Façana de la Biblioteca de Cels.Biblioteca de Cels restaurada.Absis interior central i nínxols.
La Biblioteca de Cels, a Efes, Àsia Menor (Anatòlia, actualment part de Turquia)[1], va ser construïda en honor de Tiberi Juli Cels Polemeà[2][3] (completada l'any 135[1]) pel fill de Cels, Cai Juli Aquila (cònsol, any 110). Cels havia estat cònsol l'any 92, governador d'Àsia l'any 115, i un ciutadà romà de la regió popular i adinerat.
La biblioteca va ser construïda per emmagatzemar 12.000 rotllos i per servir com tomba monumental per a Cels. Era poc habitual que algú es fes enterrar en una biblioteca o fins i tot dins dels límits d'una ciutat, la qual cosa és un honor especial per Cels.
↑Swain, Simon. Dio Chrysostom: Politics, Letters, and Philosophy (en anglès). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 57. ISBN 9780199255214. «...statues (lost except for their bases) were probably of Celsus, consul in A.D. 92, and his son Aquila, consul in A.D. 110. A cuirass statue stood in the central niche of the upper storey. Its identification oscillates between Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, who is buried in a sarcophagus under the library, and Tiberius Julius Aquila Polemaeanus, who completed the building for his father»
↑Nicols, John. Vespasian and the partes Flavianae (en anglès). Steiner, 1978, p. 109. ISBN 9783515023931. «Nevertheless, in 92 the same office went to a Greek, Ti. Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, who belonged to a family of priests of Rome hailing from Sardis; entering the Senate under Vespasian, he was subsequently to be appointed proconsul of Asia under Trajan, possibly in 105/6. Celsus' son, Aquila, was also to be made suffectus in 110, although he is certainly remembered more as the builder of the famous library his father envisioned for Ephesus»
