Sources for Ancient History (Sources of History)

249 Pages·1984·8.52 MB·English

by  Michael Crawford

THE SOURCES OF HISTORY
STUDIES IN THE USES
OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE
GENERAL EDITOR: G. R. ELTON
SOURCES FOR ANCIENT HISTORY
THE SOURCES OF HISTORY
STUDIES IN THE USES OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE
GENERAL EDITOR! G. R. ELTON
The purpose of this series of books is, broadly, to present to students and readers
of history some understanding of the materials from which history must be
written and of the problems which these raise. The books will endeavour to
bring out the inescapable links between historical sources and historical recon-
struction, will help to define promising lines of fruitful research, and will
illumine the realities of historical knowledge. Each volume will be concerned
with a logical span in the history of a given nation, civilization or area, or with a
meaningful historical theme, and it will confine itself to all the primary material
extant for that sector. These materials it will consider from the point of view of
two crucial questions: what can we know, and what have we no right to expect
to learn, from what the past has left behind?
VOLUMES IN THE SERIES
G.R. Elton England, 1200-1640
T.H. Hollingsworth Historical Demography
R. Ian Jack Medieval Wales
Kathleen Hughes Early Christian Ireland: Introduction to the Sources
Charles H. Carter The Western European Powers, 1500-1700
Walter Ullmann Law and Politics in the Middle Ages
William R. Brock The United States, 1789-1890
David Knight Sources for the History of Science, 1660-1914
W.B. Stephens Sources for English Local History
Bruce Webster Scotland from the Eleventh Century to 1603
FORTHCOMING VOLUMES
Robin Law The History of Sub-Saharan Africa before the Era of Colonisation
Richard Cobb France, 1770-1820
R. Dudley Edwards and Mary O'Dowd Sources of Early Modern Irish History,
1534-1641
Sources for Ancient History
Edited by
MICHAEL CRAWFORD
Lecturer in Classics, University of Cambridge
Fellow of Christ's College
with contributions from
EMILIO GABBA
FERGUS MILLAR
ANTHONY SNODGRASS
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE
LONDON NEW YORK NEW ROCHELLE
MELBOURNE SYDNEY
Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 IRP
32 East 57th Street, New York, NY 10022, USA
296 Beaconsfield Parade, Middle Park, Melbourne 3206, Australia
© Cambridge University Press 1983
First published 1983
Library of Congress catalogue card number: 82-23656
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Ancient Greece and Rome - (The sources of history)
1. Greece - History - To 146 BC
2. Rome - History - To 476
1. Crawford, Michael 11. Gabba, Emilio
in. Millar, Fergus iv. Snodgrass, Anthony v. Series
938 DF12
ISBN o 521 24782 9 hard covers
ISBN o 521 28958 o paperbadc
Transferred to digital printing 2003
CE
Contents
List of Illustrations vi
Abbreviations vii
Introduction ix
MICHAEL CRAWFORD
Lecturer in Classics, University of Cambridge
Fellow of Christ's College
1 Literature i
EMILIO GABBA
Professore di Storia Antica, Universitd di Pavia
2 Epigraphy 80
FERGUS MILLAR
Professor of Ancient History, University College, London
3 Archaeology 137
ANTHONY SNODGRASS
Laurence Professor of Classical Archaeology,
University of Cambridge
4 Numismatics 185
MICHAEL CRAWFORD
Index 235
Illustrations
1 Greek version of an edict of Asoka 88
2 A graffito from Pompeii showing a gladiatorial event 92
3 Nestor's cup 94
4 The Senatus consultum from Aphrodisias 102
5 The Laudatio Turiae 104
6 An inscription honouring Domitius Marsianus 128
7 Tetradrachm of Syracuse 185
8 Early Roman Republican denarius 186
9 Denarius of Domitian 189
10 Nummus of Diocletian 189
11 Old Style Athenian tetradrachm 192
12 New Style Athenian tetradrachm 193
13 Hoard table 194
14 Graph illustrating site use 203
15 The process of minting 207
16 Die linkage (one anvil) 209
17 Die linkage (two anvils) 210
18 Emergence of dies 213
19 Sources of metal 219
20 Frequency table of weights of Roman bronze coins 224
21 Half-shekel of Carthage 227
22 Denarius of Q. Cornuficius 227
VI
Abbreviations
ABSA Annual of the British School at Athens
AE L'Annee Epigraphique
AIIN Annali delVIstituto Italiano di Numismatica
A]A American Journal of Archaeology
ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt
BCH Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique
BICS Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies
BSFN Bulletin de la Societe Francaise de Numismatique
CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
CIS Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum
CRAI Comptes Rendus de d'Academie des Inscriptions et
Belles Lettres
FGrHst Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker
FIRA Fontes Iuris Romani Antejustiniani
HSCPh Harvard Studies in Classical Philology
IG Inscriptiones Graecae
IGCH Inventory of Greek Coin Hoards
