Poorly Documented but Widely Accepted History?

[Grimpen]

I have another possible candidate for “poorly documented but widely accepted”: Caesar’s Gallic Wars.
I’m out of my areas of expertise here, but what do we have for sources on Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul that isn’t dependent on Caesar’s own commentaries?
They are, to be sure, excellent documentation in their own right. Except that one would normally seek corroborating evidence when a leader presents himself as a military genius. Or, to put it differently: to what degree are Caesar’s Gallic Wars political campaign literature?

[OtakuLoki]

I know that Gallic Wars is regularly attacked by Pagans for being complete fabrications for their descriptions of the rites and behaviors of the Celts. Which I find more than a little bit ironic.*

But that doesn’t equate to being a substantive critique of Caesar’s reporting, Grimpen.

*This is because I believe that most modern Pagan rites and traditions owe more to the imagination and guesses of the Romantics than any actual coherent tradition: oral or written. Certainly the common claim that Paganism is a direct inheritor of the wholly peaceful religion of the ancient Druids seems a bit threadbare.

[Grimpen]

@OtakuLoki

I know that Gallic Wars is regularly attacked by Pagans for being complete fabrications for their descriptions of the rites and behaviors of the Celts. Which I find more than a little bit ironic.*
But that doesn’t equate to being a substantive critique of Caesar’s reporting, Grimpen.

Oh, I agree completely. For all I know, Caesar’s report is accurate; I have no evidence to the contrary.
What I’m wondering (and here I have to depend on people with more knowledge of pre-Imperial Rome than I have) is whether this is in fact a complex of historical events for which we have only one substantial written primary source.

[Johanna]

W.D. Fard a.k.a. Fard Muhammad a.k.a. “Allah.” Detroit, ca. 1930-1934. Who was that anyway? Everybody knows he existed, but there’s very little documentation on him for certain (besides a bit of FBI disinformation).

[Tamerlane]

@OtakuLoki

I seem to recall that the only description of the Parthian horse archery tactics came from Herotodus.

Plutarch, actually. Herodotus lived well before even the early Parni ( later Parthians ) had become seperate from the Dahae. Though the Achaemenids apparently made use of the same tactics.

In this case wall freizes from a variety of periods in Persia ( including the Achaemenid ) seem to show the stereotypical over-the-shoulder Parthian shot, so I think we can accept that one as pretty well grounded.

• Tamerlane

[Alessan]

@Tamerlane

In this case wall freizes from a variety of periods in Persia ( including the Achaemenid ) seem to show the stereotypical over-the-shoulder Parthian shot, so I think we can accept that one as pretty well grounded.

• Tamerlane

Didn’t virtually every horse-nomad culture in history use that tactic?

[AK84]

Zombies are poorly attested.

IIRC the only contemporary writing relating to Alexander is a Babylonian journal written about the time of Guagamela.

Did Aristotle mention him at all?

[Fuzzy_wuzzy]

Shakespeare’s Catholicism and bisexuality are founded upon quite flimsy sources. I don’t know if his Catholicism and bisexuality are widely accepted but certainly the argument of his supposed Catholicism has gained greater traction in recent decades. The argument over his bisexuality rests upon whether or not you believe an auto-biographical nature of his sonnet’s; forget the ideal of platonic love between men in Renaissance literature; and believe Shakespeare would openly distribute manuscripts admitting he was sexually attracted to another man.

[AK84]

@Alessan

Didn’t virtually every horse-nomad culture in history use that tactic?

9 years late, but only those who used Horse archery (in other words, people from the C Asian Steppes and not all of them). Its quite a difficult move to pull off without stirrups.

[ralph124c]

King Solomon is almost entirely known from the Bible-outside this, not much. what puzzles me is Ancient Egypt-supposedly, the Egyptian King Necho commissioned some Phoenician sailors to circumnavigate Africa-what proof of this exists? Later, in the time of King Ramses, the egyptians send an expedition to explore the “Land of Punt”-historians cannot agree where Punt was.
Was the “Queen of Sheba” identifiable as any known historical figure?

[Bridget_Burke]

@CalMeacham

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.

Zombification is hardly an unsuitable fate for a historical discussion! I’ll seize this chance to discuss Ray Raphael’s article on Patrick Henry’s famous speech. He traces it to William Wirt:

In 1805, while practicing law in Virginia at the age of 32, Wirt embarked on an ambitious project: a biography of the legendary orator Patrick Henry, who died shortly before the turn of the century. Although Wirt had neither met Henry nor heard him speak, he assumed he could find sufficient material by consulting newspaper accounts, combing through Henry’s private papers, and communicating with Henry’s contemporaries. But in 1815, ten years into his quest, he confessed to a friend he had come up empty:

It was all speaking, speaking, speaking. ’Tis true he could talk— ‘Gods how he could talk!’ but there is no acting ‘the while.’ …And then, to make the matter worse, from 1763 to 1789, covering all the bloom and pride of his life, not one of his speeches lives in print, writing or memory. All that is told me is, that on such and such an occasion, he made a distinguished speech…. [T]here are some ugly traits in H’s character, and some pretty nearly as ugly blanks. He was a blank military commander, a blank governor, and a blank politician, in all those useful points which depend on composition and detail. In short, it is, verily, as hopeless a subject as man could well desire.

He knew he could not say that Henry “made a distinguished speech” and “keep saying this over, and over, and over again, without being able to give any account of what the speech was.” To celebrate Henry’s oratory, he would have to put it on display—and that meant placing words in his subject’s mouth. This gave him further cause for doubt: wouldn’t that be “making too free with the sanctity of history?” Yet there was no other way. Based only on distant memories of aging men, he imagined what his subject might have said—or perhaps what he wished Henry had said—despite his pledge to tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, at least in this book.”

…It should come as no surprise that William Wirt created such a masterpiece, for he was one of the great orators of *his *day. He gained prominence as lead prosecutor in Aaron Burr’s trial for treason, went on to become Attorney General under President Madison, and delivered the memorial speech to Congress when both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, the nation’s jubilee anniversary, an unlikely coincidence seen by many as an act of God.

Interesting article on the difficulties of a historian–trying to write of recent events in a relatively literate society.