The ancient Greek historians (Harvard lectures) by J. B. Bury.

34 ANCIENT GREEK HISTORIANS LECT.

who approached the subject never got beyond
criticism of details and rationalistic interpretation
of miracles. But (2) at the very time when the
study of mythological tradition began to assume a
more critical character, the interest of the Greeks
expanded to the "modern" history and institutions of non-Greek states, and here they were in
a region not mythical, but historical. This intellectual movement originated in Ionia; its main
cause was the Persian conquest, and the resulting
contact of Ionian thinkers with oriental history.
The rise of Ionian science not only promoted the
spirit of criticism, but also created an interest in
geography, for the study of which the new political
status of Ionia furnished opportunities; but it was
principally the new vision of oriental history that
brought to birth Greek historiography. It was
from the "modern" history of the East that the
Greeks went on to study the "modern" history of
Hellas. And the struggle with Persia in the first
twenty years of the fifth century impelled them
to begin to write histories of their own time.
Further, as I will attempt to show more fully in
the next lecture, their contact with the traditions
of non-Greek lands within the Persian empire
suggested to the Greeks a new kind of criticism of
their own mythical traditions. In all three fields
of ancient, modern, and contemporary history, as
well as in the allied sphere of geography, Hecataeus
was a pioneer; his originality lay in responding to
the stimulus from the non-Greek world.