page_title: Library of Celsus
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Library of Celsus / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Library of Celsus side view
context_page_description: The Library of Celsus is an ancient Roman building in Ephesus, Anatolia, now part of Selçuk, Turkey. The building was commissioned in the 110s A.D. by a consul, Gaius Julius Aquila, as a funerary monument for his father, former proconsul of Asia Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, and completed during the reign of Hadrian, sometime after Aquila's death. The library is considered an architectural marvel, and is one of the only remaining examples of a library from the Roman Empire. The Library of Celsus was the third-largest library in the Roman world behind only Alexandria and Pergamum, believed to have held around twelve thousand scrolls. Celsus is buried in a crypt beneath the library in a decorated marble sarcophagus. The interior measured roughly 180 square metres.
  The interior of the library and its contents were destroyed in a fire that resulted either from an earthquake or a Gothic invasion in 262 C.E, and the façade by an earthquake in the tenth or eleventh century. It lay in ruins for centuries until the façade was re-erected by archaeologists between 1970 and 1978.
context_section_description: Celsus enjoyed a successful military and political career, having served as a commander in the Roman army before being elected to serve as a consul in Rome in 92 C.E. Celsus, a native of Sardis, was one of the first men from the Greek-speaking eastern provinces to serve as a consul, the highest elected office in imperial Rome. He was later appointed as proconsul, or governor, of Asia, the Roman province that covered roughly the same area as modern-day Turkey. Celsus's son Aquila commissioned the library in his honor, though it was not completed until after Aquila's death. An inscription records that Celsus left a large legacy of 25,000 denarii to pay for the library's reading material.
  The library operated as a public space for the city from its completion around 117-135 C.E. until 262. The main floor functioned as a reading room, lit by abundant natural light from the eastern windows. Shelves or armaria set into niches along the walls held papyrus book rolls that visitors could read, though borrowing would not have been permitted because copies of books were rare and labor-intensive to produce. Additional scrolls may have been held in free-standing book boxes placed around the room, in which case the library would have had a holding capacity of up to sixteen thousand scrolls.
  
  The interior and contents of the library were destroyed by fire in 262 C.E., though it remains unknown whether this fire was the result of natural disaster or a Gothic invasion, as it seems the city was struck by one of each that year. Only the façade survived, until an earthquake in eleventh or tenth century left it in ruins as well.
  Between 1970 and 1978, a reconstruction campaign was led by the German archaeologist Volker Michael Strocka. Strocka analysed the fragments that had been excavated by Austrian archaeologists between 1903 and 1904. In the meantime, some of the architectural elements had been acquired by museums in Vienna and Istanbul. The absent fragments had to be replaced by copies or left missing. Only the façade was rebuilt, while the rest of the building remains in ruin.
caption: Library of Celsus, side view
exif: {"Image Tag 0x000B": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image ImageWidth": "3934", "Image ImageLength": "2623", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image Compression": "LZW", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-TS3", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image PlanarConfiguration": "1", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image DateTime": "2020:08:13 13:28:13", "Image ExifOffset": "2426", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "96", "Thumbnail YResolution": "96", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5092", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "15603", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "59/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Standard Output Sensitivity", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:05:16 02:24:19", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:05:16 02:24:19", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "41/8", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Fine weather", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "114/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1800", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1200", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "128", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}