Gene Ward Smith wrote:
> Peter Bruells <usernet@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
> news:m2d4qinmw5.fsf@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> >> I thought his name was deliberately forgotten. What is it,
> >> then?
> >
> > Herostratos
>
> Ah. Wikipedia says the Ephesians made it a death penalty
> offense to record his name. Didn't work.
Not proven that it didn't work IIRC.
AFAIK the first actual record of his name was from something like 300
years later and was claimed to be based on oral tradition rather than
written records.
There's no real evidence that that historian didn't just make it up,
or that someone's grandfather in Ephesus didn't make it up, or that it
didn't corrupt hopelessly in 300 years.
DougL
