If the origin of Chinese historiography is mentioned, I believe many people will immediately think of Sima Qian and his book "History". In fact, the view of history as the origin of Chinese historiography is wrong, because in the pre-Qin period before Sima Qian, there were already historians who specialized in recording history, and many historical books were left behind. For example, "Shang Shu", "Spring and Autumn", "Bamboo Secretary Year" and so on.
But it is undeniable that both in ancient and modern times, the "History" has received the attention of historians and is regarded as a landmark work in the development of Chinese historiography. Since the Chronicle of History is not the first chinese history book, why does it get so much attention? This brings us to the essence of historiography.
"Historiography" and "history" are not the same thing. When we refer to history, we often refer to a series of events that have happened before, which is "fact." Historiography, on the other hand, covers a connotation that goes far beyond mere historical facts. Recording facts is only the most basic part of historiography, and analyzing, criticizing, interpreting, and interpreting facts is the real task of history. For historians, they only need to write down what they saw, heard, and felt, while historians do a lot of work, they have to identify the real historical facts from a series of contradictory historical records, and at the same time, they have to analyze the superficial and deep reasons behind the facts. Sometimes historians also need to observe how much this has affected future generations.
It can be seen that the gap between history and history is very large. In this way, we can understand why The History of Tai Shi Gong is so favored by historians: when Sima Qian wrote the History, he often had to distinguish from different materials what had happened in history. Sima Qian often visited the place where history took place. Hoping to find some clues from it, sometimes he even goes to the person to understand the real situation. Moreover, at the end of each chapter, Sima Qian would often add "Taishi Gongyue" to evaluate the characters he wrote. This corresponds to Tai Shi Gong's comment to himself: "On the occasion of the heavens and the people, the changes through ancient and modern times have become the words of a family." ”
After discussing the gap between history and historiography, Yu Yujun wanted to shift his gaze from the East to the West, to see which figures in the West were like Tai Shi Gong and could be called the fathers of historiography. Historical recorders appeared very early in the West, and greek history was recorded in many literary works before the Greek world entered the Archaic Era (beginning in the 5th century BC), such as Homer's Epic and Hesiod's Genealogy of the Gods. These works are highly literary and artistic, but they cannot be considered orthodox history books, because these books blend myths with history, and the reader cannot distinguish what happened in history and what is just legend.
Beginning in the sixth century BC. The Ionian region of Greece developed the germ of historiography. The Ionian region was a Greek colony in Asia Minor, located at the junction of Eurasia, and its convenient transportation gave them both a deep connection to Greek culture and a close relationship with the Eastern world. Among the city-states of Ionia, there are two kinds of writers who are very popular, essayists and travelers. Due to its location at the junction of Europe and Asia, the Ionian region has never had a shortage of visitors from elsewhere. These visitors would bring rumors to the city-states, while essayists would collect them and write them into articles; travelers preferred to travel around the west and east, and write about what they saw and heard on their travels.
The first books on history in the West were written by these people. Hecticus, a Militus, had visited Greece, Persia, Egypt, and even southern Spain, and everywhere he went, he would record what he saw and hear in a book. Hectica's works include the Journey Around the Earth, which depicts the humanistic customs of the Persian Empire, and the Genealogy, which records the history of the city-state of Miletus. In addition, the "History of Persia" written by the Millidus monk Dionys, the "History of Persia" and "History of Greece" written by Charon of Sarangus are also good works.
But these books still can't be called history. As mentioned above, the work of historiography is not only about simply recording history, it also requires scholars to criticize, analyze, and interpret historical facts. The above books are often recorded in the author's hearsay, not only containing a large number of mythological content, but also many stories that cannot distinguish between true and false. They are not processed by the critical thinking of scholars, but simply write everything they know on paper. By the fifth century BC. A Greek named Herodotus was born and brought true light to Western historiography.
Although Herodotus is known as the father of Western historiography, in fact, the historical information about Herodotus's life is quite scarce, so we can only make a simple account of his basic life trajectory. Herodotus was born in 484 BC in the city-state of Halicarnassos in southwestern Asia Minor, an overseas colony opened by the Greeks long ago. New Rode's family is very well off. His father was a local rich man, while his uncle was a famous poet. With a solid family background and strong cultural influence, Herodotus developed a good habit of reading from an early age. Among the various readings, Herodotus preferred half-fairy tale and half-true epics. The experience of childhood provided the basis for Herodotus's historical creation after he grew up.
In Herodotus's day, the ruler of the city-state of Halicarnassos was a tyrant. Tyrants were a unique kind of ruler in ancient Greece and Rome, who did not come to power through democratic elections, but became the supreme power of the city-state through various conspiracies or political struggles. As a result, the legitimacy of tyrant rule was often challenged. In the city-state of Halkarnassos, Herodotus's uncle was one of the opponents of the tyrant at the time, and when Herodotus became an adult, he also joined the uncle's camp to fight against the tyrant's rule.
Herodotus
However, under the suppression of the tyrant, Herodotus and his uncle failed. His uncle was killed in 454 BC, while Herodotus himself was exiled. This exile experience gave Herodotus a chance to temporarily break away from the study and experience the vastness of the world and the greatness of human civilization. Exiled, Herodotus embarked on a very extensive journey, spanning 1,700 kilometers in Egypt and the Two Rivers Valley, the region where human civilization was first formed, and to The Regions of Italy and Sicily, where the future hegemony of the Mediterranean would be born. In ancient times, when traffic conditions were inconvenient and land routes were unsafe, this was undoubtedly a great feat.
