FOR STUDENTS Of Greek historiography it is accepted that examination of those parts of a work dealing with events remote in time, sometimes also in location, from an author may reveal more about their methods, interests and presuppositions than contemporaneous parts.’ Thus in the fathers of Greek historiography, it is Herodotus’ treatment of Egypt (Book ii) that discloses most about his historical methods and techniques of argument, while Thucydides’ Archaeologia (i.1–20) illustrates most clearly his overarching theory about the rise and fall of empires. In Byzantine historiography, the world chronicles used to be regarded as important primarily for historical information on their author's lifetime and the immediately preceding period, and for preserving earlier source traditions that would otherwise have been lost, but in other respects as works of little interest. In the last decade, however, the translation and analysis of the sixth-century Chronicle of John Malalas has demonstrated the value of looking at such texts in their entirety, since the early sections may be particularly helpful for investigation of literary as- pects-how authors constructed their narratives and perceived the past, or what aspects of the past were important. It is this approach which I intend to apply to al-Ṭabarī. As a result I will be concerned very much with the surface of his narrative-what he says, how he presents this, what interests him-and I will not delve behind the text to tackle such intricate questions as the value and interrelationships of the source traditions which he presents, or how his narratives fit into the large corpus of Jewish and Christian stories.

Two key issues for any historian are truth and time, and al-Ṭabarī is no exception. Even before the long introductory analysis of time and its creation, al-Ṭabarī tackled the questions of authority and authenticity: his narrative will clarify why certain people are regarded as acceptable and reliable transmitters of traditions while the transmission of others must be rejected or disregarded. Such decisions were crucial since traditions and reports attributed to their transmitters underpinned his history:

For no knowledge of the history of men of the past and of recent men and events is attainable by those who were not able to observe them and did not live in their time, except through information and transmission provided by inform- ants and transmitters. This knowledge cannot be brought out by reason or produced by internal thought processes.