[Nick Beale]

Ed,

The courtroom analogy is interesting because UK courts operate on two standards: beyond reasonable doubt (criminal cases) and on the balance of probabilities (civil ones). Note that neither demands absolute certainty but each standard is used to arrive at a verdict. Courts routinely make inferences from patterns of behaviour or documentation to bridge the gap between what is known for certain and what is not.

The Roman period is as relevant as any other when discussing historical method. We have a certain amount of writing from the period (copied and recopied over centuries, and occasionally modified to suit the tastes of intervening periods) but we also have archaeology which has yielded original, unmediated writings and physical evidence — weapons, clothing, crockery, artworks etc. — illuminating things that were written about by Pliny, Tacitus or whoever. We have soil and pollen analysis, landscape archaeology, DNA, aerial photography, the list goes on.

We understand the Roman period better as a result and there is no reason to suppose that the same will not be true of the 20th century and its wars.