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/lit/ - Literature

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21771632 No.21771632 [Reply] [Original]

The library of Alexandria did burn down but certainly not all of the books. Where are the books?

>> No.21771659

why wouldn't they

>> No.21771889

My dog ate them.

>> No.21771942

Most of them were commentaries on Homer

>> No.21772462

>>21771632
Most of them were commentaries on homer and such. Ptolemaic Egypt had suffered fires earthquakes and tsunamis which probably meant the library had lost most of its contents by the time roman Christians were sperging out about the remnants of Hellene paganism. The library didn't totally expire until the Arab conquest anyways.

>> No.21772483
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21772483

>>21771632
>Where are the books?
Go check the Vatican's Secret Archives.

>> No.21772484

>>21771632
A warehouse associated with the library burned down when Caesar torched the port. Though not a single manuscript from the library survives, we do have byzantine copies of texts produced there, for example the venetus A manuscript of the Iliad, where the scholia is far more voluminous than the actual text. Most of Hellenic antiquity we still have can be traced back to 17 texts from Byzantium and the Carolingian renaissance

>> No.21772795

>>21771632
Probably in some guy's basement in Syria.

>> No.21773065

>>21771632
Fires are very rarely completely catastrophic. I was talking to a Classics prof about this, and he said that many of the books from the Library of Alexandria were likely moved before and after the fire. The fire wasn't even the only calamity that the library faced. The library was already on its way down.

>> No.21773918

>>21771942
or copies of the Iliad/Odyssey