We may be close to rediscovering thousands of texts that had been lost for millennia. Their contents may reshape how we understand the Ancient World.

I really enjoyed this read.

because the Spartans’ treasure was their culture, not their art or buildings, there is very little archaeology can tell us about how the Spartans lived. Thucydides put this best when, at the outset of his History of the Peloponnesian War, he states that future historians will find it difficult to believe that Athens was seen as the underdog and Sparta the overwhelming favorite when they consider the great temples and agorae of Athens, in juxtaposition to the little developed infrastructure of Sparta. But not all infrastructure is physical or leaves material remains. The city of Sparta did not have a defensive wall in the classical age. Yet, according to Plutarch’s Sayings of the Spartans, the men were their wall. Therefore, in studying Sparta, we have only the written record to guide us.

This makes me think about how so much will be hard to identify to future historians about our current history if access to digital data is gone. So much about our culture and society is virtual now. What will be left? What will be filled into the gaps? And by whom?

Other highlights I made:

Plato’s head was always in the clouds. Questions like ‘What is love?’, ‘Is there life after death?’, and ‘What is the good life?’ dominated Plato’s philosophy. Aristotle cared more about how one writes a good tragedy, or how squid reproduce. That’s the great distinction between the two philosophers. Plato was mostly about why, Aristotle was mostly about how. One can always tell which is which when looking at Raphael’s famous School of Athens in the Vatican Museum. Both philosophers stand side by side: Plato is pointing up, to where he thinks mankind should focus his attention, Aristotle points down toward the Earth.

As I tell my students all the time, just because an old book says something happened, doesn’t mean it did. Nor does it mean that it happened in the way it’s described in the text. Often we face competing narratives from ancient texts and much like someone sifting through the news cycle in modern times, bearing in mind the biases and limitations of those reporting and trying to figure out what is the truth, so must classicists compare sources and decide which are more reliable than others. It’s not magic, nor is it simple. But we can construct a more complete and accurate narrative of the past by diligently studying the texts we have, tirelessly searching for texts we do not, and ruthlessly applying ourselves to the principle of seeking truth in our ancient sources. The corroborating evidence provided when a new text is discovered is a foundational building block in that process. And that is to say nothing of texts that tell us a completely new story from antiquity, one for which there are no contemporaries, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh.