Students who have listened to Zhang Xingang's study of western ancient history classics said that his lectures were very "gripping." We can see this from his course handout, "General Studies in Ancient Greek Thought: Herodotus" (Purui Culture, Hunan People's Publishing House, 2021). The book begins with the "Sweet and Salty Dumpling Party" controversy, allowing the reader to think about the encounter of different customs and values. And this is the question that Herodotus, the "father of history", intended to explore in the 5th century BC– why did the Greeks and foreigners go to war. Herodotus agreed with Pinda's famous saying that "etiquette is the king of all things", and behind the custom/etiquette is what happiness and what freedom is. Zhang Xingang wrote: "Does he think that the Greek-Polish war was fundamentally out of confrontation and conflict among civilizations? ”
Zhang Xingang received his J.D. from the School of Government and Management of Peking University in 2012, then taught at the Center for Western Classics and the Department of History at Peking University, and since 2020 at the School of History and Culture of Shandong University. Recently, this newspaper interviewed Professor Zhang Xingang and listened to him talk about this small book explaining Herodotus's "History".
Persian warriors (left) fighting with Greek heavily armored infantry kilix pottery cups, 5th century BC
Herodotus was the first writer of global history
Wen Wei Po: Hobbes called Thucydides "the most politically political historical writer ever", so in your opinion, what kind of "sense" does Herodotus have the most?
Zhang Xingang: It is generally believed that Hobbes had a "humanistic period", and the landmark event that ended this period was the translation of the first complete English version of the Peloponnesian War History. Hobbes's statement actually speaks of some important features of Thucydides's writing, borrowing from Maumiliano, who wrote contemporary history and political history. In contrast to Thucydides, Herodotus wrote about the past and had a lot of ethnographic and other content. After Thucydides, there was a long tradition of criticism of Herodotus in ancient writers, the most famous of which is Cicero's statement that Herodotus was both the father of history and the father of lies.
Therefore, it is quite difficult to say what Herodotus has the most feeling. From my personal reading experience, I can easily find feelings when reading Thucydides, but reading Herodotus took a long time to find some doorways, and if I had to answer, then now I might say that Herodotus is very "realistic". This sense of reality does not mean that everything he writes is "real" (of course, a considerable amount of what he has written has been confirmed by archaeological and other discoveries), but that he has a strong sense of truth about the way and conclusions of human affairs and the Greek-Polish war were explored.
Wen Wei Po: Richard Jenkins said that Herodotus had "broad sympathy" and sympathy for Greece's enemies; unlike later Greeks, who regarded non-Greeks as "barbarians" as well. Herodotus also enjoyed traveling, traveling to the southern part of the Italian peninsula, the Black Sea coast, Persia, Syria and Egypt, and was also known as the "father of the traveler". What influence do you think travel has had on his writing?
Zhang Xingang: The research paradigm of global history in the late academic circles is very lively, and I joke that Herodotus was the first global history writer. Herodotus actually accomplished two impossible tasks at that time, one was to write the history of the past few decades, and the other was to travel to the Mediterranean and collect the history and current situation of a large number of regions. We cannot restore the details of his travels and collections today, but from the text of the History, we can still see some interesting things. For example, the cognition of the so-called barbarians, in his pen, is actually more appropriate to call them aliens.
If you read the entire "History" carefully, you will find that the main line of the whole book is actually the rise and fall of Persia, the first volume is about how the rule of the East was transferred from Lydia to Cyrus-led Persia, the second volume of Egypt is also because Cambyses wanted to conquer Egypt and entered the overall narrative, the third volume is the Persian palace coup and Darius to establish a relatively complete imperial system, the fourth volume is Darius's expedition to Scythia, from the fifth volume slowly entered the core content of the Greek-Persian War. By the end of the book, Herodotus also ends with several profound stories of the Persian kings. So, the book is written more in the way he writes about, and the real east-West conflict (freedom & slavery) is most evident in Greece against Xerxes. This may have been the impact of travel, allowing him to see the diversity of the world vividly and authentically, rather than seeing the world with colored glasses. A few days ago, I talked to Teacher Xu Xiaoxu about the Scythians written by Herodotus, and he had a better statement, that is, Herodotus was an anthropologist.
To understand Herodotus, it is necessary to see how he can love wisdom through inquiry
Wen Wei Po: What part do you think is the most special part of this handout? You start with Pinda's "Ritual is the King of All Things" and frame the entire book. Is the system of interpretation of the conflict between different rituals and customs the mainstream reading of Herodotus's History?
