This week I had my first lecture on Mesopotamian history. At one point, the professor was talking about ancient texts. As an example, he told us that if we read an ancient inscription of a king who conquered other peoples, we could just take it as that, as a king telling us about something he did. Then he said this: “But most importantly, ask yourselves: “Why is he telling me this?””.
This, I think, is why Ancient History and all the other fields of the Classics department are more important than ever. I’ve studied other things before but never was there such an emphasis on the critical evaluation of sources. In my first semester, we critically analyzed Pericles’ funeral speech in Thukydides’ Peloponnesian War. In my second semester, we talked about historians’ interpretation of the past and how they were influenced by the events of their own times. I’m in my third semester now.
In the times of “fake news” and “alternative facts”, this skill is the most valuable tool we have. I’ve started studying Ancient History because of my love for the ancient Greeks but this is living proof that Classics is much more than just the study of long dead civilizations.
So always ask yourselves: “Why is that person telling me this?”