The First Century Void

[RoadRunner79]

Tacitus

Cassius Dio

Philo - Tiberias

I'm not sure how long this was going to be; perhaps you still have some reason or argument that ties all these together, but I'm starting to notice a pattern.

• Tacitus - We are also missing Books 7-10, Parts of 5 and 6 as mentioned as well as 11 and 16.   In all, we are missing about 1/2of Tacitus works
  
• Cassius Dio - We have most of Cassius's works, but not intact (most are fragmented)  We have about 1/3 of his works.
  
• Philo is interesting.  We have a lot of his writings because he wrote a lot.  As you mentioned, the book on Pilate is one of those that are missing.  I have seen an estimate that as much as 1/4 of Philo's works are missing.  Philos works are also interesting, because what we do have comes along three lines.  There is some overlap, but most of it comes from Armenian translations, along with the Greek and Latin versions.  But each line contributes to what we do have, where the others do not.
  
• Tiberias - All of his works (I believe 2 that we know of) are lost.  Do you have a reference to Photius's comment that I can read it in context?
  

Not quite related (This is about the destruction of library of Alexandria) It goes into some detail, about the process in keeping these manuscripts.  That they where fragile and required repair or replacement.  That even with slave labor, it was costly and a luxury to maintain a library in this time.  They where caught in the middle of wars, hardship, fires, and looting.  They required constant financial patronage. 

Papyrus scrolls decayed and fell apart from use, suffered damage from mice and other vermin and, in a period where artificial light tended to be from open oil lamps, were in constant danger from fires, great and small.  The Mouseion , like all ancient libraries, needed a large staff to undertake the constant and unending task of repairing, replacing and recopying books and these staffs, even when made up of slaves, were expensive to maintain.

https://historyforatheists.com/2017/07/t...lexandria/


To a large extent, I think that it is fairly extraordinary that we have what we do.