Sunday, January 19, 2020
Minutiae
E. Badian, review of Matthias Gelzer, Kleine Schriften, 3 vols. (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1962-1964), in Journal of Roman Studies 57.1/2 (1967) 216-222 (at 217):
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In Ancient History, as in other disciplines, we are being urged, nowadays, to plunge headlong into large and exciting problems, and to leave the dead minutiae of scholarship. Against this (if the demagogue will stay for an answer) it must be firmly pointed out that great advances from within historical studies (as opposed to those brought about by the discovery of major new evidence) have usually come about through patient and methodical attention to the minutiae by a mind capable of seeing their bearing on a major problem.
