Pliny says, “A certain custom, now just established, ought not to be passed by in silence. I refer to the fact that they place in libraries, not only the statues in gold, silver, or bronze of those whose immortal souls may be said to be speaking there through their books, but also the statues of those whose books are not there; and even imaginary statues of those of whom no portraits have been preserved.” He calls the custom a new one, meaning that it originated with Pollio. He says also that these statues of the dead were for the most part made of metal. I would add that they were also made of plaster, in which they were easily duplicated for private libraries. Juvenal says, “Though you may find everywhere busts of Chrysippus in plaster.” Indeed I think the portraits were sometimes paintings, and that perhaps they placed portraits at the beginnings of books. Seneca says, “Those exquisite works of highest genius, illustrated with the portraits of their authors.” Suetonius says of Tiberius, “He placed their writings and their portraits in the public libraries among the old and accepted authors.” And Pliny in his letters remarks, “Herennius Severus, a most learned man, is very desirous to place in his own library the statues of Cornelius Nepos and Titus Atticus.” So, according to these two writers, both statues and portraits were used. Pliny also says, in speaking of Silius Italicus, “He owned many villas in these same places, and in them he had many portraits; moreover, he not only owned them, he almost worshipped them, especially the portrait of Virgil.” Vopiscus says of Numerian that a certain oration of his was held to be so eloquent that it was decided that a statue be made of him as an orator, not as emperor, and placed in the Ulpian library with this inscription: “To Numerian, Emperor, the greatest Orator of his time.” Sidonius, justly boasting of a statue erected to himself in the same place, says, “Nerva Trajan has seen fit to place an enduring statue of me, in honour of my writings, among other authors in both libraries.” By “both libraries” he means that his statue was set up in the Greek as well as in the Latin library. Small portraits or statues were, it seems, often placed on brackets projecting from the cases or shelves on which stood the works of the writers they represented. I quote a line from Juvenal, “And bids the bust of Cleanthes guard the shelf on which his works repose.” The same custom is referred to in the distich which was inscribed on a bust of Virgil: “No harm can come to a poet who is honoured by having both his verse and his bust upon the library shelf;” meaning that he has attained to lasting fame who lives both in his books and in his sculptured likeness. Note also the seals or medallions above the shelves referred to by Cicero in a letter to Atticus. In Cicero’s day they ornamented libraries with statues of the gods as well as of authors. CHAPTER XI