09-12-2014, 06:14 PM
Well, I think your first problem is that you are looking for a one size fits all approach to a very pervasive historical problem. There are always going to be contradiction, and trying to just choose one source over another is not likely to lead you closer to the truth. Not to get too "epistemological," but we can never really know the truth about anything, let alone what happened 2000 years ago! :grin:
But practically speak, what we can do is interpret sources. You have to read each source carefully, look and the contradiction and then do more research! You need to asses the credibility of each source. Did they witness the event? Are they a contemporary, or are they writing much later? Do they have political/personal motives to lie/exaggerate? There are also other indicia of reliability, such as the level of detail, and whether the purpose of a give source was to provide the type of information you are seeking. Finally, you need to remember that no source was written for modern readers. This means first of all that it is not written to modern academic standards. It also worth remembering that the sources were not in English, but generally in Greek and Latin. Even if you can speak those languages today, you can't assume that every word has the same connotations that it would to the intended audience. If you are reading translations, you have to remember that that translator is only human, may have changed or lost the meaning. As writings were copied by hand until the invention of the movable type, we also cannot discount the possibility of ancient transcription errors.
If you manage to consider all of that, then you might be able to reach a conclusion. But a conclusion should rarely be something so simple as "source A is right, source B is wrong." For many of the examples that you give, more than one source could be right! For instance, if one source say soldiers wore segmentata, and another said mail, it very well could be because some soldiers wore mail and others wore segmentata. Or if one writer thinks a politician is corrupt, and the other virtuous, it could be because the politician took action that questionable but not clearly corrupt and the writers interpret it differently. Or maybe he was corrupt on one occasion and one author focuses on that and another discounts it. Or maybe the politician did engage in some corrupt behaviors, but did so less than other politicians. So he is virtuous by the standards of that time and place, but in an absolute sense he is still corrupt. Or maybe, the author who says he is corrupt just does not like him for political reasons, and so makes up a lie.
What is that takeaway here?
1. You need to gather as much information about the issue as possible, including information about the author of you sources.
2. You need to consider the reliability of each source.
3. You need to weigh the evidence of supporting each possible conclusion.
4. You need to consider whether you conclusion is based on a binary true/false, or whether the truth could be in between.
5. You need to formulate your own answer
6. You need to accept that there is no single correct answer, because you just can't know, and neither can anyone else!
But practically speak, what we can do is interpret sources. You have to read each source carefully, look and the contradiction and then do more research! You need to asses the credibility of each source. Did they witness the event? Are they a contemporary, or are they writing much later? Do they have political/personal motives to lie/exaggerate? There are also other indicia of reliability, such as the level of detail, and whether the purpose of a give source was to provide the type of information you are seeking. Finally, you need to remember that no source was written for modern readers. This means first of all that it is not written to modern academic standards. It also worth remembering that the sources were not in English, but generally in Greek and Latin. Even if you can speak those languages today, you can't assume that every word has the same connotations that it would to the intended audience. If you are reading translations, you have to remember that that translator is only human, may have changed or lost the meaning. As writings were copied by hand until the invention of the movable type, we also cannot discount the possibility of ancient transcription errors.
If you manage to consider all of that, then you might be able to reach a conclusion. But a conclusion should rarely be something so simple as "source A is right, source B is wrong." For many of the examples that you give, more than one source could be right! For instance, if one source say soldiers wore segmentata, and another said mail, it very well could be because some soldiers wore mail and others wore segmentata. Or if one writer thinks a politician is corrupt, and the other virtuous, it could be because the politician took action that questionable but not clearly corrupt and the writers interpret it differently. Or maybe he was corrupt on one occasion and one author focuses on that and another discounts it. Or maybe the politician did engage in some corrupt behaviors, but did so less than other politicians. So he is virtuous by the standards of that time and place, but in an absolute sense he is still corrupt. Or maybe, the author who says he is corrupt just does not like him for political reasons, and so makes up a lie.
What is that takeaway here?
1. You need to gather as much information about the issue as possible, including information about the author of you sources.
2. You need to consider the reliability of each source.
3. You need to weigh the evidence of supporting each possible conclusion.
4. You need to consider whether you conclusion is based on a binary true/false, or whether the truth could be in between.
5. You need to formulate your own answer
6. You need to accept that there is no single correct answer, because you just can't know, and neither can anyone else!
