All history is created.1 Events transpire, but people tell and record, select and reshape them, creating historical texts. The nature of these texts varies widely, reflecting the interests and skills of their authors. Some retellings of the past attempt to depict the events as they transpired, others cloak a particular ideology in historical garb, while still others aim primarily to enlighten or to entertain. These functions are not necessarily mutually exclusive; one person may compose an entertaining ideological text, or a text which was originally interested in the actual past may be reshaped by a later author with didactic aims.