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Terrific Accident posted:I often wonder how much history is accurate and how much of it is poo poo talking someone wrote down to ruin somebody else's reputation in the future. This is in fact a well-known problem in historiography. For example among the Roman emperors there were a number who have variously depraved reputations but the sources we have for those reputations are almost always dated to after that emperor's death, and frequently written by people who may have been trying to distance themselves from the old boss. Determining the accuracy of those sources is not exactly trivial. (Even the most exaggerated shitwriting, however, is useful in that it teaches us something about the society and culture the writer existed in; if a writer dwells at some length about how bad the old emperor was for doing X, we can conclude that doing X was considered a very bad and scandalous thing, and so forth.)
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Aug 30, 2017 10:18
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 12:10 |
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