Zhang Xingang: Answering this question is suspected of old Zhang selling melons and selling himself. I want to give a general explanation of Herodotus, which sounds strange, what room for a history to explain? This little book is intended to reposition Herodotus as a writer, and if you put him back into the Greek intellectual tradition, he inherited the epic tradition, he also performed oral performances, and had a good relationship with Greek tragic writers, and then there was the work of Thucydides and the philosophy of the fourth century BC. So how should one understand his motivation and effort to write "inquiry" (i.e., "history")?
An important clue is to see how his critics criticize him, Aristotle criticized him in the context of saying that it is difficult to gain wisdom in writing history, and earlier, Heraclitus also criticized "inquiry", saying that this thing seems to be erudite but is actually clumsy. Whether these criticisms are valid or not is not a question, but it shows that the philosophers of the time believed that Herodotus was also trying to make love and wisdom, but it was a failure. If Herodotus is to be understood, then, it is not simply to explain him in terms of today's understanding of historians, but to see how he loves wisdom through inquiry. The lecture notes of this general studies course are basically interpreted around this starting point, of course, many of the contents are only a family's words, published for the Fang family to correct.
"Custom/etiquette" is indeed one of my important clues in explaining Herodotus. This subject is certainly not what I have discovered, and previous scholars have long noted the importance of the subject of customs, but most have focused the discussion of customs on the interpretation of some texts in the third volume. I wanted to use the theme of customs as a general clue to the understanding of history, and I felt that the more contributed interpretation was an explanation of the voyeuristic events of Jugis and The Madness of Cambyses, and I still felt that I could justify it. The study of Herodotus in the academic circles is incomparably rich, and in terms of research since the 21st century, scholars have mainly focused on Herodotus's narrative, historical criticism, acceptance history, ethnography and comparative research, especially the approach of narratology.
After having the blessing of classic works, you still have to find your own way in the end
Wen Wei Po: In the preface, you quote a passage from Harold Bloom's Western Canon: "A deep study of the scriptures does not make a man good or bad... The whole meaning of the Western classics is to make one make good use of one's own loneliness, and the ultimate form of this loneliness is the encounter between one's own death. "You emphasize that reading the classics is an absolutely personal experience, not an education in the sense of social function, but closer to the education of life. Can you talk about your own growth and changes during your reading and teaching of the classics?
Zhang Xingang: On the day of Bloom's death, I happened to take Herodotus' class, and I read this passage in class to commemorate the old man. My basic academic training was in the history of ideas, and I have been tormented by classic works, but I have also benefited a lot. Regardless of Chinese and Western civilizations, the classic works that can be handed down must be the essence of in-depth thinking about the fundamental problems of people and the world, and even shape the basic paradigm of thinking about these issues in later generations. Therefore, I am very much in favor of reading more classic works in the learning stage, because these classic writers think about problems in depth and systematically, which can improve their thinking ability and help themselves to watch and live more soberly. I always advise my students that the classics are trustworthy, that they can safely venture with the classic writers, and that after having these blessings, they will eventually find their own way, after all, as Bloom said, he will eventually meet his own death alone.
Wen Wei Po: The General Studies of Ancient Greek Thought: Herodotus will be followed by the "Thucydides". Can you tell us about the overall idea of this series? Will there still be a "Sophocles" chapter? We note that you have quoted a large number of ancient Greek tragic texts in another new book, Fraternal Communities: A Study of Ancient Greek Political Thought.
Zhang Xingang: In the book "Fraternal Community", in addition to discussing Plato and Aristotle, I do spend a lot of time discussing tragedies and historical texts. This is not a personal interest, but an attempt to explore a new approach to the study of the history of political thought. It is undoubtedly important that most of the previous research on the history of ideas has focused on the philosopher community, and I have benefited from it. But over the years, I have increasingly discovered that, in addition to the philosopher community, the history of political thought also needs to face the political thinking of political subjects in a particular community. The tragedy of Athens was staged precisely for the citizens of the city-state, and discussed important political and ethical issues of the city-state; many of the contents recorded in the historical texts were the collective decision-making and political actions of the citizens, so the tragedy and the historical texts were the thinking of political subjects, and from these texts, another kind of real political thought could be obtained.
The "General Studies in Ancient Greek Thought" series has only been signed with the publisher at present, and the "Herodotus" has received unrealistic affirmations from readers from various sectors after printing, which has also given me some illusions that I can be competent for such writing, because I have always felt that lectures and anthologies are things that only senior scholars are qualified to do. Recently, I have seen the introduction of many Japanese scholars in China to write Chinese and Western classic guides, domestic scholars rarely write such books for various reasons, if the publishing house is willing to continue to lose money, I will continue to expand this series.
Author: Li Junyi
Editor: Liu Di
Editor-in-Charge: Yang Yiqi
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.
![In Herodotus' suicide note, it is recorded that there was an underground labyrinth in Egypt, but it can no longer be found[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)