The Library of Celsus — Monument to a Father's Love

In 114 AD, in the Roman city of Ephesus — one of the largest cities in the ancient world, on what's now Turkey's western coast — a man named Celsus died. He'd been a Roman senator who rose all the way to consul, and eventually became governor of the entire province of Asia. His son Aquila could have honored him with a statue or a plaque. Instead, he did something nobody expected. He built his father the most beautiful library the world had ever seen.