Hdt. 1.17. Herodotus starts his Histories with the rise of the Lydian empire. Why is that? The people who would have been reading his work would have been Greek. Does he start with them because they are not totally 'barbaric' and actually share some of the same customs. They were sort of an "in-between country" and thus are preparing the Greek readers to cultures which Herodotus will be getting into. That is, he will give a history of the Persians (who believe in a total different political system but are somewhat 'civilized.' Furthermore, he will go into details about the Scythians, the Man-Eaters, and so forth which are groups who are as far from Greek customs as possible. And yet have Greek origin explanations.