ILS Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae
Jdl Jahrbuch des deutschen archdologischen Instituts
JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies
JRS Journal of Roman Studies
MEFRA Melanges de I'Ecole Francaise de Rome (Antiquite)
NC. Numismatic Chronicle
NNA Nordisk Numismatisk Arsskrift
Num.Medd. Numismatiska Meddelanden
P. Bremen Die Bremer Papyri
PBSR Papers of the British School at Rome
PIR Prosopographia Imperii Romani (second edition)
P. Oxy. The Oxyrhynchus Papyri
vn
Abbreviations
QT Quaderni Ticinesi di Numismatica e Antichitd
Classiche
RN Revue Numismatique
RRC (M.H. Crawford,) Roman Republican Coinage
RRCH (M.H. Crawford,) Roman Republican Coin
Hoards
SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum
SM Schweizer Munzbldtter
SNR Schweizerische Numismatische Rundschau
Syli Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum
TAPhA Transactions of the American Philological Society
YCS Yale Classical Studies
ZfN Zeitschrift fur Numismatik
ZPE Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und Epigrafik
Vlll
Introduction
If a scholar wishes to create a picture of a modern society in all
its aspects, there is little of what he needs to know that he
cannot find out, although there may still be much that he
cannot understand. For the history of Greece and Rome, there
is a great deal which is simply unknowable.
Towards the end of the Archaic age of Greece, there devel-
oped the writing of works of history which are recognisably
the ancestors of those written today; from this point on there is
an unbroken sequence of works by Greek and, later, Roman
historians down to the end of antiquity. The investigation and
characterisation of this historiographical tradition is among
the first tasks which face a modern historian of the ancient
world. But only a tiny part of what once existed survived the
wreck of that world; in addition, the range of interest of
historians in antiquity was rather narrow and it was limited,
with a few exceptions, to political history; even where their
interest was wider, they took for granted much that we wish
to know, on economic conditions and even on political insti-
tutions. Moreover, there was a general tendency to explain all
human actions largely in moral terms.
Much may, of course, also be learned from literary works
besides the historical — epic poetry, tragic or comic plays,
speeches, philosophical treatises, personal poetry; but many of
these works are, like histories, the product of a restricted social
class and share its limited vision, although they may also be
unconsciously revealing of its assumptions and preconcep-
tions.
Furthermore, the literary products of the Graeco-Roman
world are in varying degrees alien to us and pose considerable
problems of interpretation, quite apart from the difficulties
IX
Introduction
caused by overt or covert bias; the inferences which a histor-
ian may make on the basis of these texts must be controlled
by knowledge of the intellectual traditions from which they
spring.
But even if this and other difficulties (notably linguistic) in
handling ancient sources are surmounted, the problem
remains of how to mitigate the effect of the limited range of
interest of ancient authors and of the loss of much of what
they did produce. Some help may be derived from the
documentary material produced in antiquity, ranging from
long texts to tiny seal impressions, material which was the
product of officials organising public activities, or heads of
families organising their affairs, or individuals leaving their
mark on the world. Such material was often inscribed on
stone or bronze or other durable substance; much of it has
avoided destruction and is indeed being discovered in
increasing quantities. In Egypt, because of the dry climate,
many documents written on papyrus have survived. These
texts, often fragmentary and hard to understand, may
nonetheless enormously deepen our knowledge of the
ancient world.
Beyond this, the evidence of archaeology and numismatics
may also be very relevant; the sites of ancient settlements and
the objects excavated there provide a great deal of informa-
tion on the material culture of Greek and Roman society;
coins survive in enormous numbers from about 600 BC
onwards and, because they were produced by ancient states
and functioned in an economic context, they provide evi-
dence of particular significance for an important aspect of the
ancient world which is also ill understood.
But even with all the available explicit evidence put to use,
there is a long way to go; and in discussing the sources for
ancient history it must be remembered that often the most
important evidence is that drawn from the well-documented
practice of another age or society. The Mediterranean world
of the Greek and Roman periods can be seen to resemble
Mediterranean societies of a later age, in some areas even of
our own, for the lands and their climates have changed little.