Bibliotheca Ulpia
About
Twin library halls (one Latin, one Greek), each holding an estimated 20,000 scrolls, flanking Trajan's Column within the Forum of Trajan; founded by Trajan c. 114 CE. One of the great libraries of the ancient world, newly opened and functioning in 117 CE. Coordinates approximate the space between the Basilica Ulpia and the Temple of the Deified Trajan.
What happened here
Books are scrolls, kept in labelled pigeonholes around the walls, and you read them standing at a desk or sitting in the courtyard with a slave to hold the roll. Greek and Latin collections are kept separately, often in facing rooms. Nothing is borrowed. A staff of copyists keeps the collection alive, because a scroll handled regularly lasts a couple of generations at best, and a library that stops copying is a library that is dying. Readers are respectable men and their secretaries; access is a favour that can be withdrawn. Libraries attach themselves to baths, temples and fora rather than standing alone, so a visit is folded into a day of other business. Lamps are forbidden inside for obvious reasons.
Sources
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →