AMDG

5 Classical Studies 1

1. INTRODUCTION

These notes give you, for reference purposes, a brief sketch of the various types of sources which you may meet during the course, particularly when we tackle Practical Analysis, and to guide you as to how to interpret them, particularly how much much trust to place in them.

1.1 Primary Sources and Secondary Sources

Anything written or made by the Greeks or Romans themselves is sometimes called a PRIMARY source, while comments and descriptions by later scholars are treated as SECONDARY source. While this is a neat looking division, it can cause problems. A Roman author living (say) two hundred or more years after events he is describing may have had access to contemporary source material but we can't always be sure of that: on the other hand the considered views of a scholar who has spent a lifetime studying a particular topic are often of far greater value than a fragment from some ancient author.

1.2 Literary Sources and Archaeological Evidence

Another distinction must be made between literary sources and material evidence. Literary sources cover all the 'published' books by Greek or Roman (or, in the case of the Old Testament, Hebrew) authors ('published' in inverted commas, because of course before the invention of printing, every single 'book' was a handwritten document, copied, more or less directly, and more or less accurately, from the author's own archetype). Most of these, and certainly all the important texts, are now readily accessible in modern translations

Material evidence includes not only Greek and Roman objects and archaeological sites but also inscriptions and coins.

In these notes we cannot discuss every individual source you may meet, but they should help you gain some idea of the type of source you are dealing with and the problems which may be associated with it. For instance what is said about inscriptions is to some extent true of all inscriptions, what is said about Aristophanes is to some extent true of all comic poetry.

1.3 Some Key Questions to ask yourself about ALL sources

1. Is it Greek, Roman, or modern?
2. How close is its date to the dates of with what it claims to describe?
3. How well informed is the author likely to have been about what he describes?
4. Is this source likely to be biased in some way?
5. For whom, and for what purpose, was the source written or created?
6. How does the evidence in this source compare with others?
7. What importance should I place on this source as evidence, and why?

2 Greek Literary Sources

The Major Sources are listed here in categorical order, followed by brief notes on some others you may meet, which have been given in alphabetical order for easy reference.

2.1 Early Written Sources

2.1.1 Homer (8th century BC)

'Author' of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two long epic poems set against the background of the story of the sack of Troy. These poems are the fountainhead of European literature, but for our purposes the earliest source on Greek society. They appeared in an 'authorised version' in the late 8th/7th century BC. They describe events and customs which are supposed to be of Mycenaean times (c. 1400 - c. 1150 BC) but may in fact contain material from as late as the 9th century BC. They were regarded with great respect by Greeks of our period and were frequently quoted by them as an authority on all sorts of mythological, 'historical' and even philosophical and theological matters.
Strengths: this material can tell us a lot about customs and religious beliefs and moral values (e.g. about attitudes about the roles of women or slaves in society) which endured well into classical times.
Limitations: This is literature, not history; it was composed several centuries before the main period we study, so may tell us of persisting attitudes and moral assumptions, but not much of actual historical events.
Key Question:
How much had things changed by the 5th century?

2.1.2 Hesiod (c. 700 BC)

The most important poems linked with his name are:
(i) The Theogony, in which he tried to explain where the gods came from and how they influence the world.
(ii) The Works and Days, a collection of moral and practical advice for farmers which is one of the best sources for early social conditions and agriculture.
Strengths: Hesiod is one of the few surviving authors from Greek or Roman antiquity who gives us a real glimpse of farming life (which was the main productive pursuit for most Greeks most of the time), and of early social relations between aristocrats and peasants; he also gives useful insights into beliefs about the gods and their relationships with mankind.
Limitations: too early to be a source for historical facts in our period.
Key Questions:
How much had things changed before 5th Century? Did farmers in 5th Century Attica have similar ideas? How well does Hesiod - a literate landowner, so hardly a simple peasant - represent the views of ordinary people?

2.2 5th Century Athenian Drama - Tragedy and Comedy

In 5th Century Athens poetry was not usually a personal matter and the major poets used their talents in the great annual dramatic festivals to express the concerns of the whole community - the polis. There were two chief forms of Athenian drama which survive in sufficient quantity for modern productions to be given and modern literary judgments to be formed - tragedy and comedy. Although there are problems in using the surviving plays as source material, they cannot be ignored, particularly as they were written to be performed before a mass audience of ordinary Athenians, and had therefore to accommodate the beliefs, assumptions and values of those audiences.

2.2.1 Tragedy

It was rare for tragedians to make direct comment on contemporary events (Persians, by Aeschylus, with its sympathetic treatment of a defeated enemy, is the one surviving example of such comment), but even so the plays which survive reflect many of the political and moral issues of the day. It is also clear from the comments of other Greek writers that the audiences at the festivals did see the plays as reflecting their own lives.

2.2.1.1 Aeschylus (525/4 - 456 BC)

Although Aeschylus wrote at least eighty plays only seven of them survive. All his plays are based on a deep religious feeling and show how an individual's destiny is worked out as a conflict between human passions and the divine purposes of the gods. He lived through the period of the great struggles of the Greeks against Persia, and fought in person at the Battle of Marathon. The three plays in his great trilogy Oresteia have interesting comments on the relationship between men and the gods, on the relationship between the individual and the State, on the relationship between men and women, and on the nature of Justice. Aeschylus is the earliest of the great tragic dramatists and is often considered (usually by those who haven't read his plays!) as a conservative figure: this is very far from the truth. The Oresteia itself, written in the immediate aftermath of Ephialtes' political reforms at Athens, is a paean of celebration of progressive justice as embodied in the democratic courts.

2.2.1.2 Sophocles (c. 496 - 406 BC)

Sophocles was not only a very popular dramatist who wrote some 123 plays (of which only seven survive) but an active citizen, sometime general, and friend of the historian Herodotus, and Pericles, the greatest politician and statesman of the 5th century. Many of his surviving plays, including Antigone, are concerned with the clashes that can arise between the demands or rights of the individual and those of the community as a whole. However it is also all too easy to read into his plays comment which may not be there at all.

