Pre-Islamic Mediterranean civilizations showed almost no interest in other peoples’ histories

Evidence

In the civilizations that preceded Islam, there was an almost total lack of interest in the “Other.” The Greeks were not particularly interested in other people’s history. There were books written about other civilizations, but they were compiled mainly by writers coming from those civilizations, such as the Babylonian Berossos on Babylon and the Egyptian Manetho on Egypt. It is surely significant that these books have not survived, but are known only from quotations. The Romans show a similar lack of concern with outsiders. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1944