y the purpose of the apartment than if I had
discovered there the actual bookshelves and their
contents[52].

When I had the pleasure of meeting Signor Lanciani in Rome in April, 1898,
he most kindly gave me his own sketch of the pilasters and medallion,
taken at the moment of discovery. I am therefore able to reproduce exactly
(fig. 6) one compartment of the wall of the library above described. The
height of the blank wall below the stucco-work, against which the
furniture containing the books stood, has been laid down as about 3 feet 6
inches, on the authority of Professor Middleton[53]. The remains of the
medallion are still to be seen in the Museo del Orto Botanico, Rome. The
person commemorated is obviously Apollonius Tyaneus, a Pythagorean
philosopher and wonderworker, said to have been born about four years
before the Christian era.

[Illustration: Fig. 6. Elevation of a single compartment of the wall of
the Library discovered in Rome, 1883.

From notes and measurements made by Signor Lanciani and Prof. Middleton.]

A similar room was discovered at Herculaneum in 1754. A full account of
the discovery was drawn up at once by Signor Paderni, keeper of the
Herculaneum Museum, and addressed to Thomas Hollis, Esq., by whom it was
submitted to the Royal Society. I will extract, from this and subsequent
letters, the passages that bear upon my subject.

_Naples, 27 April, 1754._

... The place where they are digging, at present, is
under _Il Bosco di Sant' Agostino_.... All the buildings
discover'd in this site are noble; ... in one there has
been found an entire library, compos'd of volumes of the
Egyptian Papyrus, of which there have been taken out
about 250....[54]

_To the same._

_18 October, 1754._

... As yet we have only entered into one room, the floor
of which is formed of mosaic work, not unelegant. It
appears to have been a library, adorned with presses,
inlaid with different sorts of wood, disposed in rows;
at the top of which were cornices, as in our own times.

I was buried in this spot more than twelve days, to
carry off the volumes found there; many of which were so
perished, that it was impossible to remove them. Those
which I took away amounted to the number of three
hundred and thirty-seven, all of them at present
unc