A Herculaneum task
“There could be the lost dialogues of Aristotle down there, the lost plays of Sophocles, poems of Catullus - it’s just priceless.” So says god-awful populist Robert Harris of the Villa of the Papyri, buried deep in pyroclastic flow, in Herculaneum.
The possibilities are tantalising. But I was thinking: whatever was found, nothing would be any different for us. “This is a great story, it captures the imagination of people” (Harris again). Yes, and that’s about it. We’re not really interested.
If a greater Vesuvius were to bury our private libraries, what might future civilisations wish to rediscover? Oh yes, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince FFS.
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