Yet while "Philistines," too, portrayed a world of squabbling bourgeoisie on the eve of its destruction, it pulsed with a sense of individual, acutely observed life.
And Ammianus Marcellinus, who seems to have visited Alexandria before 391, describes the Serapeum and mentions that it had once housed a library, indicating that by the time of its destruction it no longer did so.
However, the die-hard Epicurean might suggest that a desire is undermined, in passing, at the very moment of its destruction; if it is later thwarted, no harm is done.
At the time of its destruction in 1855, it had 264 residents, three churches, two schools and three cemeteries.
Thankfully Megabowl's Grade 2-listed facade will remain – presumably without the enormous 36 LANE BOWLING CENTRE legend – yet the rest of its destruction brings with it a finality: a full-stop to a hitherto curiously unfinished chapter of my childhood.
The Greenwood district obliterated, the story of its destruction didn't make it into history books.
The problem — dubbed the "Yuanmingyuan complex" by some Chinese analysts — is reflected in unending debates over whether to rebuild it, and in the continuing sesquicentennial commemorations of its destruction, which have ranged from the sacred to the profane.
Pompeii supported between 10,000 and 20,000 inhabitants at the time of its destruction.
The very success of Bell Labs, he notes, contained the seeds of its destruction.
But the effects of its destruction will be with us for decades to come.
I think of the noise and horror of its destruction and the absolute terror of that.
