历史版：焚毁亚历山大图书馆真的让人类倒退了吗?

Did the burning of the library of Alexandria really set humanity back?

2021-10-12 yzy86 14887 21 2 收藏纠错&举报

译文简介

“我们的知识是线性增长的”是错误的观点，因为知识的增长有时候会非常缓慢，另一些时候则呈现为指数级增长，我们甚至能彻底逆转知识的增长

正文翻译

Did the burning of the library of Alexandria really set humanity back? I just found out about this and am very interested in it. I'm wondering though what impact this had on humanity and our advancement and knowledge. What kind of knowledge was in this library? I can't help but wonder if anything we don't know today was in the library and is now lost to us. Was it even a fire that burned the library down to begin with? It's all very interesting and now I feel as though I'm going to go down a rabbit hole.

烧毁亚历山大图书馆真的让人类倒退了吗？我才发现这个问题，并且非常感兴趣。我特别想知道该事件对人类、我们的进步以及知识产生了怎样的影响。这个图书馆收藏的是哪种类型的知识？我不禁好奇，如果有我们今天不知道的东西藏在那座图书馆里，那现在我们便失去了它们。当初是真的有一把火烧毁了图书馆吗？这一切都非常有趣，现在我感觉自己好像进入了一个兔子洞。

评论翻译

AbouBenAdhem
The thing about ancient libraries is, merely existing wasn’t enough to preserve their contents. Papyrus was fairly fragile (unless it was left in a jar in the desert), and any given book would fall apart with regular handling and would need to be re-copied periodically. So the important thing about a library like Alexandria isn’t just the physical books, but the social commitment to supporting the scribes to maintain them. If that commitment wavers at any point in time, the books will be lost even without a fire.

在古代图书馆的问题上需要注意的是，其存在本身并不足以保存其收藏之物。纸莎草纸是非常易碎的（除非被放在罐子里埋于沙漠中），任何一本书都会因为常经人手而散架，所以必须定期重新抄制。因此，像亚历山大这种体量的图书馆，需要重点关注的就不仅仅是实体书籍了，而是一种对社会的承诺，即承诺供养抄写员去维护这些书籍。如果这种承诺在任何一个时间点上发生了动摇，那即便没有火劫，这些书也会佚失。

While the library did burn on several occasions, that destruction probably wasn’t permanent. But the fact that we don’t actually know its ultimate fate suggests that contemporary society lost interest in it—and that in itself would have been enough to doom the books it contained.

虽然这座图书馆确实被烧了好几次，但很可能不会带来永久性的破坏。但事实就是，我们并不知道它的最终命运，这也暗示了当时那个社会对它失去了兴趣，单是这一点就足以注定它所收藏的书籍难逃劫数了。

Maybe the mesopotamians had the right idea then, stick it in clay so fire just makes it more durable.

（回）也许当时美索不达米亚人的想法才是对的，就是将其埋进黏土里，这样的话，遇火只会让它更耐久。

Leemour
I read a book about this called "Pillars of Siriat" (in its original language). An archaeologist essentially wrote in great length about how ancient societies have discovered, invented, kept and forgot stuff (related to sciences, arts, architecture, technologies, etc.). It talked about Egyptian, Babylonian, Chinese, Mayan, Aztec, Greco-Roman, Indian, etc. sciences and technologies, and there are still many questions about "but how could they do this?", such as the domestication of certain vegetables/plants, architectural designs, little trinkets that we don't even know what they're for, tools that we have no evidence of ever existing, but we have to infer that they did because of the craftsmanship, etc.

我读过一本探讨该问题的书，叫《Siriat之柱》（原文如此）。一位考古学家用很长的篇幅谈论了古代社会发现、发明、保存和遗忘各种东西（关于科学、艺术、建筑、技术等）的方式。其中谈及了埃及、巴比伦、中国、玛雅、阿兹特克、希腊罗马、印度等地的科学和技术，而且还探讨了很多关于“但他们怎么可能做到这些？”的问题，比如驯化特定品种的蔬菜/植物，建筑设计，连用途都不知道的小饰品，以及没有证据能证明其存在过的工具，但因为它们的工艺而不得不去推论它们确实存在过，诸如此类。

His conclusion was that we discover, keep and forget knowledge as it is necessary for our survival and well-being; it's a mistaken view that we just grow in knowledge linearly, as it is sometimes very slow and at other times it's exponential OR we could even drastically reverse. He also noted, that each (inhabited) continents civilizations have produced marvelous and incomparable achievements in their histories, and we're truly fortunate to have the opportunity to study it today, as their insights can give us clues and hints on how to proceed in this world as humanity.

