ebook img

Sources for Ancient History (Sources of History) PDF

249 Pages·1984·8.52 MB·English
Save to my drive
Quick download
Download
Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.

Preview Sources for Ancient History (Sources of History)

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.

Description:
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 know, 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. From the end
See more

The list of books you might like

Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.