ROMAN LIBRARIES
rather than "book-depository" (bibliotheke) at this time.
The chief library of the period at Athens, too, Hadrian's library, falls late in the period and will be discussed later. It was not built when St. Paul reasoned in the market place daily with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers and was taken before the Areopagus, although there were surely libraries in the Stoas where he reasoned, the Ptolemaeum with its library was close by and just beyond it was the place where Hadrian's library was to be built while many of those who listened to St. Paul were yet alive. On his way from the market place to the Areopagus he must have passed by the Metroon.
Of four Greek libraries mentioned, outside of Athens, besides the various archives, that of Corinth is known to have been decorated with busts, and that of Dyrrachium cost 170,000 sesterces, public money. The most interesting one is how-
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