Evaluating bias: Roman, Egyptian, and retrospective viewpoints in the sources

What this note covers

1. Why source survival is never neutral: the Roman literary monopoly
2. Horace and Propertius: Augustan poets and the construction of Cleopatra as threat
3. Cassius Dio and retrospective distortion: writing Cleopatra from an imperial distance
4. What non-Roman sources exist, and what can they tell us?
5. Identifying and accounting for bias: the historian's methodological toolkit
6. Constructing the EA argument: integrating source critique into historical analysis
7. Broader implications: bias, power, and whose history survives

7 sections · 14 key terms & formulas · 6 common mistakes