his obvious
form of decoration was, in all probability, used at Pergamon[88]; Pollio,
as we have seen, introduced it into Rome: and Pliny, who calls it a
novelty (_novitium inventum_), deposes to its general adoption[89]. We are
not told how these portraits were commonly treated--whether they were
busts standing clear of the wall on the book-cases; or bracketed against
the wall; or forming part of its decoration, in plaster-work or distemper.
A suitable inscription accompanied them. Martial has preserved for us a
charming specimen of one of these complimentary stanzas--for such they
undoubtedly would be in the case of a contemporary--to be placed beneath
his own portrait in a friend's library:

Hoc tibi sub nostra breve carmen imagine vivat
Quam non obscuris iungis, Avite, viris:
_Ille ego sum nulli nugarum laude secundus,
Quem non miraris, sed puto, lector, amas.
Maiores maiora sonent: mihi parva locuto
Sufficit in vestras saepe redire manus_[90].

Placed, with my betters, on your study-wall
Let these few lines, Avitus, me recall:
_To foremost rank in trifles I was raised;
I think men loved me, though they never praised.
Let greater poets greater themes profess:
My modest lines seek but the hand's caress
That tells me, reader, of thy tenderness._

The beautiful alto-relievo in the Lateran Museum, Rome, representing an
actor selecting a mask, contains a contrivance for reading a roll (fig.
12) which may have been usual in libraries and elsewhere, though I have
not met with another instance of it. A vertical support attached to the
table on which two masks and a MS. are lying, carries a desk with a rim
along its lower edge and one of its sides. The roll is partially opened,
the closed portion lying towards the left side of the desk, next the rim.
The roll may be supposed to contain the actor's part[91].

It is much to be regretted that we have no definite information as to the
way in which the great public libraries built by Augustus were fitted up;
but I see no reason for supposing that their fittings differed from those
of private libraries.

[Illustration: Fig. 12. Desk to support a roll while it is being read.]

When books (_codices_), of a shape similar to that with which modern
librarians have to deal, had to be accommodated as well as rolls, it is
manifest that rectangular spaces not more than a few inches wide would be
singularly inconvenient. They were therefore discarded