ABSTRACT
Of course the historians of Greece and Rome, if they had any success, told an exciting story. If they were going to beguile their audiences with a public reading, as was often the case, the story had to be good and gripping. The distinction between apbegesis (story) and historia (history), even if valid, was not invariably made.1 After all, what was the use of a history if it was not attractive enough to receive any attention? And if it was to receive attention it had to tell an interesting tale. As in other respects (pp. 25-7), Homer was not a bad model. The Homeric art of story-telling included conversations (pp. 44-53),2 but the trouble was that indulgence in this art, by the historians, developed a ‘tendency to deviate from strict truth in the interest of a good story’.3
