Dream with me, just for a moment:
Somewhere, buried in a forgotten land, is a scroll, miraculously preserved.
A masterpiece, thought lost to history, waiting to be rediscovered.
What could be out there? Epics? Histories? Plays?
A 🧵 of 15 Lost Works I Hope We Find Someday
1. Sappho's Poems (~600 BC)
Plato declared Sappho the "Tenth Muse" - the greatest Greek lyric poet.
Of the 10,000 lines of poetry she likely wrote, we only have 650.
Her Aeolic Greek dialect fell out of use in Late Antiquity, so scribes did not think to preserve her work.
2. Homer's Margites (8th c BC)
A comic mock-epic about the adventures of the dumbest man alive.
Its true authorship is uncertain, but the ancients attributed it to Homer and esteemed it highly.
It's all lost, except for a few quotes and a few lines in the Oxyrhynchus papyri.
3. Peisander's Heracleia (~640 BC)
This epic was the first great telling of the story of Heracles and his 12 labors.
Among the dozens of lost epics of this era, this one was considered to be a masterpiece by contemporaries and a worthy peer of the Iliad and Odyssey.
4. Phrynicus's The Fall of Miletus (492 BC)
A play by the founder of Greek tragedy about the recent Persian sack of Miletus, it was so upsetting that Greek authorities immediately banned it.
Except for a few excerpts, Phrynicus's works are all lost.
5. Any lost Greek play by Sophocles, Aeschylus, or Euripides (5th c BC)
Sophocles wrote 120 plays. We have only 7 complete works.
Aeschylus? Over 70, we have 7.
Euripides? 92, we have 18.
For all the other Greek tragedians of this Golden Age of theater? No complete works.
6. Heraclitus's On Nature (~500 BC)
Heraclitus is probably the most influential ancient Greek philosopher pre-Socrates.
He spoke in epigrams that were often paradoxical and are still challenging today.
We have several intriguing quotes, but his work is otherwise lost.
7. Ptolemy's Memoirs (~300 BC)
A first-hand account of Alexander the Great's campaigns written by his childhood friend & trusted general.
It is astounding to think a book like this existed, yet was lost.
It's believed to be Arrian's primary source for the Anabasis.
8. Manetho's Aegyptiaca (~250 BC)
A 3000-year history of ancient Egypt, written in Greek by an Egyptian priest serving the Ptolemies.
Manetho was in a rare position to utilize original Egyptian sources.
Except for his dynasty lists and some later summaries, the work is lost.
9. Ennius's Annales (~184 BC)
Ennius was supposedly the greatest Roman poet who ever lived -- an inspiration to Virgil and others.
Only a few fragments remain of his masterpiece, an epic poem that told the story of Rome from the fall of Troy up to Ennius's day.
10. Claudius's Tyrrhenika (~AD 40)
A lost 20-book history of the mysterious Etruscan people, who lived in Italy before the rise of Rome.
It was written by the emperor Claudius, who was *obsessed* with the Etruscans, learning their language and obtaining rare primary sources.
11. Agrippina the Younger's "Misfortunes of My Family" (~AD 50)
A memoir by perhaps the most notorious woman in Roman history -- Claudius' wife and Nero's mother, who endlessly schemed to win Nero the throne.
Cited in Tacitus's Annales, the work is otherwise lost.
12. Philo's Phoenician History (~AD 100)
A Greek translation of a purported original 13th c BC Phoenician history by Sanchuniathon.
Except for an excerpt about ancient Phoenician religion, this work -- like nearly all original sources for ancient Phoenicia -- is lost.
13. Aztec & Mayan codices (~1500)
The indigenous peoples of Mexico and Central America long maintained elaborate and detailed historical accounts, primarily using pictograms and hieroglyphs.
While a few have been preserved, it is unfathomable how many have been lost (cont.).
Much of the destruction can be attributed to the Spanish conquest, but significant losses also predate this.
e.g., in 1427, a new Aztec regime seized power and ordered the destruction of the codices of all peoples they'd conquered, to erase any memory of pre-Aztec history.
14. Lord Byron's Memoirs (~1824)
When the poet died at age 36, his executors burned his memoirs.
Why? Some speculate it contained revelations about his private life too scandalous for 19th-century Britain.
Some believe a copy exists, but this is likely wishful thinking.
15. Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Won (~1598)
The only thing we know about this lost Shakespeare play is its name.
Perhaps it was a sequel to Love's Labour's Lost, portraying the further amorous adventures of King Ferdinand and his attendants.
The amount of literature that has been lost to the ravages of time is unfathomable.
This list barely scratches the surface.
What works would be on your wish list? Tell me.
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