他得出的结论是，我们发现、保存和遗忘知识，因为这对于我们的生存和福祉来说是必需的；而“我们的知识是线性增长的”是错误的观点，因为知识的增长有时候会非常缓慢，另一些时候则呈现为指数级增长，我们甚至能彻底逆转知识的增长。他还指出，每一个（有人群居住的）大陆文明，在其历史中都取得过令人惊叹且无可比拟的成就，而能有机会在今天研究它的我们，是真的很幸运，因为去深入了解它们，便能在“人类在这个世界上该如何继续前行”的问题上给我们提供线索和提示。

Haha kind of like when I write up code for a project to do a very specific task. Once the project is finished, the code goes away and gets lost in storage. Then I have a project assigned again that needs to do something similar but I can't find the code so I have to rewrite it!

（回）哈哈有点像我为了完成一个特定的任务而为一个项目写代码。一旦这个项目完成，这些代码就会消失于存储中。然后我又被分派了一个项目，需要完成类似的任务，但我找不到那段代码了，所以我不得不重写。

Have you tried writing the code on papyrus and storing it in clay jars?

（回）你有没有尝试过把这段代码写在纸莎草纸上，然后把它储存在黏土罐子里？

Josquius
Too many have a "sid meiers civilization" view of history and technological advancement.
Technology has historically been far more a as its needed thing with engineering and organisational capacity of societies being far more important than technological knowledge.
For a modern historical example for instance the canal network in England. Totally possible at earlier points in history.... But just not needed so it wasn't done. And itself soon replaced by railways as steel making techniques progressed.

有太多的人对历史和技术进步抱有一种“席德·梅尔式文明”的看法。
一直以来，技术这种东西在历史上更多是因为需要而催生的，而各社会的工程能力和组织能力远比技术知识重要。
举个现代历史中的例子：英格兰的运河网络。在年代更早的历史时点上，也完全有可能建成，但就是因为并不需要它，所以就没有去建。而且随着炼钢技术的进步，该网络很快就被铁路取代了。
（译注：席德·梅尔，加拿大人，著名游戏《文明》的开发者）

lethal_moustache
As a patent attorney, I have seen this myself in just the last 25 years. People invent stuff all of the time only to find that someone else had already invented the thing in question, even though the older invention cannot be found out and about. It is almost as if there is a decay rate on information.

作为一名专利律师，我在过去地二十五年中也见证过这种情况。人们一直在发明各种东西，但却发现已经有别人发明了这样东西，尽管年代更早的发明外界是找不到的。就好像信息存在衰减率一样。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

megavikingman
Another way information is lost: never translated from the original language and distributed for worldwide consumption.

丢失信息还有一种方式：从来没有对原本的那门语言进行翻译，并向四面八方散布以供全世界运用。

MercutiaShiva
Also, it's important to note, as the above commentator did, that the library of Alexandria burned many time -- it was not a singular event. Various people, including Caesar, were blamed at various times for Propaganda purposes.

此外，值得注意的是，正如之前网友提到的，亚历山大图书馆被烧了很多次，这并不是一个单一事件。出于宣传目的，包括凯撒在内的各色人等，都在不同的时代中因此事被怪罪。

darkwoodfrx
Knowledge is not accumulated. It has always been what we deem is worthy of retaining.
You can count the jellybeans in a jar and proclaim it has 726! You can yell it and put it on paper. But the last time someone cares, is really when that information is lost. So in a way, it'll be lost immediately as well.

知识并不是积累出来的。一直以来，知识都是我们认为值得保留的东西。
你可以数一数罐子里的糖豆，然后宣布里头有726颗！你可以四处嚷嚷并把它写在纸上。但最后一次出现在意这条信息的人的时候，其实就是这条信息丢失的时候。所以在某种程度上，它刚落于纸面就丢失了。

Nizidramaniyt
Yep, even todays paper has a shelf life of about 100 years before it´s structure falls apart. I would imagine a cheaper made paper would last half that time at best.

是的，就算是今天的纸张，在其结构崩解之前也有约一百年的保存期。我想更廉价的纸张能存在的时间顶多只有前者的一半。

Paper manufactured 100 years ago is OK. Paper manufactured nowadays will not last 100 years. Different chemistry is used. There are special kinds of paper manufactured today that will survive more than 100 years, but not the standard stuff we put into printers and copiers by the box.