When Herodotus came to a new place, he usually had to visit the local places of interest and experience the greatness of human creativity. At the same time, he will also have extensive contact with the local people to understand their living habits and listen to their local folklore and historical stories. He also had to communicate with the local upper-class cultural people, such as priests everywhere, because these cultural people had more knowledge. After listening to it, Herodotus often recorded this knowledge and later compiled it into his magnum opus History. In this work, a large number of important first-hand historical materials such as folk culture, religious rituals, scenic spots, and living habits in the eastern Mediterranean and The Black Sea region are recorded.
The world as Herodotus saw it
Around 445 BC, Herodotus came to Athens. Athens at this time was in the golden age of democratic politics, whether it was political, economic, diplomatic or academic, Athens can be called one of the centers of the Greek world. Herodotus had a relationship with the famous Pericles and expressed his admiration for Athenian democracy. 444 BC. Herodotus came to the Greek colony of Turioy in southern Italy and became a local citizen. From then on he began his life of writing until his death in 425 BC.
Herodotus' biographical work History can be divided into two parts. From Volume 1 to Volume 5, Section 27, the first part, this section is mainly a collection of observations and travelogues of the places where Herodotus had traveled. In Part 1, Herodotus gives a detailed account of the history, geography, ethnicity, and customs of the Lydian, Medes, Babylonian, Egyptian, Persian, and Greek city-states. At the same time, he discussed Greek-Persian relations with his feet, which partly pointed out the reasons for the outbreak of the Greek-Persian War—the Greek invasion of the Greek colonial city-states in Asia Minor that caused resentment among the Greeks.
Beginning with verse 28 of book V and ending with volume ix is the second part of the book. This section details the course and outcome of the Greek-Polish War. The book begins with an uprising by the Greek city-states of Asia Minor against Persian tyranny in the early fifth century BC and ends with the final victory of the Greeks in 478 BC. Each of the 9 volumes also has its own separate theme, for example, in Part 1, each volume will introduce the human geography of a country separately.
In this book, Herodotus's vision goes far beyond one country and one place, but includes all the worlds that the Greeks could relate to at that time. Herodotus spoke not only of his native Greece, but also of Persia, Egypt, Italy and other places. Herodotus adopted an attitude of equal treatment of these different peoples. He did not regard all foreign races as barbarians, as his fellow Greeks did, but as he did with himself. These people may have had a different national language than Greece, but they could also create a rich and varied culture. In this sense, History is a world history that embraces both content and values.
In addition to the content, another feature of this book is that it is very detailed. Herodotus wrote down almost everything he saw and heard during his travels, stating in the book: "My duty is to record everything I have heard, although I have no obligation to believe everything, which I think is applicable to my entire history." In the process of compiling it, he put into practice this idea: the source of the book's historical sources include literary works, gods, archival inscriptions, and various oral sources, in short, Herodotus wrote everything he could collect into the book.
As mentioned earlier, history is not the same as historiography. In addition to faithfully recording history, historians must also use the author's own spirit and thoughts to criticize and interpret this history. Before Herodotus, there was no shortage of documentary essays and travelogues in the Greek world that recorded history, but the authors only recorded what they saw and heard, but did not analyze these historical materials, so it is difficult to say that these writers wrote historical works.
This method of prose and travelogue recording is also preserved in Herodotus' Historia, and almost all of the book is herodotus' observations. But at the same time. Compared with previous works, this book has a great breakthrough. After recording his own observations, Herodotus often discerns what he has just recorded. He often pointed out that what he had just written down was not necessarily accurate, for example, when he talked about how the Egyptians fed their babies, he first recorded the egyptian priests' statements, but he also pointed out that "I personally do not believe these claims", and then he personally went to Thebes to conduct a field trip to verify the accuracy of the statements.
In Herodotus' records, in order to judge whether something is true or not, he usually has to rely on two criteria. The first is the universality of recorded observations, in which Herodotus preferred to believe in generally accepted notions rather than those of the highly personal, and he often wrote down what he called "general statements." The second criterion is the reasonableness of the observations, which are generally accepted by the masses do not mean that they are true, and Herodotus often makes logical reasoning, or conducts field investigations, to judge the reasonableness of these observations. Sometimes he would compare two different observations to find out which one was true, and he showed this ability when discussing whether the Persian king Xerxes had escaped in defeat.
In the eyes of today's people, Herodotus's way of distinguishing historical materials is quite crude and quite primitive. In fact, the criticism of Herodotus by later historians has never stopped. The Egyptian priest Manetto believed that many of Herodotus's accounts of the Egyptian nation were wrong, so he devoted himself to writing the history of his own nation. The Greeks thought that Herodotus was too tolerant and tolerant of the "barbarian peoples". Even thucydides, a Greek historian who emerged decades after Herodotus' rise to fame, thought that much of history was too occult.
But at a time when historical literature and mythology could not be distinguished in detail, it was quite rare for Herodotus to have such a clear mind and understanding. Pay attention to the analysis of historical materials, the search for the truth, which was very rare in those days. The work "History" not only provides us with a large number of first-hand historical materials about the Greek world, but also opens up the orthodox historical methodology. From this point of view alone, Yu believes that Herodotus's greatness is self-evident enough to make him the "father of Western historiography".