ABSTRACT
History is often shaped by the stories of kings and religious and military leaders, and much of what people know about the past derives from official sources like military records and governmental decrees. If people use a modern concept of history, Egyptians in fact, all ancient Near Eastern peoples did not write history at all. The actors, pharaohs or officials, embed their vision of the world peaceful stability over the country across eternity within and throughout their texts. Certainly the line between fact and fiction is blurred in a context in which extracts from a work in progress are performed or delivered in recitation to audiences on the Greek mainland and throughout the Greek-speaking Mediterranean world. Only in the political, social and intellectual contexts of ancient Rome can we begin to fathom the nature of historical thought as expressed in the works of writers like Sallust, Livy, Tacitus, Dio and Ammianus Marcellinus.
