The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

“The finest parchment, the one that made life easier for scribes and must have figured in their sweetest dreams, was made of calfskin and called vellum. And the best of the lot was uterine vellum, from the skins of aborted calves. Brilliantly white, smooth, and durable, these skins were reserved for the most precious books, ones graced with elaborate, gemlike miniatures and occasionally encased in covers encrusted with actual gems. The libraries of the world still preserve a reasonable number of these remarkable objects, the achievement of scribes who lived seven or eight hundred years ago and labored for untold hours to create something beautiful.” 

Without sturdy parchment, most of the ancient manuscripts from Greece and Rome known today would be lost. Unfortunately, parchment is expensive, and scribes routinely erase old, unwanted texts and reuse the parchment as a “palimpsest” for other writings, so that some of the original writings have been lost anyway. 

“Liberated from superstition, Epicurus taught, you would be free to pursue pleasure.” 

Epicureans believe the gods have no concern for the activities of so puny a creature as a human being. Thus, it is senseless to pray to divinities who, even if they exist, won’t bother to answer. It’s better, then, simply to live one’s life in as happy a manner as possible, especially if one’s soul cannot survive death or enter an afterlife. 

“Compared to the unleashed forces of warfare and of faith, Mount Vesuvius was kinder to the legacy of antiquity.” 

Unfortunately for the citizens of Herculaneum in 79 CE, Mount Vesuvius blows its top and buries them under many feet of ash, which hardens into a stony tomb. Fortunately for archaeologists, the ash preserves the buildings and artifacts of the ancient Roman coastal town, even down to some of the manuscripts housed in private libraries. From these remains, historians have pieced together much of the lifestyle of the citizens, including the texts of their Epicurean beliefs. Wars, bad weather, and religious repressions, on the other hand, have wrought havoc on other ancient texts.