CHAPTER X _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.