（回）一百年前制造的纸张质量还是不错的。而如今制造的纸张是撑不到一百年的。两者用到的是不同的化学反应。在现如今制造的纸张中，也有一些特种纸张能撑一百多年，但不是我们一盒盒塞进打印机和复印机里的那种标准纸张。

Skookum_J
Short answer, No.

简短的答案是：没有。

Longer answer, The Library wasn’t burned all in one go. The library was burned at least three times. First time, on accident when Caesar besieged & conquered the city. Some of the Romans set fire to some Egyptian ships, the fire spread & did significant damage to the library & some of the storehouses near it.

长篇幅的答案则是：这个图书馆并不是一次性烧干净的。至少被烧了三次。第一次是出了意外，当时凯撒围困并征服了这座城市。有些罗马人放火烧着了几艘埃及船，之后火势蔓延，并对这座图书馆及其附近的库房造成了严重破坏。

But the library wasn’t totally destroyed, it’s recorded that emperor Claudius funded an extension during his reign. So the library was still in operation a hundred years after Caesar. But during this time the Library started to diminish in importance. Rome was the center on the Empire, scholars & historians flocked to the Eternal City to make a name for themselves. Institutions like the Library at Alexandria were considered second rate, by comparison. Admission to the famous Mouseion, which was attached to the Library no longer held the same prestige & rigor that it used to. Admittance was handed out to politicians & military commanders, not scholars & teaches. It got to the point where other institutions started setting up their own libraries. In fact, two major competing libraries were setup right in Alexandria. The Library, as a singular collection was no longer really prominent or as respected as it once had been

但这座图书馆并没有被完全摧毁，根据记载，克劳狄斯皇帝在位期间曾出资扩建了图书馆。所以在凯撒之后的一百年里，该图书馆仍然在运转。但在此期间，图书馆的重要性开始降低。罗马是帝国的中心，学者和历史学家为了扬名立万，成群结队地涌入这座永恒之城。相比之下，亚历山大图书馆这样的机构在人们眼中是二流的存在。著名的博学院（附属于图书馆），其加入许可不再具备从前那样的威望，也不再像从前那样严格了。加入的许可发给了政治家和军队的指挥官，而不是学者和教授。都到了其他机构开始自己建立图书馆的地步了。事实上，与之形成竞争的两大图书馆就设立在亚历山大城。这座图书馆作为单一收藏品，不再像以前那样鹤立鸡群或受人尊敬了。

Then, in the 3rd century AD, the Empire hit a rough patch. Lots of internal fighting, lots of rebellion, bad times all round. Emperor Aurelian, managed to reconquer, pacify, and rebuild the empire. But as part of his reconquest campaigns, he assaulted Alexandria, and his troops destroyed the part of the city containing the Library. This was followed a couple decades later by a siege by Diocletian, which did even more damage to the city & would have destroyed anything of the library left from the last round of fighting.

在之后的公元3世纪，帝国陷入了艰困时期。大量的内斗和叛乱，一片萧条。奥勒良皇帝成功地重新征服、平定和重建了这个帝国。但攻打亚历山大城是他重新征服运动的一部分，他的部队摧毁了该城中包含这座图书馆的部分。几十年后，戴克里先又进行了一次围攻，对这座城市造成了更大的破坏，并把上一轮战斗中图书馆残留下来的所有部分都给摧毁了。

Should also mention there’s a famous, though maybe apocryphal story that when Caliph Omar captured Alexandria in the 600’s AD he was noted to have ordered the destruction of the Library. Saying “If those books are in agreement with the Quran, we have no need of them; and if these are opposed to the Quran, destroy them.” But later scholars have serious doubts about this. And since The Library had most likely been totally destroyed by the Romans, centuries before, if Caliph Omar ordered the destruction of books, they probably weren’t in The Library of Alexandria.

值得一提的还有一个著名的故事，尽管它很有可能是杜撰出来的，当哈里发奥马尔在公元600年占领亚历山大城时，根据记录他曾下令摧毁这座图书馆。他说：“如果这些书与《古兰经》一致，那我们就不需要它们了；如果这些书与《古兰经》相悖，那就毁掉它们”。但后世的学者严重怀疑此事的真实性。而且，由于这座图书馆很可能在几个世纪前就被罗马人彻底摧毁了，如果哈里发奥马尔下令毁书，这些书籍可能也不在亚历山大图书馆中。

As far as setting humanity back. The Library contained lots of information, and at its peak had a great school attached to it that encouraged all kinds of research & learning. But the information in the library was not unique, nor the only copies. Many places of learning all over the ancient world had similar, if smaller scale institutions. And the burning of the Library did not destroy any irreplaceable scrolls.

