Beck and Funke summarize greatly what I meant in the post Federalism in Ancient Greek:
“this brief survey reveals how Greek federal scholarship was exposed to a great tidal waves of externalism” (Becke and Funke, 2015 pg.10)
By externalims they mean that we study the past with the ideas of the present. They then argue that even thought we are not yet free of presen-perspective-glasses bias, now this problem is less “imperative” and they explain why1.
But whatever amount of “externalism” the studies of Federalims in Ancient Greek society experience, they do not just reflect our society as it is. Material evidence of the past Greek society is to be considered and explained. To put it in different words: on the one side we have some evidence of the past like books written in very old languages, rest of buildings, objects, places and people that testify ancient societies. On the other side we have our views, the concepts that help us to understand our own lives. In the middle there is gap that demands to be filled, a story that needs to be told.
To give you an example: In the paper of Angela Ganter "Money, Cults and Arms: Questioning Regional Cooperation in Early Arkadia" presented in the "Federalism and Conflic Resolution in Ancient Greek" 30th april 2021 she discussed a Bronze Table of unknown origin and now lost probably belonging to the V century BC in the Arkadian area in Peloponeso. The table was translated by historian Johannes Heinrichs (Univeristy of Cologne) in 2015 and by specialists Jean-Mathieu Carbon and James Clackson in 2016. For Heinrichs the table testify military training of young men around Mount Lykaion. Carbon (specialist in Greek ritual texts) and Ckackson (Prof. in Comparative Philology) identifies an atypical ritual calendar regarding a Pan-arckadian cult site for Zeus.
Ganter explains why none of the translations match perfectly with other storical information that we hae onVth Cetury BC Arkadia. Sometimes the gap between the evidence that we have of the past and our ideas of it looks like a huge vacuum that consumes a great deal of knowledge, expertise and creativity, other than personal efforts and financial resources.
At the end of the day, we will have a narration (full of holes) that offers us credibility. It is a story that links our way of thinking with the physical evidence of the actual existence of “other”. The result is neither us or the “other” but is something we can learn of.
And it is precisely in this moment when we shall ask: What can we learn from History? What does our story of Ancient Greek tell about us?.
Hans Beck and Peter Funke (2015) “Federalism in Greek Antiquity” Edited by Cambridge University Press
Ganter, Angela (2021) "Money, Cults and Arms: Questioning Regional Cooperation in Early Arkadia" presented in the "Federalism and Conflic Resolution in Ancient Greek" 30th april 2021
1 I'm not that sure of that. What I see is that at one point we were using only one historical source of history in a very specialized manner more or less the same thing that we were doing in with our own world. Today we interpret Ancient Greek History with multidisciplinary sources and we describe it as a very complex set of societies, which is exactly the way we see ourselves.
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