[fsloth]

I am always amazed of the tenacity of factual information from past generations to survive. Even though Philip reigned in a historical age, the substrate which carried the stories to future generations has always been quite fragile. Writing is truly the most magical of our inventions, surpassing any others (until at least our AI descendant overlords arrive :) )

[kilon]

Personally I find that modern historians tend to be "jealous" of old historians and are quick to accuse them for misinformation, prejudice and superstition. But again and again the "myths" are proving to be the truth. Obviously not always. We live in an age that we tend to overestimate to great degree of our technology and underestimate the raw power of human mind. The ancients had both the means and the method to produce high quality work. Moreover a historian that would lie most likely he would be discredited quite easily by other historians of his time and his books would fall into disuse. We should not also forget that the world back then was way smaller than it is now , news would spread fast and vocal accounts would have been much easier to be kept in memory for centuries.

[mercurial]

You have to consider that, especially in Roman times, ancient historians tended to produce works at the behest of a sponsor. Assuming that political motivations may twist their objectivity is not a stretch.

[fsloth]

Not only that but sometimes the works that have been preserved the best are obvious political tools. E.g. Julius Cesar's "The Gallic war".

Which, since we are on the topic, I absolutely must suggest as a reading for anyone who has the slightest interest in historical fact - or fiction - for that matter. Yes, the work is political boast about the campaign - but it is filled with juicy details on roman logistics, political action in the region, and so on.

[narrator]

I think this is why I enjoyed reading Montifiorre's Stalin biographies. Stalin was so universally hated in his native Georgia that there was no taboo in or desire to withhold all the details of his life that would have been omitted in a biography of a more respected leader.

[lexcorvus]

Certainly the Art of Writing is the most miraculous of all things man has devised. Odin's Runes were the first form of the work of a Hero; Books, written words, are still miraculous Runes, the latest form! In Books lies the soul of the whole Past Time; the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream. Mighty fleets and armies, harbors and arsenals, vast cities, high-domed, many-engined,—they are precious, great: but what do they become? Agamemnon, the many Agamemnons, Pericleses, and their Greece; all is gone now to some ruined fragments, dumb mournful wrecks and blocks: but the Books of Greece! There Greece, to every thinker, still very literally lives: can be called up again into life. No magic Rune is stranger than a Book. All that Mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of Books. They are the chosen possession of men.

—Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-worship, and the Heroic in History, 1840

[willvarfar]

Interesting how they identified the occupants by matching their wounds with the historical record.