How are the ancient texts saved?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Odin

Or have more stuff from the Pre-Socratics

You wouldn't have those either. Most of the original PS material vanished fairly early. What we have is culled from doxographies (imagine Heralclitus for dummies) which were themselves copies of doxographies.

Parmenides' poem survived well into late antiquity. Simplicius noted that it was very rare in his time, and did us the service of copying down the most important pieces. That's most of what we have now.

Just think, a few years later the Taliban would have burned at least part of them, if they had remained in Afghanistan.

It's a good thing to note that Christians for most of their history have been much more like the Taliban than Muslims.

[Mr. Harley]

Not exactly Agathon. The early Church was very much like the Taliban. Later on the Church became schitzophrenic, which is why much of the time when they were destroying texts, they didn't get them all - the early Church was very thorough.

Also, there are extensive archives in the Vatican. The problem is that the Catholic Church is very secretive, has a tendency to be a bit of a pack rat, and then sits on that stuff for bloody ever. It would be interesting to compare text burning in the Muslim tradition, ask Aneeshm about how the Muslims were so understanding in India (and large parts of Southeast Asia).

[Sikander]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Well, originally, Homer's workers were passed orally.

Yea, I bet they were.

[Agathon]

Not exactly Agathon. The early Church was very much like the Taliban. Later on the Church became schitzophrenic, which is why much of the time when they were destroying texts, they didn't get them all - the early Church was very thorough.

I'd say that 1200 years worth of Talibanizing, with the exception of the Carolingian and Merivingian renaissances is a pretty grim record.

[Bereta_Eder]

well since all the texts are in ancient greek, the texts to have survived must have done so in a time when greek was still the universal language. that was true even up to the jew "prophets" that wrote the evangelions and even further.

[chequita guevara]

A universal language, not the universal language. Latin and Greek were both the languages of the Empire.

[Bereta_Eder]

bah who cares about the west. christianity founding documents are all in greek. and since rome was a christian empire....

[Atahualpa]

Re: How are the ancient texts saved?

They were saved through ancient P2P nets

[Agathon]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
A universal language, not the universal language. Latin and Greek were both the languages of the Empire.

Koine was the universal language of educated people. Caesar's dying words were in Greek, not Latin.

It took a lot of effort on the part of Roman writers to give Latin equal status.

[lord of the mark]

Using Control S.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Using Control S.

I have been guilty of posting something someone else already posted without reading the entire thread myself.

[VetLegion]

I recently read that they have found some texts in some villa in Pompeii. They were buried in a personal library that got covered with mud. The damage is great but they are restoring some info from them. I think it's very exciting. Just imagine finding a yet unknown work of Aristotel or Plato or someone. I've never read anything by them but I just KNOW it would be cool to find some more of their stuff that we thought was lost forever.