Readings: Walbank, p. 46-59; Austin, p. 62-127.
· History is essentially based on texts.
· Literature is the best known type of source.
· Ancient texts were transmitted to us mostly through medieval manuscripts.
· Problems with manuscripts:
o Remoteness in the past (we never have original texts).
o They were manually copied: the copyists were not always reliable; many mistakes or additions (scholies).
o To determine what available manuscript is the most reliable, the scholars have to make a genealogy of the manuscripts.
o Delicate task of the philologist: to establish the text (as close to the original as possible).
o Delicate task of the translator: to translate the text without betraying it.
o Delicate task of the historian: to interpret the text.
Use of the texts
· Different documents of various natures and values (drama, philosophy, history, epic, religion, novel, poetry, “scientific” texts).
· Questions we may ask ourselves for each text: what is the aim of the author? How much can we trust him? What was his work method? Was he near of the events he writes about?
· Exemples:
o Herodotus (open mind, he traveled a lot, but he trust his sources too easily)
o Thucydides (precise, rigorous, direct witness of the events he describes, but caution! The speeches he “quotes” are pure inventions)
o Livy (a Roman historian: edifying history, never quit Italy, far from the events he narrates, reconstituted speeches)
o Plutarch (A Greek biographer who lived in the 1st-2nd centuries AD, a moralist, far from the events, but giving many interesting details).
o Polybius (one on the best and most serious historians of the Antiquity, precise and exact most of the time, but maybe he admires the Romans too much)
· Limits of the literary sources:
o Less than 1% of the ancient texts are preserved.
o Many time periods are not well documented (a great part of the literature written during the Hellenistic period is lost)
o Almost all the time history is written by the victors; we lack the vanquished’s version of the events.
o Literature is only representative of the cultivated people (the elite; the poor did nmot write; exemple of Tacitus about Nero).
o Almost no text written by women: we have only the male’s point of view; female’s history is badly known.
· Essential, especially when we lack written documentation.
· Study of the material culture.
· The first archaeologists: Schliemann (Troy, Mycenae) and Evans (Knossos).
· First step: to find archaeological sites (by prospecting, or through aerial photography).
· Careful excavations (forget about Indiana Jones methods: we use a little trowel and a toothbrush), the work must be well organized: stratigraphy (differents lays), datation of found documents (coins, ceramic, bones).
· Archaeological excavations will destroy a site: it is essential to note everything, event what seems to be facultative
· The archaeologist must imperatively publish the results.
· Restoration is an important aspect of the archaologist’s task (site, objects found; some objects are fragile: raw bricks, wood, tissues, leather).
· Dangers (animals, plundering, wars)
· Importance of the archaeological context (datation, geographic situation; for instance: weapons found on an ancient battle field, a tile from a barrack).
· Inscriptions written on stone (or metal).
· Many inscriptions from the antiquity: more popular (and useful) than at our time.
· Kind of durable advertisement.
· Inscriptions are primary documents, a direct source.
· Many kinds of documents:
o Laws, decrees
o Evergetism acts (from a rich benefactor)
o Religious documents
o Private documents (a slave’s emancipation by his master)
o Epitaphs
o Graffiti’s (Memnon colossus, Pompei)
· Difficulties:
o Language (Greek, Latin, Babylonian, etc), the order of the letters, missing letters.
o Dispersion of the documents, late publishing, bad publishing (with errors).
· Function of money in the ancient world: exchanges, hoarding of money, commemoration, propaganda.
· Great diversity: the stamps were quickly getting worn; also many cities did have their own moneys.
· Coins are helpful to us:
· Datation of a stratigraphic lay (terminus post quem).
· Buried treasures: sign of troubles.
· Clues about a reign:
· Years of the reign
· Accomplishments if the sovereign (victories, monuments)
· Themes of the reign (propaganda)
· Religion
· Devaluation of the money (weight in gold/silver): sign of economical problems.
· Place where coins were found: clues about the economical exchanges (for instance: Roman coins found in India)
· Papyrus: kind of paper, made with a plant from the Nile River.
· Rarely found in excavations: very fragile support for texts (mostly found in Egypt, Dead sea scrolls, Herculanum).
· Types of documents:
· Literary works (Palimpsests)
· Documentary papyruses (archives, legal documents, accounts, lists of merchandise or persons – soldiers for instance).
· This type of source is capital in archaeology.
· Many representations (statues, images on vases, plates, lamps, etc).
· And, essentially, datation. Criterias :
o Style
o Techniques used
o Type of material used
· Advantages:
· Not a costly material (thus we found them more often than coins, and at all time periods; hence a typology)
· The material is indestructible (the pottery fragments remain as they were for millenia).
· Another clue for datation: the bones and carbonic remains found in vessel (carbon-14)
· Iconography is about images, like paintings on vases and frescoes, or sculptures.
· Iconography provides many useful clues about:
o Clothing, equipment (soldiers), objects used in quotidian life.
o Technology (agriculture, craft)
o Ceremonies (sacrifice, procession)
o Myths (episodes which are not well documented in texts)
o Gods’ attributes (symbols)
· Limits: not many representation of the low people; the artistic creations are sponsored by the rich, thus art is often oblivious of the reality of the low social classes.