I’m aware of how foolish I sound as of this moment, and I totally understand the need to take sources with a grain of salt. (Or several)

But I was listening to the Dan Carlin’s Hardcore history podcast “the Celtic Holocaust” today and at one point he mentions how a hundred years ago many historians would just take some sources at their word if they didn’t have express reason to disbelieve them. (Like Caesar) Nowadays we are more strict.

That’s awesome, we should look deeper into historical documents and try to get the most accurate picture possible.

But why must we assume everyone is lying? For instance Dan mentions several times how Caesar is putting good arguments and reasons into the mouths of people he supposedly wants his audience (the people back in Rome) to want him to defeat, and Dan goes into detail talking about all the possible cynical reasons for doing this. Why is pure honesty ruled out though?

Is it really so hard to believe that not all ancient writers were attempting to pull the wool over our eyes? Sure the individuals writing have their own biases, but we modern people don’t always have such a hard time looking past those to write objectively.

What if people like Caesar are actually being as honest and straightforward with their audience as they possibly could?

Sure they could still possibly be inaccurate, but why abandon believing someone’s word without explicit evidence to the contrary?