至于说会不会让人类倒退。这座图书馆包含了大量的信息，在其巅峰期还有一所伟大的学校隶属于它，鼓励各种各样的研究和学习。但收藏在图书馆中的信息并不是独一无二的，也不是唯一的副本。古代世界的很多学习场所都有类似的机构，尽管规模较小。而且焚烧图书馆并没有毁掉任何不可替代的卷轴。

WhirlyTwirlyMustache
The reason the library was so big was that they made copies of every book that came into the city. It wasn't the source of knowledge, but more of a giant backup of existing information.

这座图书馆之所以这么大，是因为他们复制了进入这座城市的每一本书。它并不是知识的源头，而更像是现存信息的一个巨大的备份。

This is not quite correct. Libraries in the ancient world were much more than repositories of scrolls, they were also centers of education and scholarly activity, and in its hey day the library of Alexandria was unrivaled in this regard. However, as the library of Alexandria declined other scholarly centers were still quite active.

（回）你说的不完全正确。古代世界的图书馆不仅仅是贮藏卷轴的仓库，它们也是教育和学术活动的中心，在亚历山大图书馆的全盛期，它在这方面是无与伦比的。然而，随着亚历山大图书馆的衰落，其他学术中心仍然相当活跃。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

YetiDeli
the information in the library was not unique, nor the only copies. Many places of learning all over the ancient world had similar, if smaller scale institutions. And the burning of the Library did not destroy any irreplaceable scrolls.
^ This is the big fact that most succinctly answers OP's question.

"收藏在图书馆中的信息并不是独一无二的，也不是唯一的副本。古代世界的很多学习场所都有类似的机构，尽管规模较小。而且焚烧图书馆并没有毁掉任何不可替代的卷轴。"
这个重要事实，最简明扼要地回答了楼主的问题。

It wasn't impressive because it had knowledge that no one else had access to - that's just a myth that apparently many of us grew up learning in school. The library was impressive because it was a somewhat comprehensive amalgamation of knowledge. But probably all of that knowledge could be found in other parts of the world.

这座图书馆之所以让人印象深刻，并不是因为它拥有其他人无法获取的知识-这只是一种谬见，显然我们很多人都是在学校的学习生活中长大的。它之所以让人印象深刻，是因为它在某种程度上是对知识的兼收并蓄。但很可能所有这些知识都可以在全世界的其他地方找到。

Kind-Bed3015
We probably lost a lot of classic Mediterranean texts, but no, it did not set "humanity" back. The major developments in art, math, philosophy, science, and technology in the 1000 years after the fall of Rome took place mostly in Asia; the European "Renaissance" is mostly owed to this wealth of knowledge as it filtered through Europe, especially after the fall of Constantinople.

我们很可能丢失了很多经典的地中海文本，但是不会的，这并不会让“人类”倒退。在罗马灭亡后的一千年中，艺术、数学、哲学、科学和技术方面的重大进展主要发生在亚洲；欧洲的“文艺复兴”，主要归功于这些知识财富在欧洲的渗透和传播，特别是在君士坦丁堡陷落以后。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Later, European historians, in characteristically racist fashion, re-told post-Roman history as one with a "fall" followed by a "dark age" followed by a miraculous "rebirth" of European brilliance. It is this narrative which creates the idea that the "loss" of classical Greek texts set all of "humanity" back. It's a fundamentally Eurocentric, and incorrect, narrative.

后来，欧洲的历史学家以其标志性的种族主义手笔，将罗马之后的历史重述为“沦落”的历史，紧随其后的是一段“黑暗时代”，然后又是欧洲的光辉奇迹般的“重生”。正是这种叙事创造出了这样一种观念，即希腊古典文献的“丧失”让全“人类”倒退。这根本就是一种欧洲中心主义的叙事，而且并不正确。

Wow, this post is coming off way too harsh. I'm not accusing you, personally, of anything; sorry if it sounds that way. I'm just easily triggered by the continuing power of all the fall-of-Rome narratives that reinforce this Eurocentrism. Once you learn to see it, you realize it's everywhere.
The more you can learn history as a mosaic of interlocking global narratives, instead of one European one (which is the one we're all, still, taught in school), the better.

