity to which I shall have to draw attention. Of these the first was established by Tiberius in his palace, at no great distance from the library of Apollo; the second and third by Vespasian and Trajan in their Fora, connected in the one with the temple of Peace, and in the other with the temple dedicated in honour of Trajan himself.
Of the first two of these libraries we have no information; but in the case of the third we are more fortunate. The Forum of Trajan ([fig. 4]) was excavated by order of Napoleon I., and the extent of its buildings, with their relation to one another, is therefore known with approximate accuracy. The Greek and Latin libraries stood to the right and left of the small court between the Basilica Ulpia and the Templum Divi Trajani, the centre of which was marked by the existing Column. They were entered from this court, each through a portico of five inter-columniations. The rooms, measured internally, were about 60 feet long, by 45 feet broad.
At this point I must mention, parenthetically, the library built by Hadrian at Athens. Pausanias records it in the following passage:
Hadrian also built for the Athenians a temple of Hera and Panhellenian Zeus, and a sanctuary common to all the gods. But most splendid of all are one hundred columns; walls and colonnades alike are made of Phrygian marble. Here, too, is a building adorned with a gilded roof and alabaster and also with statues and paintings: books are stored in it. There is also a gymnasium named after Hadrian; it too has one hundred columns from the quarries of Libya[37].
A building called the Stoa of Hadrian, a ground-plan of which ([fig. 5]) I borrow from Miss Harrison's Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens, has been identified with part at least of that which Pausanias describes in the above passage. A lofty wall, built of large square blocks of Pentelic marble, faced on the west side by a row of Corinthian columns, enclosed a quadrangular court, measuring 328 feet from east to west, by 250 feet from north to south. This court, entered through a sort of propylæa on the west side (N), was surrounded by a cloister or colonnade 27 feet wide, and containing 100 columns. None of those columns are standing, but their number can be accurately calculated from the marks of the bases still to be seen on the eastern side of the quadrangle.
Within this area are the remains of a building of uncertain use, and at present only partially excavated.