Peter Green's From Alexander to Actium is my main starting point for Hellenistic history. Of particular regional interest is Richard Stoneman's The Greek Experience of India.

The Greek version of the phrase "Don't bullshit a bullshittter" was "Don't try to out-Cretan a Cretan." There's an example of it in reference to siege-based treachery somewhere in Polybius.

Most of my other go-to examples are from the classical era. Abdera, despite multiple philosophical luminaries hailing from that town, was the place that generated the ancient Greek version of the Polish joke. Corinthians were notorious swindlers, Laconians were legendarily laconic, etc. Take a drink every time Thucydides introduces a speech (which he wrote, naturally) from a Spartan leader by saying something like "Brasidas, who was a good speaker, for a Spartan..."