Pompeii wasn’t rediscovered because people went looking for it. It was rediscovered by chance by workmen digging in the area (several times, in fact).
Pliny the Elder was a pretty famous guy. It’s more than possible Suetonius would have known he died without ever seeing the letter.
The events occuring in the movie “Braveheart” were inspired by poem written nealry two hundred years after the fact rather than real historical events, because almost no records of the real William Wallace’s life and deeds remain.
Not really. It’s true that the only source material for Polo’s journey is his own book, so he fits in with the topic of this thread. No contemporary Chinese records attest to his existence. However, most modern historians believe that he was telling the truth about travelling to China–based on the accuracy of his descriptions, his long absence from Europe (attested by contemporary Venetian records), and the consistency of his story after he returned.
The account of the Children’s Crusade (as we know it) seems to only have one source, according to this article. Though it talks of further documents which support a few different events that may have been conglomerated into the story we know.
How extensive are the Egyptian records of the time? I was under the impression that archaeologists had uncovered a great deal of documents and inscriptions recording current events (which could either give support to the legend through mention a slave uprising or cast doubt on it by its omission), but my knowledge of Egypt comes mainly from the History and Discovery channels.
I may be mistaken, but I thought the only account of Cleopatra’s suicide-by-asp was from Plutarch.
Recent examination of the tale posits that if the story is played out as told (Octavian rushes to stop her when he gets a suicide note) the venom would not have had enough time to kill her.
Plenty of events in U.S. history were recalled by only one author, well after the event, and have no contemporary documentation. Patrick Henry’s “Give me Liberty or Give me Death” speech. The identity of Plymouth Rock as the steppingstone the Pilgrims used. The story of Pocahontas and John Smith. . “Parson” Weems’ accounts of George Washington barking the cherry tree and of his prayer at Valley Forge. The identification of Sam Wilson as the origin for Uncle Sam (supposedly recalled long after the fact by Someone Who Was There whern the joke about “US” = “Uncle Sam” was first made). Look in books like Schenkman’s and you’ll find these by the carload.
The Jomsvikings are known from Icelandic sagas and even a saga from by a Bishop of the Orkneys that gives additional details. The later was discounted for a long time. I remember one of the old line Viking experts who pointed out that the saga was false since it mentioned a battle that was otherwise unknown. Then of course rune stones erected in memory of soldiers who died in the battle were found. In later editions, the expert acknowledged the new finds but still discounted Jomsvikings existence.
The Wikipedia article indicates that there are still way too many people who deny the saga despite it’s “predictability”. Note that many people turn the debate about the location of Jomsburg into a debate about its existence.
I’d be really interested, if it’s not too much work for you, since I seem to have inadvertently started this hare running. As I said earlier, I don’t want to spread ignorance. :smack:
I’ve been trying to remember the context where I saw this comment originally - if I recall correctly, the comment wasn’t trying to suggest that our knowledge of the entire Second Punic War depended solely on one source, nor the existence of Hannibal himself and his role as general for the Carthaginians. I think it was more focused on the elephants - that there was only one original source for the elephants, which is the part of the Hannibal story that is the most well-known by the general public. It may also have been in relation to Christian apologists, which is why I raised it in the other thread.
At the risk of starting yet another hare, I thought that it’s not that likely to find an account for Exodus in the Egyptian sources, because the concept of “history” wasn’t around then. The inscriptions and so on were to record the glories of the pharaohs and their triumphs over all non-Egyptians. If a group of slaves successfully escaped, the Egyptians wouldn’t likely chisel their embarrassment into stone.
Another point to consider is that the two sides may have had completely different perspectives. From the point of view of the fleeing Hebrew slaves, this was the defining event in their history. They escaped from Egypt, the greatest power in their world. Everyone of them had participated in the escape - it was the shared great event for them.
For the Egyptians, it may have been a bit of a “Ho-hum, lost a passle of slaves this year. Osiris will take their souls! Note to generals: Have to go on another campaign somewhere to get some replacements.”
There’s an interesting parallel here to the New England Pilgrims, as pointed out by Adam Nicolson, in God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible. He discusses it as follows (at pp. 174-175, 179):
Which is not to downplay that by modern standards, the troubles of that group of Separatists with the English church at that time would be seen as heavy-handed government interference with freedom of religion and conscience. The point here is that the defining event for New England Pilgrims scarcely registered with the English church and population. It may have been the same for the Exodus story - the escape of the Hebrew slaves may not have registered with Egypt, even though it was the defining event for Judaism. If so, it would be unlikely to find an Egyptian account of the Exodus.
Where I find the question interesting, is as a reality check on what sort of information is actually available to us regarding history before the printing press. (To choose one pertinent cut-off point.)
So what seems to me worth asking is neither, “did this really happen?” nor “the general public thinks this happened, but did it?” but rather “competent historians are reasonably certain this famous event happened, and only cranks disagree - so, what sort of evidence is usually sufficient to justify such a conclusion?”
It’s usually less than you’d think. And often less than skeptics with an axe to grind demand!
