- The plays of the Greek comic dramatist Diphilus. Some of these served as models for surviving plays by Plautus and Terence.
- The works of the Cynic philosopher Bion of Borysthenes. See Diogenes Laertius 4.44-58 for tantalizing samples.
- The Atellan farces of L. Pomponius.
- Cicero's Hortensius, which inspired St. Augustine (Confessions 3.4.7).
- The missing or incomplete books of Tacitus' Annals.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
Pages
▼
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Lost Classics
William Annis compiles a wish list of classical manuscript finds, and challenges other classics bloggers to make their own lists. I feel odd making such a list, because I have not read lots of surviving classical literature, most of which is therefore "lost" to me. Nevertheless, here is my idiosyncratic list: