The book of Esther discribes the world of the Persian court in the same way as the Greek litterature between the 5th and the first centuries B.C.E. Almost all passages of Esther show parallels with episodes from the works of Herodotus, Thucydides, Ctesias, Plutarchus and Justin. These similarities are so numerous that the book of Esther should be considered as a sort of  a Jewish «Persica», i.e.a standard form of Greek historical narrative about Persia. Against a common view, we think that the autors of Esther had only indirect knowledge of the Persian world, and this knowledge came from the Greek literature. They knew very well Greek litterature and dialoged with Hellenistic culture. The book of Esther is therefore to be placed in the socio-cultural context of the Hellenistic Jewish diaspora, probably in the diaspora from Alexandria.