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Anecdotes as Historical Evidence for the Principate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Richard Saller
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Extract

Historians' judgements about the evidential value of anecdotes have oscillated over the past decades. In the early part of this century authors of German textbooks on historical method warned students against using anecdotes on the grounds that their form was not fixed and their contents fluctuated since the narrators exercised their imaginations to improve stories with each telling. J. Vansina, an anthropologist studying the value of oral traditions for reconstructing African history, concluded in his more recent work that the anecdote is among the least reliable types of oral tradition. Nevertheless, recent scholarly works on Roman imperial history have utilized anecdotes for the sorts of social, economic, and administrative details which the available political narratives ignore. No systematic analysis has been undertaken to justify this use. I shall attempt to fill the gap by asking three basic questions: in what social contexts were anecdotes generated and transmitted; what changes in content were likely to occur during transmission; and what are the implications for the use of anecdotes as historical evidence?

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , April 1980 , pp. 69 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1980

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References

Notes

1. Oral Tradition (London, 1965), pp. 3 ffGoogle Scholar. for references to German textbooks and pp. 159 f. for his own views.

2. Examples include MacMullen, R., Roman Social Relations, 50 B.C.—A.D. 284 (New Haven, 1974)Google Scholar and Millar, F., The Emperor in the Roman World (London, 1977).Google Scholar The latter's use of anecdotes has been praised by reviewers (see G & R 25 (1978), 88Google Scholar).

3. Higham, T.F., G & R 7 (1960), 82 ffGoogle Scholar.

4. Delehaye, H., The Legends of the Saints (London, 1962), pp. 68 ff.Google Scholar, notes the lack of originality and the reliance on core motifs by hagiographers.

5. Millar, , op. cit., pp. 423 ffGoogle Scholar.

6. Pearson, L., CPh 36 (1941), 209 ffGoogle Scholar.

7. Haight, E., The Roman Use of Anecdotes (New York, 1940), pp. 6 ffGoogle Scholar.

8. Roman Life and Manners under the Early Empire (London, 1908–13), iii.18Google Scholar.

9. ‘Exemplum’, RAC vi. 1229 ff.Google Scholar (A. Lumpe).

10. The Development of Greek Biography (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), pp. 56 ffGoogle Scholar.

11. Townend, G.B., ‘Suetonius and his Influence’ in Latin Biography, ed. by Dorey, T.A. (London, 1967), pp. 83 fGoogle Scholar.

12. Syme, R., Tacitus (Oxford, 1958), p. 502Google Scholar; for comments by historians about the use of anecdotes in their genre, see Veil. Pater. 2.107 and Dio 66.9.4.

13. Op. cit., p. 159.

14. Butler, H.E. and Carey, M., Divus Iulius (Oxford, 1927), p. 51Google Scholar.

15. Op. cit., p. 3.

16. Luscnnat, O., Philologus 109 (1965), 297 ff.Google Scholar; for the stories of the centurions in front of the senate house, see Suet. Aug. 26, Dio 46.43.4, and Plut. Pomp. 58.2.

17. Momigliano, A., Claudius: the Emperor and his Achievement (Cambridge, 1961), p.78Google Scholar.

18. Syme, , The Roman Revolution (Oxford, 1939), p. 250Google Scholar.

19. Op. cit., p. 14.

20. Les Procurateurs équestres sous le haut-empire romain (Paris, 1950), p. 204Google Scholar.

21. TLS 8 Apr. 1977, p. 418.

22. Op. cit., p. 14.

23. Vansina, , op. cit., p. 160.Google Scholar Millar, op. cit., uses some anecdotes for this purpose.

24. These distinctions were suggested by Silverman's, S. essay ‘Patronage as Myth’ in Patrons and Clients, ed. by Gellner, E. and Waterbury, J. (London, 1977)Google Scholar. They are, of course, not relevant to anecdotes set in a fantasy world.

25. I am grateful to Professor M.I. Finley, Dr. P.D.A. Garnsey, and Mr. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill for reading and commenting upon early drafts of this paper.