哎呀，我这条评论听上去太刺耳了。我不是在指责你个人，如果听上去有这种味道，那请原谅。只是我很容易被所有强化这种欧洲中心主义的罗马陷落叙事触发。一旦你学会了辨认它，你就会发现它无处不在。
你越是能把历史当成镶嵌画般相互联结的全球叙事来学习，而不是一种欧洲叙事（这也是我们所有人至今仍在学校里被教授的），就越好。

The irony is that much of the European history is patchy guesswork based on incomplete manuscxts and conflicting sources, but the Chinese have been able to maintain essentially a fully intact set of their history dating back to the western Han dynasty. The 24 Histories were preserved, maintained and added to by each major Chinese dynasty starting with the first tome Shiji compiled way back in 91 BCE. The final set edited and published in the Qing dynasty in 1775 consists of over 3000 volumes and 40 million words, covering Chinese history going all the way back to near mythic sources from 3000 BCE.

（回）具有讽刺意味的是，欧洲的大部分历史都是建立在不完整的手稿以及自相矛盾的信息来源之上的不可靠臆测，但中国人基本上一直都能保有一套完整的历史，可以追溯到西汉时期。从编纂于公元前91年的第一部巨著《史记》开始，中国的每一个重要王朝都保存、维护和补充了这套《二十四史》。清朝于1775年编辑并出版的最后一套包括3000多卷，共4000万字，涵盖了能一直追溯到公元前3000年近乎神话的信息来源的中国历史。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

As far as I know, China is the only state that throughout all of its dynasties had continuous government support for maintaining its own history, and therefore is the only state that has such a complete set of its own historiography. This undoubtedly contributes to the divide between Chinese cultural and political institutions versus the west, since their view of the world will be colored by their own history, which is complete but largely inaccessible to the west as it is untranslated. It is unwieldy even for the Chinese due to the sheer amount of information preserved just in those official histories, let alone any other texts that survived over the millenia.

据我所知，中国是唯一一个在其所有朝代中，编修自身历史都得到了持续不断政府支持的国家，也因此成为了唯一一个拥有一套如此完整且属于自己的史学的国家。毫无疑问，这助长了中国的文化机构和政治团体与西方之间的分歧，因为中国人的世界观会被他们自己的历史所渲染，而他们的历史是完整的，但由于未经翻译，西方人大都无法接触到。由于仅在这些官方历史中就保存了海量的信息，即使对中国人来说也是很难掌握的，在几千年中来幸存下来的任何其他文本就更不用说了。

Additional_Sage
The Bronze Age collapse probably did more damage to humanity than the destruction of the library of Alexandria.

青铜时代的崩溃对人类造成的伤害，可能比亚历山大图书馆的毁灭还要大。

Feniksrises
The Chinese emperor had archives going back 1500 years. Much of it lost when the whole system crashed. A few historians frantically ran around Beijing trying to buy as much of it as they could before it was recycled.
Don't rely on a single library.

中国皇帝的档案可以追溯到1500年前。当整套体制崩溃时，其中的大部分档案就佚失了。有些历史学家曾发了疯似的在北京四处转悠，试图在这些档案被回收另作他用前尽可能多地买下它们。
不要只依赖一个图书馆。

MetallicPhantom
Not nearly as much as the burning of Nalanda University. It burnt for 14 days after the Islamic Invaders slaughtered all the scholars.

严重程度远不如那烂陀大学的焚毁。在伊斯兰入侵者屠戮了所有学者后，它整整烧了十四天。

tat310879
Honestly, you do realise humans also consists of civilisations that has very little contact or absolutely no contact with the Western/Mediterranean civilisations, right? I am sure Chinese civilisation, for example, is doing perfectly fine knowledgewise whether or not some library in the West burns down or not.
So no. The burning of the library of Alexandrian does not set humanity back. It may set some humans in the West back, but not humanity.

天呐，人类是由很多个文明组成的，而且它们和西方文明/地中海文明的接触很少或是完全没有接触，这事儿你们是清楚的对吧？我敢肯定，无论西方的某个图书馆焚毁与否，中华文明（举例来说）在知识方面的表现都是极为出色的。
所以不会的。亚历山大图书馆的烧毁不会让人类倒退。此事可能会让西方的部分人群倒退，但并不会让全人类倒退。

XROOR
Had a Pakistani professor in college tell the class that when Genghis Khan put their books in the Indus River, it set them back hundreds of years.

我上大学的时候有个巴基斯坦教授，他在课堂上告诉我们说，成吉思汗把他们的书扔进印度河的行为让他们倒退了几百年。

历史版 焚毁 亚历山大 图书馆 人类

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