2.2.1.3 Euripides (c. 480 - 406 BC)

The youngest of the great tragic writers, Euripides has left us more to judge him by than the others, for of his 92 plays 19 survive. Euripides more than either of the other two great tragedians created characters who used ordinary everyday language to discuss their human problems: many of the scenes are debates on issues which were being discussed in the streets of Athens. Euripides also seems to have had a genuine interest in feminine psychology and this shows through in his creation of such remarkable female characters such as Medea or Phaedra. This was a side of his work which shocked his contemporaries, who were also offended by what they saw as his lack of dignity, his apparently rather flippant attitude to the gods and his obscenity. He was attacked for these by Aristophanes in The Frogs and doesn't seem to have been particularly popular or successful in the dramatic competitions. In fact he left Athens in 408 and died in Macedonia. After his death his plays became very popular and were frequently performed. He is probably the most accessible of all the Greek writers to a modern audience but it is easy to be carried away by the arguments of his heroines and to see too many modern ideas contained in what they say.
Points to remember:
All these plays are first and foremost literature: and although very stark contemporary issues may be reflected in them, they are not sociological debates.
They were all written originally for an audience which consisted of 5th Century Athenian men. (It is almost certain that women were not allowed into the theatre.) All the actors (including the Chorus) are male.
Thoughts or opinions expressed by characters in plays can never be regarded automatically as the thoughts, opinions or beliefs of either the playwright or the audience.
Most of the plays are set in a mythological past several centuries before our period. This means that references to contemporary situations are rarely direct or simple. (Perhaps Euripides made the mistake of being too direct!)
No matter how much we agree emotionally with what Antigone or Medea or Heracles has to say, we always must bear in mind the context in which s/he is saying it and remember that the very fact that s/he is voicing any view at all is itself unusual.
Key Question:
Can we really assume that things said by characters in a tragedy are a always a true reflection of society in Athens in the 5th Century?

2.2.2 Comedy

Unlike tragic dramatists the writers of comedy made direct and frank comments about the life of the city round about them, and so it is impossible to study the life of 5th Century Athens without looking at this evidence no matter how biased and distorted it may appear to be.

2.2.2.1 Aristophanes (c. 450 - c. 385 BC)

Aristophanes is the only writer of what is called 'Old Comedy' of whom any complete plays survive. We have the titles of 40 plays and 11 of these are more or less complete. His plays give fascinating insights into the politics and life of his day. Most of them were written at a time when Athens was locked in a fierce struggle with her great rival Sparta, and the action of the plays is always set against the backcloth of the war and the hardships endured by the ordinary people of Athens and Attica.
Points to remember:
All his plays are first and foremost entertainment. If his audience doesn't laugh then he has failed. A comedian caricatures and exaggerates for comic effect: we must always allow for the exaggeration.
Again we must never forget that they were all written for an audience which consisted of 5th Century Athenian men. All the actors (including the Chorus) are male. In three plays (Ecclesiazusae or Assemblywomen, Thesmophoriazusae or The Poet and the Women and Lysistrata ) the leading characters are all women and in one of these - Assemblywomen - the women then proceed to dress themselves up as men. The very fact that he represents the women as trying to take an active part in controlling their own destiny tells us a great deal about the probable reaction of his audience!
Even if we agree with what Lysistrata or Praxagora says about the place of women, we always must bear in mind the comic context and remember that the very fact that she is voicing any view at all is itself intended to be comical. This doesn't mean that Aristophanes doesn't feel sympathy for his female characters: he also feels sympathy for the slaves: that doesn't imply for one moment that he thinks the slaves should all be set free or that women should actually be allowed to vote!
Key Questions:
How far can we assume that what characters in a comedy say are a true reflection of society in Athens in the 5th Century?
How far did Aristophanes or other comic poets intend to convey a serious message? (This is an issue much debated by expert critics, and still not resolved.)

2.3 The Historians

History as we know it (historia) began in the Greek cities round the coast of Asia Minor (now Turkey) in the late 6th century BC. The writers who appeared in this generation, and of whom only fragments now survive, were no longer concerned, as the existing poets and sages were, with the gods and the physical structure of the world, but interested in anything and everything to do with people, society and local traditions, and the political organisation of communities. They were also the first Greeks to use prose when writing down their 'stories' ('story' is but a shortened form of 'historía', and in Italian, French, German, modern Greek, Russian, and no doubt other modern languages, the same word covers both). The main feature of their work seems to have been their intense curiosity and their willingness to record anything and everything (not always very discriminately), usually in the form of local chronicles connecting up such things as foundation-legends with contemporary events.

2.3.1 Herodotus (c. 484 - c. 420 BC)

Herodotus, who came from the same area as these early historians, followed in their footsteps, but deserves to be called the 'Father of History', because he was the first such writer deliberately to seek to explain the causes of things as well as simply to say what happened and when. He spent his life in travel and research into what makes men behave as they do, in particular the causes for the two great Persian invasions of Greece and the reasons for their failure. While Herodotus was perfectly capable of being sceptical of some of the more far-fetched tales he heard in his travels, he could seldom resist the temptation to include such details in his history, sometimes prefacing them by saying 'I do not know whether this is true or not, but this is what [e.g.] the Egyptian priests told me'. Although Herodotus never pretended to seek the levels of accuracy and objective criticism which we think we are entitled to expect (sometimes mistakenly) in the work of a modern historian, it was he who set the pattern of mixed narrative and analysis which is fundamental to what all historians do.
Points to remember
Whatever fanciful stories Herodotus may transmit, he was much closer to the events he describes and drawing on a far wider range of first-hand evidence than any modern historian can hope to have. Everything he says is interesting, even if he perhaps gets details wrong or draws wrong conclusions.
In some ways Herodotus is more like a historical novelist than what we would call a historian but he is certainly a first class source.
Key Question:
Is Herodotus telling us such and such a detail or story in order to entertain us, or to inform us?

