When the Romans had taken possession of Pergamon, those who had charge of the city would become familiar with the library; and it seems to me almost certain that, when the necessity for establishing a public library at Rome had been recognised, the splendid structure at Pergamon would be turned to as a model. But, if I mistake not, Roman architecture had received an influence from Pergamon long before this event occurred. What this was I will mention presently. No public library was established in Rome until the reign of Augustus. Julius Caesar had intended to build one on the largest possible scale, and had gone so far as to commission Varro to collect books for it[26]; but it was reserved for C. Asinius Pollio, general, lawyer, orator, poet, the friend of Virgil and Horace, to devote to this purpose the spoils he had obtained in his Illyrian campaign, B.C. 39. In the striking words of Pliny "he was the first to make men's talents public property (_ingenia hominum rem publicam fecit_)" The same writer tells us that he also introduced the fashion of decorating libraries with busts of departed authors, and that Varro was the only living writer whose portrait was admitted[27]. Pollio is further credited, by Suetonius, with having built an _atrium libertatis_[28], in which Isidore, a writer of the seventh century, probably quoting a lost work of Suetonius, places the library, with the additional information, that the collection contained Greek as well as Latin books[29]. The work of Pollio is recorded among the acts of generosity which Augustus suggested to others. But before long the emperor turned his own attention to libraries, and enriched his capital with two splendid structures which may be taken as types of Roman libraries,--the library of Apollo on the Palatine Hill, and that in the Campus Martius called after Octavia, sister to the emperor. I will take the latter first. The _Porticus Octaviae_, or, as it was sometimes called, the _Opera Octaviae_, must have been one of the most magnificent structures in Rome (fig. 3). It stood in the Campus Martius, near the Theatre of Marcellus, between the Capitoline Hill and the Tiber. A double colonnade surrounded an area which measured 443 feet by 377 feet, with _Jani_, or four-faced archways, at the four corners, and on the side next the Tiber a double hexastyle porch, which, with a few fragments of the colonnade, still exists in a fairly good state of preservation[30]. Within this space were two temples, one of Jupiter, the other of Juno, a _curia_ or hall, in which the Senate frequently met, a _schola_ or "Conversation Hall[31]," and two libraries, the one of Greek, the other of Latin books. The area and buildings were crowded with masterpieces in bronze and marble. [Illustration: Fig. 3. Plan of the Porticus Octaviae, Rome. From _Formae Urbis Romae Antiqua_, Berlin, 1896.]