Campus Mawrtius highlights this concise but clear passage from Thomas Corsten’s BMCR review of the Choix d’écrits of Louis Robert (2007):
In sum, this book–like each individual publication by Robert–shows clearly the method every epigraphist or, rather, every historian should follow, i.e., to start from the evidence (not from theories), that is from all available sorts of evidence, in this case inscriptions, coins and literature, and from there to move to drawing conclusions. … Robert’s Choix d’écrits as well as everything he has written should be compulsory reading for every student and scholar of antiquity–and especially for the many in our times who are busy destroying the foundation on which all serious research is based: the study of ancient documents.
It is extraordinary to me that any other method could even be contemplated.