Historical myths and legends. Any truth in them?

Of course, "history" is written by the winners.

Noddy24 wrote:

Of course, "history" is written by the winners.

Bullshit

Setanta wrote:

Noddy24 wrote:

Of course, "history" is written by the winners.

Bullshit

, you might be on to something, the few books i've read about the vietnam war have all been written by americans

History is written by the victors.

Setanta wrote:

Noddy24 wrote:

Of course, "history" is written by the winners.

Bullshit

, you might be on to something, the few books i've read about the vietnam war have all been written by americans

Sorry to misquote Churchill:

Quote:

History is written by the victors.

The history of the victors destroying the archives and libraries, and even the religious texts of the defeated is rather well documented.

Nothing new about it.

Builder wrote:

The history of the victors destroying the archives and libraries, and even the religious texts of the defeated is rather well documented.

Nothing new about it.

Bullshit

Archaeologists have uncovered the site of Alexandria's ancient Royal Library which vanished nearly 16 centuries ago and in which Archimedes and Euclid both studied. An Egyptian-Polish team unearthed the complex's 13 conference rooms which would have been able to accommodate some 5,000 students, before the library was burnt during an insurrection against Caesar in the year 48 BC, under Cleopatra VIII. Antony and Cleopatra were believed by some to have moved the library to Serapeum but this was also set sacked and burnt by the Christians around 390 AD and, according to some historians, again during the Arab conquest in 642 AD.

"The libraries [of Alexandria] were surely in decline under Christians who, following their triumph over pagans, Jews, and Neoplatonists, found the Hellenic riches of the libraries discomfiting. Their anger reached a fever pitch in the fourth century A.D.: Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria, desired the site of the temple of Serapis for a church; he set loose a mob of Christians, who destroyed the pagan temple, and perhaps, the books of its library as well...The libraries of Alexandria probably shared a modest fate, moldering slowly through the centuries as people grew indifferent and even hostile to their contents. Ancient Greek, never a linguistic monolith in any case, became incomprehensible to Alexandrians of the Christian era with their mixture of Coptic, Aramaic, Hebrew, Latin, and Koine, or demotic Greek. Ignored by the generations to whom they were indecipherable, the scrolls would have been damaged...stolen, lost, and yes, burned. They were replaced by writings of the Fathers and Doctors of the church and by the thinning literature of the declining Roman world."

THE literary treasures of antiquity have suffered from the malice of men, as well as that of time. It is remarkable that conquerors, in the moment of victory, or in the unsparing devastation of their rage, have not been satisfied with destroying men, but have even carried their vengeance to books.

Ancient history records how the Persians, from hatred of the religion of the Phœnicians and the Egyptians, destroyed their books, of which Eusebius notices they possessed a great number. A remarkable anecdote is recorded of the Grecian libraries; one at Gnidus was burnt by the sect of Hippocrates, because the Gnidians refused to follow the doctrines of their master. If the followers of Hippocrates formed the majority, was it not very unorthodox in the Gnidians to prefer taking physic their own way? The anecdote may be suspicious, but faction has often annihilated books.

The Romans burnt the books of the Jews, of the Christians, and the philosophers; the Jews burnt the books of the Christians and the Pagans; and the Christians burnt the books of the Pagans and the Jews. The greater part of the books of Origen and other heretics were continually burnt by the orthodox party. Gibbon pathetically describes the empty library of Alexandria, after the Christians had destroyed it. "The valuable library of Alexandria was pillaged or destroyed; and near twenty years afterwards the appearance of the empty shelves excited the regret and indignation of every spectator, whose mind was not totally darkened by religious prejudice. The compositions of ancient genius, so many of which have irretrievably perished, might surely have been excepted from the wreck of idolatry, for the amusement and instruction of succeeding ages; and either the zeal or avarice of the archbishop might have been satiated with the richest spoils which were the rewards of his victory."

The curious narrative of Nicetas Choniates of the ravages committed by the Christians of the thirteenth century in Constantinople was fraudulently suppressed in the printed editions; it has been preserved by Dr. Clarke. We cannot follow this painful history, step by step, of the pathetic Nicetas, without indignant feelings. Dr. Clarke observes, that the Turks have committed fewer injuries to the works of art than the barbarous Christians of that age.

The reading of the Jewish Talmud has been forbidden by various edicts, of the Emperor Justinian, of many of the French and Spanish kings, and numbers of popes. All the copies were ordered to be burnt: the intrepid perseverance of the Jews themselves preserved that work from annihilation.

Science is written by tabloids, btw.