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History of Libraries
sented. I quote a line from Juvenal, "And bids the bust of Cleanthes guard the shelf on which his works repose."
The same custom is referred to in the distich which was inscribed on a bust of Virgil: "No harm can come to a poet who is honoured by having both his verse and his bust upon the library shelf;" meaning that he has attained to lasting fame who lives both in his books and in his sculptured likeness. Note also the seals or medallions above the shelves referred to by Cicero in a letter to Atticus. In Cicero's day they ornamented libraries with statues of the gods as well as of authors.
