Palatine Library

If the temple is the seat of pietas, this is the seat of sapientia. You marvel at the long walls with shelves filled with tagged scrolls and stacks of capsae, containers holding yet more scrolls. Each flat stretch of wall carries the image an illustrious writer or orator, as though framed on a shield; prominent among these images is the portrait of Augustus. With assistance from the chief librarian (an imperial appointee) or one of the many clerks (freedmen from the Julian family, originally) you may study the wisdom of your elders.

Scholarly silence pervades the hall but clinging to its walls are echoes of the many senatorial debates held here since the time of Augustus, who was the first to convene meetings of the Senate here: ostensibly because he was too infirm to make the trip to the Curia in the Forum (but perhaps also because this was his territory, not theirs).