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===The Idea of History===
[[File: Roman_HerodotHerodotus_World_Map.jpg|300px|thumbnail|left|The World According to Herodotus and Other Learned Greeks of the Fifth Century BC]]
The Greeks and later the Romans had complex relationships when it came to people outside of the Hellenic world. They generally saw outsiders as barbarians with little to offer, but they made exceptions for some people, especially those from older civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt. This exception can be seen in Greek historiography, where Herodotus and the first century BC Greek historian, Diodorus, referred to Egyptian king-lists in their histories of Egypt. <ref> Krebsbach, Jared. “Herodotus, Diodorus, and Manetho: An Examination of the Influence of Egyptian Historiography on the Classical Historians.” <i>New England Classical Journal.</i> 41 (2014) pgs. 104-7</ref> The Persians also had a profound influence on early Greek historiography.
In addition to Near Eastern historiographical influences, Hellenic historiography was deeply affected by and descended from earlier Greek intellectual traditions. The Greeks liked to categorize nearly everything and as such, they considered history as a branch of rhetoric and was therefore subjected to the same literary analysis as poetry or oratory. <ref> Marincola, John. <i>Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography.</i> (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 13</ref>
The stylistic rules employed in historiography meant that words and figures of speech were properly chosen, emotion was used, and the prose needed follow a specific rhythm by avoiding pauses. <ref> Welles, C. Bradford. “The Hellenistic Orient.” In <i>The Idea of History in the Ancient Near East.</i> Edited by Robert C. Denton. (New Haven, Connecticut: American Oriental Society, 1983), p. 144</ref> Hellenic historical research and writing may have originated as a discipline that borrowed from intellectual streams of Near Eastern and Greek sources, but by the early fifth century BC it had evolved into a unique study in its own right.
===Defining Hellenic Historiography===
