ABSTRACT
A century ago, one of the most important modes of research in the professional study of Greco-Roman antiquity as well as in a number of other fields was a recently developed specialty called by its admirers (back then it had no opponents) ‘Quellenforschung’. By decomposing the compilatory handbooks produced by the erudition of late antiquity into their various sources and establishing the relations of dependence among them, the adepts of this method sought to trace back reports about a variety of aspects of the ancient world – primarily philosophy and history, but also religion, law, sculpture, and other matters – to their earliest origins. They were convinced that they would thereby place themselves in a position to assess with greater precision the reliability of those reports and would hence be able to make claims of greater validity about those aspects of antiquity.
