Vegetius\' description of a Roman Legion

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Robert,
I also disagree that we cannot answer these questions at all unless the author tells us. For example: if the author lived a long time after the events in question, clearly he was not an eyewitness and did not talk to eyewitnesses. Also, just because an author tells us his methods doesn't mean we should be sure those are the methods he actually used (although we can take it as probably true unless the evidence suggests otherwise). We still have to test it against the works themselves, what else we know about the author and his contemporaries, and so on.

I'm surprised to see you say that "it is not valid to ask these questions", because every skilled ancient historian I know of does. Haven't you written articles on our written sources for Sub-Roman Britain and what each was probably trying to do, or on whether Geoffrey of Monmouth really used lost old books? Greeks and Romans and Jews who wrote histories usually aimed at different things than modern academic historians do, but modern academic historians of any period are still trying to form a best guess at what really happened to something in the past. I think ancient Greco-Roman history differs from other kinds of history in accidents not essence: I think there is a continuum, from "very well documented" (Canada in 1940) to "very poorly documented" (Babylonia in 1000 BCE) which shapes the types of questions we can ask and the methods we use on them. For example, ancient historians have to use weaker (coins) and less reliable (tertiary sources like Diodorus) forms of evidence than historians of better documented periods. Maybe we need a new thread on historical methods?

True, true.

I think I used the wrong words to express what was in my mind. or, I misinterpreted your original post.
Anyway, as you put it like that it's indeed valid.
I think I was thinking of these questions as a model to determine the credence of each source, and that I had objections about that.
Of course the questions can be asked, but not many sources provide any answers.
Of course one can write about the intentions, sources etc. of an author, provided the words 'probably' or 'possibly' are used when he does not tell us so.

But I maintain that it's not valid to compare the historical method of modern and ancient historians. I mean, one can compare them, but as their intentions were different, the method was of course different as well.
A new thread? Good idea.