2.3.2 Thucydides (c. 460 - c. 395 BC)

Thucydides was an Athenian general in the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. When he failed to defend the city of Amphipolis he was exiled from Athens and did not return there for twenty years. He wrote a history of the war which was never completed. He was the first historian to attempt to analyse long-term political issues in the way which modern historians seek to do. He saw all the events of the war as part of a logical pattern of cause and effect. His speeches, however, are not a record of what was actually said but rather a way of describing the way that individuals saw the issues at stake. Although he perhaps failed in some of his aims, Thucydides is the single most important source for the 5th century.
Points to remember
Thucydides was an astute and original thinker about politics, and passionately concerned with absolute accuracy; he was also acutely conscious that his various informants might make mistakes or be biased, and sought to allow for these difficulties in his own final write-up. But he was also a leading actor in some of the events he describes. His History might be compared with an account by a former Cabinet Minister. When he puts words into the mouths of Athenian or other politicians, we must remember that he may well have been present at the time, and certainly discussed contemporary issues extensively with other political activists. His record of events commands complete belief, though we remain free to question or disagree with some of his interpretative judgments about the motives of the cities and their leaders; but he is much closer to these things than any modern critic can be.
It is only natural that there will be some bias in his work: although he claims to be even-handed, and usually appears to be so between Athens and Sparta, he was an Athenian - that will give some colouring to his views; secondly, he was exiled from Athens - that will probably have influenced his attitude to those responsible, and (rightly or wrongly) he gives the politicians who came to prominence after Pericles' death in 429 a very unfavourable press.
However, for meticulous factual detail and accuracy, and informed, intelligent comment, Thucydides is unique as a source.
Key Questions:
How objective can anyone be in describing events in which he himself was involved? (How different would Pericles' or Cleon's description of events have been? How much does one version of 'the Thatcher Years' today differ from another?)

2.3.3 Xenophon (c. 428 - c. 354)

Xenophon was very different from either Herodotus or Thucydides. As a young man he was a follower of the famous Athenian philosopher Socrates. However he lived most of his life near Olympia, in the west-central Pelopnnese, on land given to him by the Spartans. He wrote a history of Greece (Hellenicá) which starts in the year 411 (where Thucydides had left off), but he was by no means so careful an historian as Thucydides. He also wrote several smaller works, however, which are interesting source-material on social matters.

2.4 Philosophers and Political Scientists

With the fall of Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian War, political life developed into chaos with rapid swings between democracy and other forms of government. Several leading philosophers and other writers of this generation attempted to analyse what had gone wrong and to come up with ideal solutions to the problems of living in a polis.

2.4.1 Plato (c. 429 -347 BC)

Plato was a pupil of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle. He never forgave the Athenians for condemning his beloved teacher Socrates to death and had little time for democracy—Athenian or any other. His ideal state, outlined in the ten books of The Republic, was based on a system where 'philosopher-kings' (the 'Guardians') would rule. Plato founded a school, the Academy, in Athens to train up the statesmen of the future, but his star pupil Dion of Syracuse in Sicily was rather a failure as he ended up being murdered. However Plato did have some original ideas such as giving girls the same education as boys, although there is no record of any female pupils at the Academy.
Points to remember:
Plato had a very prejudiced view of 'democracy', which he fiercely disliked. He wasn't a practical man like Thucydides or Xenophon and interprets events to fit in with his theories.
Key Question:
What weight should we put upon the views of critics of 'democracy' when thinking about the way it worked in 5th-century Athens?

2.4.2 Aristotle (384 - 322 BC)

Aristotle studied with Plato at the Academy until Plato's death. He then went on his travels and at one time acted as tutor to the young Alexander the Great. In 335 he returned to Athens and set up his own college, the Lyceum, where he taught until the year before his death. He was not so much a polymath as a pantomath, whose astonishingly wide interests and knowledge spanned the entire range of the arts and sciences; his surviving works, many of which appear to have been lecture-notes rather than 'finished' works, reflect this range, from literary criticism to sociology and politics to human and animal biology, physics and metaphysical philosophy; and while of course modern science has moved on by leaps and bounds, his masterly Politics remains a timeless basic textbook of poilitical and historical theory for scholars and students today.
Amongst their other labours the scholars at the Lyceum collected some 158 constitutional histories (politeiai) from all the major Greek cities and by accident that of Athens - The Constitution of Athens - survived, to be re-discovered in the late nineteenth century on papyrus rolls in Berlin and London. Although some scholars have claimed that it was written by a research student rather than by Aristotle himself, it bears the stamp of Aristotle's own intellectual system and authority, and is a major piece of evidence for the 6th- and 5th-century development of Athens' democratic order.
Points to remember:
Aristotle knew everything there was to be known about everything, so when he reports something as fact, we can believe it. But he was also a theoretical philsopher, and we must be careful to distinguish what he presents as fact from his theories, which we are not obliged to accept - for example in his treatment of slavery, where he assumes (rather than argues) that slavery is both natural and expedient, even for slaves themselves.
Key Question:
How much of Plato's prejudices survive in Aristotle's own work? How far is any observation he makes influenced by the theoretical framework which he applied to everything.

2.4.3 The Old Oligarch = (Pseudo)-Xenophon

This is the name (misleadingly) now given to the writer of a political pamphlet which is also called The Constitution of Athens and which was once attributed to Xenophon. It was written sometime between 445 and 415, probably in the early years of the Peloponnesian War. Its author seems to have been an Athenian political exile who is attempting to explain to non-Athenians the way in which the Athenian people justified their political rule. He appears to be a supporter of 'oligarchy' (rule by a few) and so he gets the title 'The Old Oligarch'. As we would expect he is rather prejudiced against democracy!

