12-31-2007, 05:43 PM
Like other forms of literature, sheer volume acts in favor of survival. (Future archaeologists will find a great deal of Stephen King and J.K. Rowling when they dig up our cities, not so much Fitzgerald or Faulkner.)
We have quite a bit of the writings of Caesar and Cicero, for instance, because for centuries they were used to teach Latin. Schoolboys all over the Empire were forced to copy out page after page of Caesar and Cicero to learn proper use of the language. Thus we could put their works together out of fragments if necessary. Others survived only because of the fortuitous survival of a single manuscript. Many were translated from Greek into Arabic, then lost and back-translated from Arabic in the Middle Ages. It's a crapshoot any way you look at it.
We have quite a bit of the writings of Caesar and Cicero, for instance, because for centuries they were used to teach Latin. Schoolboys all over the Empire were forced to copy out page after page of Caesar and Cicero to learn proper use of the language. Thus we could put their works together out of fragments if necessary. Others survived only because of the fortuitous survival of a single manuscript. Many were translated from Greek into Arabic, then lost and back-translated from Arabic in the Middle Ages. It's a crapshoot any way you look at it.
Pecunia non olet
