The survival rate of ancient literature

[Tertius Mummius]

We should add that several books that we would like to read were already lost in Roman times, e. g. the whole literature of Carthage, which - according to Polybios and Livius - must have been extensive. But even books by Roman authors were eventually, when uncopied, lost. Such a fate struck the works by Claudius on the history of Etrurians and Carthage, and many more. Vegetius complains about lost knowledge of the Roman army, there must have been written knowledge (if not a "Hardee's Manual") which was lost when it went anachronistic to new tactics of new enemies.

But there is another aspect, the natural lifespan of books. Today, books have a lifespan of about 10-20 years on the average - of course our shelves are filled with books that survived for (much) longer times, but the selection which sorts out out-dated and out-fashioned books works silently and effectively. Sometimes books and complete authors are being rediscovered - like Fernando Pessoa - and sometimes only a fraction of the work of an author survives, e. g. Alexandre Dumas, who has left us a handful of brilliant Mantle-and-Dagger novels and a graveyard of about 200 unknown and forgotten books. Romans didn't handle books very differently. We have fragments of books by Sueton about famous grammaticians and rhethors which did not survive besides his "bestseller".