Philodemus and Greek Papyri #232256

Efforts to recover manuscripts of classical writings reach back to antiquity itself. These were, inevitably, both occasional in nature as well as rigorous and deliberate. Only a few attempts, however, were systematic. Perhaps most notable were the efforts made at the Library of Alexandria. Over twenty-two hundred years ago, its collections contained hundreds of thousands of papyrus rolls. These survived at least for two centuries and not impossibly for half a millennium or more. Eventually, however, they were lost. The rolls themselves, whether humt by Caesar's fire or destroyed by disintegration, infestation, accident, censorship, or indifference, disappeared. Additional copies, if they were produced, were insufficient to preserve the collections; and, with the decline of interest in classical literature, there was in addition less incentive either to copy texts anew or to preserve texts already in existence. During the second century of the common era, the works of scores of authors had been available: by the fifth century, it appears that only a handful of authors were regularly read or consulted; and much of classical literature was lost.