ROMAN LIBRARIES
ture, inscriptions or excavations to have had them. Of the seven churches of Asia e.g. Ephesus, Smyrna and Pergamon had famous public libraries and the buildings excavated at Ephesus and Pergamon are actually the chief interpreters of ancient library buildings. The archives, too, at least of Thyatira (with its portico) Smyrna, Ephesus, and Hierapolis (which is so closely associated with Laodicea) are mentioned in the inscriptions. Add to this that Apollos was of Alexandria and remembering Paul at Athens, Corinth and Rome and apostolical geography becomes almost one with the historical geography of known libraries of the time, in its outlines and main localities. The libraries of Pompeii and of North Africa are the only important exceptions, although there are a score or more of minor known libraries or archives in places not mentioned in the New Testament
Not all of these known libraries in these
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