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

12 ANCIENT GREEK HISTORIANS LECT.

founders of geographical science; his chief contributions to knowledge were in that field. Born
perhaps near the middle of the sixth century, he
not only travelled in Greek lands and on the
shores of the Black Sea, but explored the interior
parts of the Persian empire, and Egypt, which had
been annexed by Cambyses. Perhaps his travels
extended to southern Spain. Everywhere he
collected facts for a geographical work which was
published under the title of a Mlap of the WTorld.
But this work ranged beyond the sphere of pure
geography. There is no doubt that it contained,
besides descriptions of countries and places, a great
deal of ethnography and history, and especially it
introduced the Greeks to oriental history and
sketched for the first time the successive monarchies
of Assyria, Media, and Persia. The writer almost
certainly touched upon the Ionian history of his
own day, in which he himself played a part.
Herodotus, you may remember, mentions advice
tendered by Hecataeus to the Ionians on more
than one occasion, advice which they did not
follow. The most likely person to record advice
which has not been followed is the adviser; and
we may pretty confidently assume that the source
of Herodotus was Hecataeus himself.
Hecataeus thus initiated the composition of
" modern " history, though only in a work which was
geographical in its title and main argument. He
also wrote a work on the ancient history of Greece.
It was a prose compilation from the genealogical