2.5 The Speeches of Greek Orators

Over 100 political and forensic speeches survive from the late Vth and IVth centuries BC, and although they are obviously intended to win debates and law-suits they do have interesting points to make in the things which they expect their audience to take as accepted fact, particularly in the areas of social customs and beliefs, and the day-to-day mechanics of the democratic constitution. Three were alive in the 5th century - Lysias (c. 459 - c. 380 BC), Andocides (c. 440 - c. 390 BC) and Isocrates (436 - 338 BC), and the later orators, iuncluding the two great rivals in the following century, Aeschines (c. 390 - 330 BC) and Demosthenes (384 - 322 BC), quite frequently (if often inaccurately) refer back to 5th-century events or personalities, or give us precious information about enduring social conditions or the beliefs, values and attitudes of their audiences.

It is unwise, however, to trust any of these sources too highly, for they are one-sided political activists, usually in the business of telling Athenian jurymen what they want to hear, rather than scientific historians committed to rational objectivity.

2.6 Later Writers on Greek Society and Politics

There were many writers in later centuries who described what they saw as the golden age of Athens. Many of these had access to a wealth of source material which has now disappeared for ever: even writing in the 2nd century BC they had a perspective which no modern writer can ever hope to have. Two in particular are interesting sources.

2.6.1 Pausanias (c. 150 AD)

Pausanias was a great traveller who described everything he saw and heard as he moved through Greece. He follows in the tradition of Herodotus, and is always worth considering carefully. Many of his comments about sights have been confirmed by archaeological excavation and perhaps his historical material may be more accurate than he is given credit for.

2.6.2 Plutarch (c. 46 - c. 126 AD)

Plutarch was a native Greek, but also a Roman citizen ('Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus'), who wrote 23 pairs of Parallel Lives where the lives of great Greeks and Romans were compared with one another - Alexander and Caesar, Pericles and Fabius Maximus, etc.; and a large number of separate essays on all manner of topics. Although he was more interested in bringing out the characters of the individuals concerned, he was highly knowledgeable, and quotes freely from many sources which are now lost; his Lives are therefore a major source of information on both the Athenian and Roman periods, and his other writings are a rich source of information on social attitudes and history.
Points to remember:
Though widely read amd very knowledgeable, Plutarch was as far removed in time from 5th-cent. Athens as we are from the Wars of the Roses or the Reformation. He can also be uncritical in his use of sources, or mis-remember them, for he appears seldom to have checked them precisely, writing rather from his (wide) stock of general knowledge.
Key question: for any statement Plutarch makes, we have to ask where he may have obtained his information, and how accurately he has reproduced it; what will his source's biases have been?

2.7 Appendix of Other Greek Literary Sources - in alphabetical order

2.7.1 Aelian (c. AD 170 - 235) - a teacher and writer whose Varia Historia is a collection of anecdotes many derived from sources now lost: a fairly dubious source.

3 Greek Archaeological Evidence

3.1 Architectural and other sites

Many ancient sites connected with 5th Century Athens have been excavated by archaeologists: there are four which are very important for our purposes.

3.1.1 The Acropolis

Many of the finest buildings in 5th Century Athens were on the sacred area of the Acropolis - the vast rock in the centre of the city - and were preserved more or less intact for many centuries after the fall of Athens as a great power. The problem is not so much that there is no evidence as that there is so much!
Most of the shrines on the Acropolis as we see them today were replacements for older buildings. One of the problems is disentangling what are the ruins of the 'old' and what are those of the 'new'. We are, of course, specially interested in the building programme organised by Pericles, but we have to take the interpretations of the experts on trust, and all they can offer are possible theories of how things probably looked.

3.1.2 The Agora

This was the main square of Athens at the foot of the Acropolis, and it was here that the daily life of the city was carried on. The area has been the special concern of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. There are thousands of finds large and small from this area which are vital clues to our understanding of the polis.

3.1.3 The Kerameikos ('Potters' Quarter')

This area was divided in two by the city wall and one of the main gateways. Outside was an area of tombs where some of the most famous Athenians lie buried. Unfortunately most of the 5th century tombs are under modern buildings, but the work of the German Archaeological Institute has produced some outstanding evidence, particularly relating to ostracism.

3.1.4 Eleusis

Although the ancient sanctuary now lies in an industrial suburb of Athens and has been much damaged, it is still possible thanks to the skilled work of Greek and American archaeologists to understand much of what happened here. As Eleusis was the centre for the celebration of the Mysteries in Classical times, it is fascinating to stand in the ruins and imagine what happened. However we are very much at the mercy of the archaeologists here as the site is very complex and much of what we see is in fact Roman rebuilding of the ancient site.

3.2 Vase Paintings

One outstanding source of information on Greek life is the decoration on pottery. Again we need help in interpreting the material, but there are many topics cojncerning day-to-day life on which this is a most valuable source. Painted pottery can also be very useful in dating other archaeological evidence.

3.3 Coins

Every polis gradually came to produce its own coinage for convenience and as a symbol of local pride and independence. These coins serve as a useful guide not only to what citizens thought important to record about their own cities but also help us to understand the nature of trade and commerce at this time. Numerous hoards of Athenian coins found in places as far away as the Black Sea and Egypt prove the existence of extensive Athenian trade with these regions and that Athenian silver was particularly prized for its purity.

