Trajan’s Temple

The Roman emperor Trajan ruled from 98 to 117 AD and this temple at Pergamon, to the north and west of the modern city of Bergama in present-day Turkey, is one of the few Roman buildings still remaining at the mountain-top “Acropolis” site. It was built by Trajan’s successor Hadrian. The overall site is also famous for being, in its day, the second-largest library in the world; next to Alexandria, it was said to have over 200,000 books. These books were later given by Mark Anthony to Cleopatra as a wedding present. Many of the books were made of parchment, called pergaminus or pergamena after the city, invented by the Pergamenes using calfskin during a shortage of papyrus. When I visited the site, however, all that was left of these accomplishments were ruins — a reminder of the fleeting nature of fame and power.