A Brief Outline of the History of Libraries

_The Libraries of Tiberius, of Trajan, of Vespasian; also the Capitoline; other unknown Libraries._

We have seen that two libraries were established in Rome by the Emperor Augustus, a most zealous patron of the arts and sciences. What may be said of other Roman libraries? Certainly there were others; and there even seems to have been a spirit of rivalry among the rulers of that time in regard to them, each contending for the palm as founder of libraries. For example, Tiberius, soon after the death of Augustus, established one within the limits of the royal palace itself, on that part which fronts on the Via Sacra. Students of the subject think that here were Tiberius's own special apartments; and A. Gellius locates the library in them when he says, "While Apollinaris and I were sitting in the library in the house of Tiberius. " Vopiscus makes the same statement in effect, for he tells us that he used the books in the Ulpian library and also those in the apartments of Tiberius.