Library

Library

View looking west at the northeast end of the Athena Sanctuary (= open square).  The northeast corner is located at the very bottom left of the photo.  The "North Stoa" runs from the lower right to the middle left portion of the image and is the grassy area that included two rows of re-erected partial columns.

The Library itself was located between the first rubble wall (modern) on the right side of the image and the ancient stone built wall in the upper right portion of the image.  The tops of the white columns of the Temple of Trajan are visible on the upper right of the image.  Not much of the floor plan is visible on site.

According to Strabo (xii.624), this library contained 200,000 volumes and was second in size only to the one in Alexandria Egypt—although many doubt that it really contained this many volumes.  The volumes were carried off to Egypt by Marc Antony as a gift to Cleopatra after Caesar had burned the library in Alexandria.