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I'm curious about ancient history when the author of the history apparently wrote it 100+ years after it happened. I can't imagine anyone alive today writing wi

I'm curious about ancient history when the author of the history apparently wrote it 100+ years after it happened. I can't imagine anyone alive today writing with much authority about 1922. Why should I believe someone like Herodotus could possibly report accurately about things in 50 to 100years before he was born in places he couldn't have possibly been and with no actual proof, just decades of "telephone" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_whispers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_whispers)

Veen 4y ago
People write about earlier times by studying contemporary written sources and records and looking at archeology from the period. They also use later writers who had used and quoted contemporary sources. They also make inferences based on that material and syntheses of other material. In Herodotus's case, he used sources such as Thersander of Orchomenus, Archias of Sparta, and numerous other named and unnamed sources. He also made stuff up, but that's discouraged in modern history. There's an interesting chapter preview about his sources here: https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004217584/B9789004217584-s017.xml https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004217584/B9789004217... There's no guarantee that someone living in 1922 would be more accurate about what happened at that time than a historian writing today. They might have access to more detail, but they can lie, be mistaken, be partial, and so on. Eye witness testimony is often less reliable than a methodical examination of the available evidence, however later that happens.
watwut 4y ago
The answer is that you should not believe that. Herodotus was unable to accurately report on what happened 100 years before he was born. But also, the (popular) books on antiquity I seen made no secret of that. Also, blog articles by historians I have seen were careful to point the same out.
CaptArmchair 4y ago
> Why should I...? There's no obligation to believe or not believe a source. There are the facts and then there's the interpretation of the facts, the latter is what constitutes history. The crux is that the interpretation doesn't happen in a void. It's always driven by context in which a record first originated. Historiography isn't just about creating new narratives, it's also re-interpreting existing narratives within their context. Which interpretations of the past exist? Why did a particular narrative become dominant? What motivates historical actors to promote one narrative over another? To what extent are establish facts corroborating with an generally accepted narrative? For instance, Caesar's De Bello Galico isn't an objective, factual account of his famous campaign to pacify Gaul. It's a textbook example of a narrative of the facts that served different purposes. Here we have a roman warlord who wants to capture the story for posterity, but also leverage his report as a propaganda and finally as an apology geared towards the senate and his enemies. That doesn't mean we should dismiss De Bello Galico is a worthless account. Its value isn't in gaining a facts based perspective of the different cultures that populated Gaul some 2.000 years ago. Instead, it's an unique insight in the mind of a roman general and what motivates him to write a particular narrative. Then there are the biases and opinions of the contemporary historian interpreting De Bello Galico today. That's where it gets interesting. The art / science of history is akin to watching the past through the back mirror in your car: perspectives and interpretations change as more time and distance passes by, as well as the mirror itself warping the image over time. Ultimately, we are all slaves of the arrow of time. The idea that we can somehow capture the past in excruciating detail is almost predicated on the fact that you have to pretty much build a static, frozen version of the Universe at a particular moment in time. That's - of course - science fiction. So, when looking at the past, one has to always give countenance to the fact that you'd do so through the imperfect proxy of historical records, the fallible memory of eye witnesses and a sampling of artifacts. There's just no escaping that reality.
rsynnott 4y ago
> Why should I believe someone like Herodotus could possibly report accurately about things in 50 to 100years before he was born in places he couldn't have possibly been and with no actual proof, just decades of "telephone" Modern historians _don't_ take ancient historians at their word, in general. No-one _actually_ thinks that Caligula made his horse a consul or a priest, say. There's very limited contemporary information on a lot of ancient history, and they have to work with what they have, but they're generally skeptical.

Veen 4y ago

People write about earlier times by studying contemporary written sources and records and looking at archeology from the period. They also use later writers who had used and quoted contemporary sources. They also make inferences based on that material and syntheses of other material. In Herodotus's case, he used sources such as Thersander of Orchomenus, Archias of Sparta, and numerous other named and unnamed sources. He also made stuff up, but that's discouraged in modern history. There's an interesting chapter preview about his sources here: https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004217584/B9789004217584-s017.xml https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004217584/B9789004217... There's no guarantee that someone living in 1922 would be more accurate about what happened at that time than a historian writing today. They might have access to more detail, but they can lie, be mistaken, be partial, and so on. Eye witness testimony is often less reliable than a methodical examination of the available evidence, however later that happens.

watwut 4y ago

The answer is that you should not believe that. Herodotus was unable to accurately report on what happened 100 years before he was born. But also, the (popular) books on antiquity I seen made no secret of that. Also, blog articles by historians I have seen were careful to point the same out.

CaptArmchair 4y ago

> Why should I...? There's no obligation to believe or not believe a source. There are the facts and then there's the interpretation of the facts, the latter is what constitutes history. The crux is that the interpretation doesn't happen in a void. It's always driven by context in which a record first originated. Historiography isn't just about creating new narratives, it's also re-interpreting existing narratives within their context. Which interpretations of the past exist? Why did a particular narrative become dominant? What motivates historical actors to promote one narrative over another? To what extent are establish facts corroborating with an generally accepted narrative? For instance, Caesar's De Bello Galico isn't an objective, factual account of his famous campaign to pacify Gaul. It's a textbook example of a narrative of the facts that served different purposes. Here we have a roman warlord who wants to capture the story for posterity, but also leverage his report as a propaganda and finally as an apology geared towards the senate and his enemies. That doesn't mean we should dismiss De Bello Galico is a worthless account. Its value isn't in gaining a facts based perspective of the different cultures that populated Gaul some 2.000 years ago. Instead, it's an unique insight in the mind of a roman general and what motivates him to write a particular narrative. Then there are the biases and opinions of the contemporary historian interpreting De Bello Galico today. That's where it gets interesting. The art / science of history is akin to watching the past through the back mirror in your car: perspectives and interpretations change as more time and distance passes by, as well as the mirror itself warping the image over time. Ultimately, we are all slaves of the arrow of time. The idea that we can somehow capture the past in excruciating detail is almost predicated on the fact that you have to pretty much build a static, frozen version of the Universe at a particular moment in time. That's - of course - science fiction. So, when looking at the past, one has to always give countenance to the fact that you'd do so through the imperfect proxy of historical records, the fallible memory of eye witnesses and a sampling of artifacts. There's just no escaping that reality.

rsynnott 4y ago

> Why should I believe someone like Herodotus could possibly report accurately about things in 50 to 100years before he was born in places he couldn't have possibly been and with no actual proof, just decades of "telephone" Modern historians _don't_ take ancient historians at their word, in general. No-one _actually_ thinks that Caligula made his horse a consul or a priest, say. There's very limited contemporary information on a lot of ancient history, and they have to work with what they have, but they're generally skeptical.