Greek Historians of the Near East

I begin with two commonplace, but nonetheless important, observations. First, that with the conquests of Alexander the Great went also a rapid and massive diffusion of Hellenic culture to non-Greek lands. And secondly, that the writing of history was deeply implicated in Alexander's empire building: historians accompanied him on his march; a number of his lieutenants later in life turned to the writing of history; and, perhaps most importantly, earlier historical writing, in particular Herodotus, directly affected Alexander's own understanding of the world and his plans to conquer it. It should come as no surprise, with the rapid spread of Greek paideia to non-Greeks and the importance placed on historiography in the early Hellenistic period, that within a generation of Alexander's death, histories of Egypt and Babylon should appear, written in the Greek language by non-Greeks.

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