3.4 Inscriptions

Evidence from inscriptions of every kind is constantly increasing, coming either from systematic archaeological excavation or from chance discoveries. Many of these are little more than 'graffiti' or perhaps a dedication scratched on a cup or statuette: others are curses, thousands are epitaphs on tombstones. A good many, however, especially from classical Athens, are imortant public documents - laws, decrees, treaties, lists. The large number found in and around Athens is precious evidence not only of the democratic functioning of the polis, but also that at least partial literacy was widespread among the citizen population.
Inscriptions are excellent first-hand evidence, but interpreting them can be difficult at times, for:

1. Many inscriptions are fragments and so it is not always easy to decide what was on the missing parts.
2. Lettering is sometimes hard to read.
3. Sometimes letters or even whole words have been erased by time: sometimes they were left out by the mason.
4. There are sometimes contractions and abbreviations in the text to trap the unskilled.

This all means that often we depend on the skill and interpretation of experts and even they may disagree.

4 Roman Literary sources

Again the Major Sources are listed here followed by some notes on some others you might meet which have been given in alphabetical order for easy reference. There are some sources which are useful for both Greek and Roman topics and in that case you will be referred back to earlier sections.

4.0 Note on Roman Names

Roman Names usually consist of three parts. They are referred to here in that form with the name by which they are usually known in English - e.g. Marcus Tullius Cicero is usually simply called 'Cicero'.

4.1 3rd/2nd-Century Roman Comedy

Unlike the Greek dramatists the Roman comedians (among the earliest written sources in Latin) based their plots not on everyday life in Rome but on the plots used in Greek New Comedy. However they do have some insights to give us on the relationships between masters and slave or old and young in Roman society. We must bear in mind the non-Roman context. It is a bit like judging British society in the 1940's from scripts for "Allo! Allo!". The two main writers whose works have survived are Plautus (Titus Maccius Plautus, 254-184 BC) and Terence (Publius Terentius Afer, 195 - 159 BC).

4.2 Roman Historians

4.2.1 The Annales Maximi

Roman historiography (i.e. history-writing) did not begin until the end of the 3rd century BC when Rome was already the main super power in the Mediterranean world. All its previous history had then to be re-invented from legends, from oral tradition, from the archives or memories of the aristocratic families and from the records of the various colleges of priests. Especially important was an annual record compiled by the pontifex maximus (Chief Priest) in his work of supervising the calendar. This was a yearly record of the magistrates for the year and list of important or unusual events with religious or political significance (eclipses as much as battles). These Annales Maximi or Priestly Chronicles (as they were called) were to serve as a model for all the Roman historians. Where they didn't exist (many having been destroyed in the burning of Rome in 390 BC) they were simply made up. The writers of these Annales tended to glorify Rome and above all the great families of Rome, and this tradition was kept up by those who came after them.

4.2.2 Early Historians

The first Roman historian Quintus Fabius Pictor (c. 200 BC) wrote his Annals of Rome in Greek and he had several imitators until the time of L. Cassius Hemina (c. 150 BC). These early writers were not only following in the footsteps of the early annalists but they were also under the influence of the Greek historians who were much more interested in being literary artists than in creating an accurate record of events. There was an attitude (coming from Greek drama) that great individuals were important and indeed the Roman historians saw at least part of their task as giving a practical and moral guide for would-be great men of their own day.
Although these early writers had many defects, by our standards, they served as the main source from which the great historians who came after them drew many of their 'facts'.

4.2.3 The Great Roman Historians

4.2.3.1 Polybios (c. 200 - c. 117 BC)

Polybios was a Greek who originally arrived in Rome as a hostage. He lived there for seventeen years and became convinced that the Roman Empire was destined to triumph over the rest of the world. He wrote his Historiae to convince his fellow Greeks of the pointlessness of resistance. Although his Histories ended in the year 146 BC (when Corinth was destroyed by the Romans), Polybius is very important as a source for the important period when Rome was taking over control of the Mediterranean world. Only the first five of the twenty volumes survive, but enough for us to see that, apart from his general pro-Roman angle, he was a conscientious and responsible historian, well aware of the limitations of some of his own sources.

4.2.3.2 Caesar - Gaius Julius Caesar (100 - 44 BC)

Caesar was a major political figure in the last years of the Roman Republic, but also a considerable writer. His own accounts of the fighting in Gaul (de bello Gallico) and of the Civil War against Pompey are important first-hand accounts, although they are, inevitably, biased towards Caesar's own point of view.

4.2.3.3 Sallust - Gaius Sallustius Crispus (c. 86 - c. 35 BC)

Sallust was an active politician, and a junior officer under Julius Caesar. In later life he turned to history. He wrote two useful surviving historical booklets: one on the conspiracy of Catiline against the senate and people of Rome (The Catilinarian Conspiracy) and another about the war in north Africa between the Romans and the Numidian king, Jugurtha in 111 - 106 BC (The Jugurthine War). He began a major history of Rome, which is sometimes quoted by other writers, but it was unfinished at his death, and regrettably only fragments survive. Sallust, like Caesar, is an interesting source as he lived through some of the events he describes, and certainly knew many eye-witnesses to the others.

4.2.3.4 Livy - Titus Livius (64 or 59 BC - c. AD 12)

Livy lived most of his life in Rome and was one of the writers supported by the first Roman emperor, Augustus. He was commissioned by Augustus to write a History of Rome - ab urbe condita (= 'From the City's Foundation') of Rome in 142 volumes. Only 35 of these survive in full, the sections dealing with the early legends of Rome and those describing the war between Rome and the Carthaginians led by Hannibal.
Livy wrote in the style of the early annalists treating the events of each year in sequence. In his work he used history to build up the glory of Rome. He was however in many ways the most important historian of the Republican period and he certainly had sources available to him which are not there for a historian today. Where he overlaps with Polybius it is fascinating to compare their two very distinct approaches.
Livy's reputation was very high even in his own life-time and his work became a text-book of Roman history. The young Pliny was studying a book of Livy as his uncle was dying in the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius which destroyed Pompeii in AD79. Even by the time of Martial (born c. AD 40) there were shortened versions of Livy's History (called Epitomes) in circulation.
One of these Epitomes which survives is the only guide we have to what was in the missing books, at least for the period from 133-80 BC. It is probably a summary of a summary and sometimes a whole book of Livy is described in a few lines. It is of very little value as a source.
Livy is a very useful source of information regarding the origins of the Roman way of doing things but his account has to be balanced very carefully with any other data which is available, especially the results of archaeological excavation.

