SOURCE: "Herodotus and Hellenistic Culture," in The Classical Quarterly, Vol. XXII, No. 2, November, 1972, pp. 200-13.

In the following essay, Murray traces the influence of Herodotus on early Hellenistic historiography and ethnography, detecting evidence of familiarity with Herodotus in the works of Hecataeus of Abdera, Nearchus, and Megasthenes. Accepting that Herodotus's influence had declined by the late Hellenistic period, Murray nonetheless contends that the History had a broad and lasting impact on Hellenistic understanding of the world.

Our understanding of the world is not static; it can both expand and contract, and it can also stagnate. In history the expansion of the known universe has come about from various causes, from scientific advance, the slow processes of trade and exploration, from colonization, and especially from conquest. Periods of expansion produce often a re-evaluation of the external world, both that which was already known and that which was previously unknown...