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Is the dating of events accurate in ancient Greek (and Roman) history? I say after the 5th century BC it was because it was written down, and it was accurate also because much of the dating was based on the meticulous record keeping of the Olympic games and religious festivals. It does seem the dating of the Battle of Marathon however is only based on Herodotus's description of lunar phases. So can we say with certainty that the battle occured sometime between Sept 9 and Sept 12, 490 BC? Is this actual fact or is it just consensus among historians?Dating Homer, maybe not so much because it was oral history until a few centuries later. Do we know dates (at least to the month) of Thucydides or others work? When did Aritotle write Metaphysics?
I think it is across the board when it comes to dating things Greek and Roman. Yes, we can be pretty accurate with some things, depending what they are. Text evidence, even if it does not provide an exact date, at least gives us a terminus ante quem to work with. Of course, there's always the question of whether the source is reliable, but if we have corroboration by some other form of evidence then we have a stronger case. If we have artifacts associated with some event, we can use methods such as radiometric dating, thermo-luminescence dating, etc. to determine very precise dates. I know with buildings, such as the Pantheon, we can look at brick stamping of the original bricks used for it to determine when they were put in place. So I think it all depends on what we're dating, but I would think it's more difficult to date events than physical objects.
The Romans took great pains to date things. The Greeks were a little more obscure, but they always mention important festivals and rulers in conjunction which helps historians narrow it down, but we still refer to things “circa” all the time because it's almost nearly impossible to get an exact date on many things.
By exact dates I assume you mean to the exact day. The Greeks held games every year and used that as their dating (historians have determined, accurately I am assuming, that the '3rd year of the 23rd Olympiad' for example was 436 B.C.). The Romans kept the games going, and went according to Greek dating, IOW held them yearly per Greek tradition, and later on the Julian calendar came into use. So can't we say that all this, combined with certain religion festivals and observances which were held on specific dates, and the well-recorded lunar phases , that dating Greek events is fairly accurate at least to the month and perhaps even week?
Yes, but often we find conflicting sources that make things more obscure. One source will say one thing and another will say something else.
If you can access it (got this from Jstor), check out “Herodotus and the Dating of the Battle of Thermopylae” by Kenneth S. Sacks. It's because of this, other secondary sources, and corroboration by other latter primary sources that I think dating historical events can be more accurate than originally thought. Although not an exact date, Sept 25-Oct 2 480 B.C. is close enough for me (in this case it's Thermopylae) and I think it's kind of cool how they used all the evidence to figure it. Also I'd like to find out the ratio for conflicting sources as compared to compatible ones. My hypothesis so far is that there are less conflicting sources than compatible ones. Another "thing to do" entry on my lifelong quest for knowledge, I guess. 🙂