4.2.3.5 Tacitus - Cornelius Tacitus (c. 56 - c. 118 AD)

Tacitus was a brilliant public speaker and leading political figure in a period when both these talents could lead to major problems with the reigning Emperor, Domitian. However he survived and became even more famous as the greatest of all Roman historians.
His early works were a biography of his father-in-law Julius Agricola (the Roman governor of Britain who conquered parts of Scotland) and a description of the tribes of Germany. However his two major historical works were:
The Annals, intended to cover the period from the death of the Emperor Augustus in 14 AD to the death of the Emperor Nero in 68 AD. There were originally to be 18 Books of which parts of 5 and 6 are missing as are the whole of 7-10 and Book 16 ends abruptly in 66 AD, probably indicating that Tacitus did not live to finish the project
The Histories, in 12 books, covering the period from 68 to the death of the Emperor Domitian in 96 AD. Only the first four books and a scrap of Book 5 survive.
Tacitus wrote in a markedly concise style which has a rare ability to convey great meaning in a terse comment. As a historian he was interested above all in the reasons why people did things and why things happened, and he used his own sources (including senatorial archives) wisely and critically. He was a keen and acute observer of political behaviour, but a bitter critic of everything connected with the Emperors. He saw the world in which he lived as a sad reflection of what Rome had once been and getting worse and worse every day.
Tacitus is the main (and often the only) source for the period of the early Empire, and his pessimistic and caustic, sometimes cynical, views are usually repeated in all later descriptions including those of modern 'impartial' historians. Tacitus as a skilled orator loved to write in an oratorical style with characters which are black or white and actions which are good or evil: real life is never so clear. If you allow for his (very natural) pessimism and his anti-imperial bias, you'll discover that Tacitus is the prince of historians.

4.2.3.6 (Cassius) Dio (c. AD 155-235)

Dio was a Bithynian Greek senator who, after a high-profile public career including the cos.-ship, retired to spend 10 yrs. researching and 12 writing up 80-odd books of Roman history from the city's legendary beginnings to AD 229.
Strengths: Dio had no political axes to grind on our period, except a general predisposition to support the monarchy; he also had some good political experience and sense, and supplies relatively full detail, especially on Augustus. His work is generally the best surviving continuous narrative of the late Republic, from 68 BC onwards.
Limitations: on the other hand Dio's text is incomplete; he was out of sympathy with Republican political behaviour (but gets better with Aug. and the principate); he was also dependent on other sources, especially Livy, therefore subject to their biases and inadequacies. Also, he was too often more concerned with rhetorical or dramatic neatness & effect than with accuracy.

4.3 Other Important Writers on the Republic and Early Empire - in alphabetical order

4.3.1 Cato - Marcus Porcius (Cato 234 - 160 BC) ("Cato the Censor")

A famous statesman and symbol of the old-fashioned Roman. He wrote a guide for farmers (On Agriculture) which has many interesting comments to make and is a good description of life in the country at a time just before our period begins. He also wrote a history of Rome from the earliest times down to 149 BC but only fragments of this survive in quotations by other writers.

4.3.2 Catullus - Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84 - c. 54 BC)

Catullus was a member of the fashionable Roman set in the late Republic. His poems (all 113 of them) give many insights into the life of Roman society in his day.

4.3.2 Catullus - Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84 - c. 54 BC)

Catullus was a member of the fashionable Roman set in the late Republic. His poems (all 113 of them) give many insights into the life of Roman society in his day.

4.3.3 Cicero - Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)

Cicero is arguably the single most important single historical source from all antiquity, and by any measure one of the most prolific. Three main corpora of writings:

1. Political/judicial speeches
2. Letters
3. Philosophical essays.

1. Speeches. From Verrines, 70 BC, to anti-Antonian Philippics, 44-43 BC, often involving centrally important political people or events (e.g. de lege Manilia, for Manilius' law about Pompey's command, 66, Catilinarians denouncing you-know-who, 63, in Pisonem attacking the friend of Clodius, 54, pro Milone, 52, for his part in getting Clodius killed, &c.).
Strengths: directly contemporary observations on the political scene from an adept observer and clever writer; often very funny, esp. when Cic. is on attack; profound knowledge and understanding of constitutional and legal matters, of contemporary personalities and of recent Roman history (i.e. from the Gracchi onwards).
Limitations: like any Roman lawyer, Cic. was in the business of persuasive entertainment rather than of truth. You can't trust anything he says where he or his client has an interest in their being distorted or falsified. And Cic. is capable of being utterly two-faced—as in his two orations against Rullus' land-bill in Jan. 63, one before senate, the other before plebs, quite different in tone.
2. Letters. Many 100s, dating from the late 60s until shortly before his death in 43, in two large collections and one small: to Atticus, to friends and to his brother Quintus. All are immensely valuable.
Strengths: vigour, wit, spontaneity, immediacy, honesty (Cic. says a lot in private correspondence that he would never say publicly), & the authors (some are letters to Cic. from his correspondents) are writing as direct contemporaries of the events as they happen. Only rarely do historians get such a precious source as this 'running commentary' on the affairs of the day from leading participants and observers.
Limitations: some letters are so allusively and colloquially written that they are hard to understand; & they tend to give us only the narrow political perspective of Cic. and his circle; on the whole though the only thing wrong with this collection of material is that there is not enough of it.
3. Philosophical writings. Numerous (and lengthy) works—remember, after his 'palinode' in 55, Cic. played no active part in real-live politics until after the death of Caesar, devoting himself instead to 'studies'—mostly in dialogue form on themes in politicial and moral theory (On Duties, On the Republic, On Laws, On Friendship &c.). Not profound as philosophy—Cic. was not an original thinker, though he liked to think he was—but often of interest for the characters in these fictitious conversations, who are always figures from Roman public life.
Strengths: lots of anecdotal material about distinguished individuals from Rome's past; much is revealed about Cicero's own political and social ideals, and those of the aristocratic society in which he moved.
Limitations: not a lot of anecdotal material about people important in our period anyway; and it is often hard to tell whether this sort of stuff has any historical basis whatever—philosophy need not be so factually accurate as history, needing only to get a moral point made, and sermons can include 'untrue' parables.
Overall, however, allowing for his desire to produce elegant prose and for his personal involvement in the events he is describing, Cicero is an excellent source.

