The student of classical antiquity’s literary monuments may find himself perplexed by the relative paucity of its surviving examples.  How could it be, we may wonder, that such a large corpus of celebrated works slipped, nearly unnoticed in the passage of centuries, into oblivion?  Why is it that so many writings held in universally high regard exist today only in fragmentary or mutilated form?  How could these tragedies of indifference and neglect have been permitted?  By what processes are classics “lost”?  These are worthy and difficult questions.  They can be answered; but the answers are unsettling, and carry implications very modern in their relevance.