For example (and inviting correction - I’m relying only on my own library and memory here) - if I’m remembering correctly, our only roughly contemporary evidence for the execution of Socrates is the writings of Plato. (As Northern Piper noted, we’ve got a good cross-check on the existence of Socrates in Aristophanes; but let’s stick to his death.)
So: the vivid story of Socrates drinking the hemlock rests upon one literary source in which “Socrates” may have been revised either by hallowed memory or the demands of literature, by an author with an almost religious epistemological agenda. Further: that author is also, as I recall, our sole original source for the Atlantis myth…
Do I take this as reason to reject “Socrates” as a literary construct, or as mythical as lost Atlantis? Hardly. I do take it as an interesting instance of the sort of data we’re often left relying on, if we want to make any sense of the past at all!
Grimpen, I think that’s right, but I’ve sent an e-mail to my philosopher brother to ask him.
Getting back to the existence of Socrates, is there something in Thucydides? I have a vague recollection that there’s a mention that Socrates served as a citizen-soldier and saved Alcibiades’ life at some point?
I know for a fact both Polybius and Livy discuss the elephants of Hannibal (I actually wrote a paper on that last year - it was a super fun topic!). I made a post above about some of the Livian sources for the Second Punic war; when I have a minute, I’ll find some more for you.
One thing that’s important to remember as a fact-checking mechanism is that Plato, for example, circulated his writings in his own time. Which means that people who would have been at Socrates’ death would have been his audience. How much, really, could he have fabricated? It wouldn’t have been accepted if it was false. The converse is true - the less knowledgeable about the topic the audience is assumed to be, the less reliable the history is, for example, the Historia Augusta is ridiculously full of clearly unhistorical things.
You’ve neglected Xenophon, who was also a student and reported on his philioosophy. Unfortunately, he didn’t report the well-written, pithy dialogues that Plato did, so naturally everyone prefers Plato’s version. some historian opined that, if we had only had Xenophon’s version of Plato, he wouldn’t be as well remembered at all:
Heard back from my brother on the issue of sources:
I’m by no means an expert in this field, but aren’t there a number of descriptions of peoples, places, and events in Herotodus that are known only from that source? I seem to recall that the only description of the Parthian horse archery tactics came from Herotodus.
And, worse, Herotodus was not what modern historians would consider devoted to truth. Am I wrong in this belief, or have I got it right?
Well, he’s been called both “the Father of History” and “the Father of Lies”…
It’s probably fairer to remember that ancients, “writing history,” would never be expected to offer a documented and unbiased account, without interpretation. How boring! A competent writer would be expected to illuminate his source - among other things, it would be thought perfectly reasonable for him to invent conversations which illustrate the character of historical notables. You’d learn to do that in rhetorical school.
As we continue on this thread, it occurs to me that it might be useful to note the fragility of our chain of evidence for rather a lot of the ancient world. Except in odd cases such as dry Egypt, the Dead Sea caves, or a few carbonized papyri, little in the way of original papyrus or parchment manuscripts has survived from the Graeco-Roman world. If they were “unimportant,” they were long ago thrown away or simply decayed through neglect. If they were “important,” they were replaced with new copies; and while we may have the copies, the original is long gone. But some estimates suggest that only 1% of ancient literature has survived at all. And that’s not counting non-literary sources which would have been of enormous value.
One interesting illustrating is the Archimedes Palimpsest: http://www.thewalters.org/archimedes/frame.html
This is a collection of the writings of one of the world’s most famous mathematicians ever. One treatise survives only in this document; another, while also known to us through translations, survives in the original Greek only here.
It is the only surviving copy of this collection, and it is a palimpsest. That means that at one point the owner considered these writings to be of less value than the parchment they were written on; so the material was re-used.
So: here we have two important mathematical treatises from a major figure. They survive (in the original text) only because:
- One Byzantine dynasty thought scholarship was important enough to commission a copy of them.
- A few centuries later, somebody re-used the parchment rather than throwing it out.
Rather a lot of our knowledge of the past depends on links this fragile.
“Stop him! He’s eating Aristotle!”
I think I should have explained the point I was going for a bit more clearly. Because of the stylistic differences between what Herotodus wrote (and was expected of the day) and what moderns would consider true history, a lot of what he wrote has to be taken with a large grain of salt, by us, when judging the veracity of his writings. This is not to suggest that Herotodus isn’t a very important historical document.
Rather it is one of the more blatant examples of why, even where we have written records that purport to be contemporary, it’s still hard to speak to the veracity of things from the ancient world.
The best contemporary records we have of the ancient world come from such serendipity as having the palace of a Babylonian court burned, and pillaged. Which then had the effect of acting like a kiln for the cuneiform records of the court. And were then left undisturbed for millenia. This is the sort of accident that gives us a lot of our best views of the ancient world.
BTW, mhendo, I’d always thought that the Nat Turner Rebellion was the definitive American Slave revolt. I vaguely remember the Denmark Vesey affair, but that’s it. Certainly the links you’ve provided are pretty convincing for Johnson’s interpretation. The parallels with the Salem Witch Trials are telling, to my mind. (i.e. it’s the ones who refused to plead ‘guilty’ who were executed.)