4.3.4 Horace - Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 - 8 BC)

Horace, like Livy and Virgil, was supported by the first Roman emperor, Augustus. He wrote various types of poems on all kinds of topics which throw a great deal of light on the Roman world of his day. His great themes are love, the way people behave and the glory of Rome under the new Emperor, for whom he expresses devotion and admiration that verge on the obsequious.

4.3.5 Juvenal - Decimus Junius Juvenalis (c. AD 55 - c. 128)

Juvenal is famous as a writer of satire: sixteen of his poems survive and in his bitter description of life in Rome Juvenal gives us at least a glimpse of what life was like in the city for those who did not belong to the Imperial Court. While we must, of course, allow for his sarcasm and exaggeration we should not discount Juvenal as a source for ordinary life.

4.3.6 Lucretius - Titus Lucretius Carus (c. 99 - c. 55 BC)

This great poet is famous for his long poem About the Nature of the Universe in which he explained to his fellow Romans the ideas of the Greek philosopher Epicurus. Above all the poem aims to explain the idea that everything in the Universe is composed of atoms: all things including the human soul is material and mortal: there is no need to concern ourselves with death. While explaining these ideas Lucretius paints vivid pictures drawn from everyday life. A good source of information on ideas but we must remember that Lucretius was a poet and a poet with a mission.

4.3.7 Martial - Marcus Valerius Martialis (c. AD 40 - 104)

Martial was a witty poet who passed comment on all around him in his short Epigrams. There are over 1500 of these in 14 Books. Martial is always interested in human nature and its quirks. He provides us with some interesting glimpses of Roman life which would otherwise be unknown to us.

4.3.8 Ovid - Publius Ovidius Naso (43 BC - AD 17)

Ovid was a successful poet in Rome until in AD 8 he offended the Emperor Augustus and was banished into exile in a little town on the Black Sea where he died. As well as his famous love poems - The Art of Love and Love Affairs, Ovid also wrote poems about characters in mythology who were changed into animals, birds, etc. - the Metamorphoses. However from our point of view the most interesting work was the Fasti or Roman Calendar of Festivals which describe the religious festivals of Rome month by month.

4.3.9 Pliny the Elder - Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23 - 79)

This famous writer and amateur scientist was admiral of the fleet on the Bay of Naples in 79 AD and died during the eruption of Vesuvius which destroyed Pompeii. Of his many writings, the Natural History in 37 books survives.
Strengths: Pliny counts as one of the very few Romans with a serious claim to be regarded as an intellectual; he possessed boundless intellectual curiosity, and in the NH reports fascinating details on everything under the sun, and does so with openness of mind and no obvious or debilitating bias.
Limitations: he was indiscriminate and not highly organised in his approach, also too inclined to believe and pass on dubious items he found in his own sources.

4.3.10 Pliny the Younger - Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (AD 61 - 113)

Pliny the Younger was the nephew of the elder Pliny and was adopted as his son when his father died. He was living with his uncle at Misenum when the eruption of Vesuvius took place in AD 79 and in a pair of letters to the historian Tacitus he has left us a vivid eye-witness account of the eruption. Following the death of his uncle, Pliny moved to Rome and quickly became a successful politician. He wrote many letters to his friends and these were collected and published in ten books.
Strengths: though not a great intellect, Pliny bears eloquent witness to the attitudes and social lives of a certain kind of upper-class bourgeois culture of his time, with much interesting matter on such things as slavery, marriage, and domestic pursuits such as reading-habits. The 10th book, consisting of letters between Pliny and the Emperor Trajan written while Pliny was governor of Bithynia (in modern Turkey) is a major source for understanding the administration of the Roman Empire in this period.
Limitations: he was a crushing bore, and rather too pleased with himself.

4.3.11 Plutarch (c. AD 46 - c. 126)

See 2.6.2

4.3.12 Seneca - Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC - AD 65)

Seneca was one of the most important men in Rome in his day. He was chosen by the Emperor Claudius to be the tutor to Nero and when Nero became emperor Seneca retained great influence over him. He was however eventually forced to commit suicide. Seneca was a great writer of poetry and verse (including plays) but is probably most important to us as a source in his Letters (Epistulae Morales) which attempted to explain to his friend, Lucilius, how he should organise his life in keeping with the ideas of Stoic philosophy. Seneca gives us fascinating glimpses of Roman life in his day, and is one of the main sources of information on the ideas of the Stoics at a time when Stoicism was the most wide-spread philosophy of life in the Roman world.

