ABSTRACT
In the nineteenth century, the Greek and Roman classics were an important part of all scholars’ backgrounds, even of those who chose to study other fields. Karl Marx’s doctoral thesis was entitled The Difference between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature;1 Max Weber, on his thirteenth birthday, presented his parents with two original essays, one of which was entitled “About the Roman Imperial Period from Constantine to the Migration of Nations,”2 and his Habilitationsschrift-the post-doctoral work required of a German who aspires to a university position-was entitled Roman Agrarian History and Its Significance for Public and Private Law. David Hume wrote that, although he studied law, and his family “fancyed I was poring over Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Vergil were the Authors which I was secretly devouring.”3 In those days, the pioneers of the young sciences whose names are the title of this chapter applied their knowledge of classical antiquity to their work, and applied their own work to the understanding of classical antiquity.The study of Roman agrarian history was not qualitatively different from the study of German agrarian history:
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In the twentieth century, each of the social sciences developed its own methodology and its own vocabulary. Few of the great social scientists of the twentieth century were well grounded in the classics, and the methodologies and theories developed were not easily applicable to the ancient world. Modern sociology is based upon studies of various strata, classes and groups in society; our ancient sources are overwhelmingly from a single group, elite males. Modern anthropology is based, where possible, upon protracted residence among the natives of the societies studied and interviews with them; we cannot live among the ancient Romans or ask them questions. Modern economics is based upon statistics, but the ancients left us almost no statistics, nor did they leave us the raw material from which we might compose our own. Modern psychology is based upon experimentation or psychoanalysis; we can do neither to the ancients. Unable to apply the accepted methodologies of the social sciences, most classicists continue to use the philological method that has served them well over the generations, and deal with the questions of social relationships within the framework available.
