ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the first of the four parameters associated with classical collecting, that is, the notion of material culture as evidence in the ancient Greco-Roman world, and the relation of the ancient society with its past through its collecting activities. It also examines the creation and development of Greco-Roman historiography as a discipline. The chapter distinguishes the role of historiography in the study of the recent and distant pasts, as well as the ideas that led to the invention of the methodological approach which insists on truth and evidence. Antiquarianism, besides being a kind of historical research immediately associated with collections, is also a strategy of definitions and appropriations. Historical research in its antiquarian form was also distinguished by the extensive use of lists, inscriptions and monuments. Antiquity, as a notion which turns objects into desirable collectibles, is a recurrent theme in the ancient Greek and Latin authors.