4.3.13 Suetonius - Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (c. AD 69 - c. 140)

Suetonius is best known as a writer of biography. There are some fragments of other works but Suetonius is most famous for his Lives of the Caesars. He started off with a life of Julius Caesar (who was never an emperor) and continued with lives of the first eleven emperors up to the Emperor Domitian. Suetonius was an 'insider' who had held three of the highest posts in the imperial court. He was therefore well qualified to describe Imperial life and probably had access to files and records unavailable to others. He records the facts, the stories and the gossip without comment or judgement and has produced very readable and popular accounts of the period. It used to be fashionable to dismiss Suetonius as 'an entertaining source of gossip and scandal' but recently his status has risen to that of 'a studious and careful compiler of facts from relevant documents'.
Strengths: Suet. has little obvious bias except a slightly too indulgent view of Aug.; he usually takes care with facts and attributions; he had access to, and quotes from, red-hot source material, including Caesar's & Augustus's private papers, and also makes frequent reference to private information otherwise irretrievable.
Limitations: 'biography' is no substitute for history, diverting attention to single figures and losing sight of entire spectrum; Suet. too much an imperial bureaucrat to understand Republican politics—hence e.g. sees Caesar as the first 'emperor'. He is imprecise over chronology, since he deals in headings rather than year-by-year narrative, and makes numerous minor mistakes of identification etc.; but he is also interested in anecdotal details of diet, sexual habits etc, which may be irrelevant for political historians, but which nevertheless help to shed light on the social mores of life in and around the imperial court of the 1st cent. AD.

4.3.14 Varro - Marcus Terentius Varro (116 - 27 BC)

A prolific scholar, Varro is supposed to have written 490 books, but only two survive: one of these is about the Latin language and the other a guide for farmers (On Agriculture) in the style of Cato. This, like Cato's work, is a highly useful source of information on country life.

4.3.15 Virgil - Publius Vergilius Maro (70 - 17 BC)

Virgil is one of the great poets of Europe. Like Livy and Horace, he was sponsored by Augustus. He first wrote ten Eclogues, which give a romantic picture of country life. Four books of Georgics followed describing the life of a Roman farmer. However it is for his great epic poem The Aeneid that Virgil is justly famous. This long poem in 12 Books (left uncompleted at Virgil's death) describes the journey of Aeneas from Troy to Italy where he is destined to be the ancestor of the Roman race. The theme is the grandeur of Rome and captures the atmosphere of optimism of Rome under Augustus, when there was a genuine feeling that Rome was entering a new era of greatness.
All Virgil's work is full of a real love for Italy and above all for the Italian countryside. We can often gain valuable insights into the life of the Roman world in Virgil's own day especially in his use of similes comparing events in the great world of epic heroism with the simple life of country-folk.

4.4 Appendix of Other Roman Literary Sources - in alphabetical order

5 Archaeological Evidence

5.1 Excavated Sites

There are Roman sites all over Europe any of which can add valuable information to our ideas of the Roman way of life. There are all kinds of discoveries from a handful of stones or few scraps of mosaic to complete towns.
You will know of the buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum which were destroyed by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79. These are particularly valuable sites as there is an obvious cut-off date for anything found there. Again there are cities in Africa and the Middle East which have been preserved almost intact.
It is much commoner however for the site to have been used for many generations and even centuries. An obvious example of this is the Forum Romanum in the heart of Rome where even experts are confused by the many different levels of settlement and what scholars thought even five years ago is now longer considered "correct".
Again it may be that modern buildings now cover most of what was there in Roman times and only occasional glimpses can be seen. A good example is London where much of what there is to see is in the basements of banks and finance houses in the City.

5.2 Papyri

One new-ish source of information on life in the Roman Empire are scraps of documents written on papyrus which was widely used throughout the Roman world. It is only in the dry climate of Egypt that many of them have survived. However there are several large collections of papyri from that area which were found during the excavation of rubbish tips, e.g. at Oxyrhynchus.
Egypt had been under the control of a Macedonian Greek royal family since it had been conquered by Alexander the Great in 332 BC. Although the Romans turned it into a Roman province in 30 BC, Greek continued to be the common language and almost all the papyri are in Greek.
These papyri record the details of everyday life in a way not usually found elsewhere. They are an excellent source for the life of the provinces. There are also ordinary letters which can be compared with the literary efforts of Cicero, Seneca and Pliny.

5.3 Coins

During the Roman Empire many states continued to produce their own coins. However the spread of official Roman coinage with the head of the Emperor on the front help us to date finds in a fairly accurate way and to understand the way that Roman influence spread at this time. One interesting thing is to see the native populations adapting their own coinage to include Roman features while still retaining what they saw as most important in their own culture.

5.4 Inscriptions

Many thousands of inscriptions have been discovered in all parts of the Roman Empire. There are many official inscriptions which preserve laws, records, lists of magistrates and such documents. These serve as a useful source of information about administration both in Italy and the provinces.
There are, for instance, the lists of consuls (chief magistrates), the Fasti Consulares and of those who were given the honour of a triumphal procession in Rome, the Fasti Triumphales.
One of the most interesting and important is the Res Gestae divi Augusti (= 'Achievements of the deified Augustus'). This was a record of all his great successes which the Emperor Augustus had made for the doors of his tomb. The original inscription is lost but there were copies of it set up in many cities in the empire. One copy which was very well preserved was found in the temple of Rome and Augustus in Ankara in Turkey.
However many of the inscriptions are connected with everyday life. There are, for instance, many epitaphs on graves and graffiti on walls everywhere from Pompeii to Hadrian's Wall, from Spain to Persia.
The texts of many of these inscriptions have been published in reference collections. Some of the most important are:
CIL - Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
FIR - Fontes Iuris Romani (Roman laws collected by the German scholar Bruns)
FIRA - Fontes Iuris Romani Anteiustiniani (Roman laws collected by the Italian scholar Riccobono)
II - Inscriptiones Italiae
ILS - Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae (collected by the German scholar Dessau)
ILLRP - Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae Rei Publicae (collected by Degrassi)

Roman inscriptions can present similar problems of interpretation to Greek, and so once more our interpretation of them depends on expert guidance.
One thing to bear in mind with any of them is where they come from. Keep asking yourself if an inscription from North Africa or from Hadrian's Wall really tells us all that much about what people in Rome itself thought about things.

© anon., revised and amended LGHH 2002 f