As a specific illustration, take the extracts on the battle of Salamis given in my “Source Book of Greek History” (pp. 118-127). Here are three sources, Æschylus’ “Persians,” Herodotus’ “History” and Plutarch’s “Life of Themistocles,” containing almost all the information we possess upon the portion of the battle dealt with in the source book. The extracts are accompanied by the following questions that should be answered in writing by the pupils and form the foundation of the classroom exercise: “1. Compare the three accounts of the battle of Salamis given by Æschylus, Herodotus and Plutarch, noting in what they agree and in what they disagree. Are they independent? 2. Which account is the most valuable, and why? 3. Point out the myths in these accounts, i. e., things that could not have happened. 4. Make an outline of the battle, using the sources, and write a brief narrative, citing the sources. Where they disagree, explain why you follow one source rather than another.”
The answer to the first question should be given in the form of three parallel columns containing all the single affirmations found in the different sources, references to similar details appearing on the same line in the different columns, thus facilitating comparison. These columns should be followed by (1) a column containing the common details found in all the sources, (2) a second column of details referred to by two sources, and (3) other columns containing details given by but one source. In going through this operation all the pupils will have noticed that Plutarch made use of the “Persians,” and, consequently is not independent of Æschylus. Before the questions concerning the independence and value of the sources can be answered, the sources must be localized. Æschylus probably fought in the battle of Salamis and was thus an eyewitness. Note, however, the character of this source; a play performed before the Athenian people and presented some seven years after the event. A play does not offer a good opportunity to describe a battle in detail; the dramatist would be influenced by his desire to produce a work of art and to impress his audience; he would have forgotten much in the years that had passed since the battle. Although the record of an eyewitness, we cannot look upon this play as the best kind of evidence.
Herodotus was an infant, playing in the streets of Halicarnassus, when the battle of Salamis was fought. He wrote his account nearly fifty years later, basing it largely, almost wholly, upon oral tradition, although it is highly probable that he was acquainted with the “Persians” when he wrote. Nothing that Herodotus tells us here came from personal observation, nor do we know where he obtained his information, i. e., whether it was simply common report that he gathered up, or whether he talked with the most reliable witnesses of the battle. His account is less valuable than that of Æschylus as a second-hand record, but its form—a direct, detailed prose narrative—is more favorable to truth.
Plutarch lived five hundred years after the battle and obtained his information about it as a reader to-day would obtain information about the voyages of Columbus, namely, by reading what later writers had to say about them. He was not a critical historian—neither was Herodotus—and often based his narrative upon the poorest kind of evidence. He refers in this extract to four of the men of whose writings he has made use, and one of them is Æschylus.
Unsatisfactory Evidence.
The evidence is not, as a whole, of a satisfactory kind; the one witness says little, and that in an unfortunate form, written seven years after the battle; the second writer depends upon oral tradition, reproduced when it was so old that it had become unreliable; the third writer is five centuries removed from the event and an uncritical compiler. How much certainty can we reach about the battle of Salamis from such evidence as this? Possibly only the fact that the battle took place, for it is not even certain that the Greeks won the sweeping victory that is claimed in the “Persians.” The details of the battle are only probable, and the degree of probability is decidedly low. This will become very clear when the outline is made and it is realized how much of our information comes from Herodotus’ late oral tradition. The only safe basis of historical certainty, the agreement of independent witnesses, is lacking here.
After the class has written a narrative of the battle, let them compare it with the narrative in two or three of the best school histories. They will be somewhat surprised to learn that these accounts contain no suggestion of the uncertainty that surrounds the history of the battle, but describe it with all the confidence that might be displayed by a historian of events established by a cloud of witnesses.
It may be objected that this sort of source work will raise very serious doubts in the pupils’ minds as to whether we know anything with certainty about the history of the early centuries. But what if it does? What harm has been done, if the impression is a correct one? Is not much of our knowledge concerning the history of the Greeks and the Romans of the most fragile character? Why attempt to conceal it? Should not the pupils be taught by this kind of critical study that much of what is repeated with confidence as history has hardly a shred of valuable evidence to rest on? It is the first step toward the attainment of the ideal that M. Lanson has so clearly and convincingly set before us.