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by tragomaskhalos 1725 days ago
This quote from the great Carl Sagan, concerning the library of Alexandria but generally applicable: "We do know that of the 123 plays of Sophocles in the Library, only 7 survived. One of those seven is Oedipus Rex. Similar numbers apply to the works of Aeschylus and Euripides. It is a little as if the only surviving works of a man named William Shakespeare were Coriolanus and A Winter’s Tale, but we had heard that he had written certain other plays, unknown to us but apparently prized in his time – works entitled Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet."