Set above the tiers of books in such a room is a long array of fine busts in bronze and marble of nearly all the distinguished literary figures of Greece or Italy. Calvus has just added a handsome bronze of the comedian Menander. The careful frescos on the exposed walls have to do with learned mythological subjects; there is also a fine life-sized statue of Minerva the patroness of letters, and on a long shelf stand really beautiful silver statuettes of all the Nine Muses. Along one side of the library there are also tables where Harpocration, Calvus’s truly learned and capable freedman librarian (_librarius_), who assists in all his patron’s studies, can spread out rolls for patching, rewinding, or even for recopying; also a convenient writing couch for the senator himself when he wishes to take his tablets and compile those fine “extracts” which the literary world delights to cull from every possible author, or to try his own hand at original composition. Calvus is not a virtuoso, however, and does not imitate such wealthy enthusiasts as the poet Silius Italicus who collected all kinds of rare editions, crammed his house with every imaginable writer, and “kept Virgil’s birthday more carefully than he did his own.” For all that Harpocration has been commended for hanging a small wreath around the bust of Sophocles, this day being the reputed anniversary of the death of the great tragedian. =193. The Great Public Libraries of Rome.=--Into the Public Libraries of Rome we cannot enter. They exist nevertheless as great and beneficent institutions although probably only a favored few are permitted to read their treasures except inside their ample halls.[120] The oldest public library is that founded by Asinius Pollio (an officer of Julius Cæsar) and is located on the rather distant Aventine. Cæsar himself projected two very grand Greek and Latin Libraries but did not live to create them; Augustus founded a very fine library in the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine (making it virtually the imperial palace library), and his sister Octavia created another. There is still a fourth good library in the Temple of Peace founded by Vespasian; but all these are now overshadowed by the relatively new “Ulpian Libraries” established by Trajan at his new Forum. These enormous collections of Greek and Latin rolls make Rome by far the greatest repository of literary treasures in the entire world, barring always the famous collection in Alexandria. CHAPTER XII ECONOMIC LIFE OF ROME: I. BANKING, SHOPS, AND INNS =194. Passion for Gain in Rome.=--Much has been said about Roman trade and riches, but this is no place for an economic survey of the realm of the Cæsars. It is impossible, however, to ignore the outward side of that commercial activity which is everywhere in evidence around the imperial capital.