This article examines the burning of written material at Rome from the Republican period until the rise of Christianity, using the lens of book history. It considers why and how Romans burned written material, gathering for the first time all testimony of burning any kind of writing, and examines responses to these burnings in ancient discourse. A capacious, book-historical approach to Roman book-burning shows that differences in practice and uses — of books as opposed to documents, for example — account for the different consequences Romans saw for burning different written media.

中文翻译：

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古罗马的焚书与文字的使用：文学与文献之间的破坏性实践

本文从书史的角度考察了从共和时期到基督教兴起期间罗马焚烧书面材料的情况。它考虑了罗马人焚烧书面材料的原因和方式，首次收集了关于焚烧任何类型文字的所有证词，并研究了古代话语中对这些焚烧的反应。对罗马焚书的一种广泛的、书籍历史的方法表明，实践和用途的差异——例如，书籍与文件的不同——解释了罗马人看到的焚烧不同书面媒体的不同后果。