Yeah, but even if we go back to antiquity, reputable historians always acknowledge that sources on military history of that time were often full of shit with things like âyeah, there were 100k of us versus millions of Persiansâ.
And in political history thereâs a lot of discrediting oneâs predecessors, and retroactively paitining some personalities as crazies.
And part of modern historianâs job is to point out all the possible conflicts of interest in historical sources, so that we can know that weâre presented specific perspective of events or if it was written hundreds of years after events.
PugJesus@piefed.social âš2â© âšmonthsâ© ago
Man, I could give you examples for literal days. The history of the Mongols, by and large, was not written by the victorious Mongol Empire. The history of the Jews was not written by their occupiers and subjugators. The history of Norse conquerors were largely not written by the Norse. The history of unifying pagan Slavic kings was largely not written by pagan Slavs. The history of the Roman Emperor Augustus was not written by his partisans, despite his massive investment in propaganda and trimming âinconvenientâ narratives during his (highly successful) life.
History is written neither by winners nor losers; history is written by those who intend to write history. Smart rulers can get a head-start on this during their rule, but can never control it completely, and the longer theyâve passed, the more feeble their efforts at control become.
âI am Ozymandias, King of KingsâŠâ
_fryerDan@sh.itjust.works âš2â© âšmonthsâ© ago
youâre just splitting hairs at this point, semantics for the sake of semantics
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works âš2â© âšmonthsâ© ago
A great poem, but there remains quite a bit more than level sands of what Ramses II made. Hes probably in the top 3 of famous pharaohs.
Doesnât detract from the rest of your point though.