Herodotus' Histories and Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian

[bushbush]

Both were monumental works of grand history writing traditions in their respective regions and both were considered setting a standard for history-writing later on. Maybe we can discuss their similarities and differences.

The most obvious difference to me is that Herodotus' book was narrating along a series of wars between Greek states and Persia. Sima Qian wrote his book in biography-format. He did have chapters with general timeline of the events, but he chose to devote chapters on key individuals (or groups of individuals if he saw fit, like a chapter devoted to famous generals, or assassins). This probably reflected the different audiences of the two authors. Herodotus wrote it to prevent loss of history and glory as he saw while Sima Qian had similar purposes, he wrote his book more for elite consumption (especially for royals) to study history and learn lessons from figures in the past.

Another differences to me was that Herodotus traveled much wider across his "world" to gather details about lives of people with different cultures than his; many of his writings were based on what he was told and what he saw. Sima Qian on the other hand had many primary sources recording previous events as his disposal and he selected what he saw as reliable and wrote them down. Though Sima Qian did many field research too, he was not as interested in writing local tales. Both styles ensured that they had a lot of fascinating information (both men though wrote some wildly inaccurate things as well based on what they saw, heard and read unfortunately).

[conon394]

while Sima Qian had similar purposes, he wrote his book more for elite consumption (especially for royals) to study history and learn lessons from figures in the past

So perhaps more like Plutarch's lives?

[bushbush]

So perhaps more like Plutarch's lives?

Perhaps similar format, but Sima Qian created a class system. He devoted the most writings on emperors. Then chapters for what he saw as famous Shijia "feudal families" maybe (basically warring state kingdoms etc), then finally biographies of key individuals left, who were often grouped into chapters Sima Qian categorized like assasins, wondering knights, Confucius' students, cruel officials, humorous people (these were sorta glimpse of Sima Qian who paid attention to everyday life of people) etc. So perhaps you can make a case that Shiji was a much more enlarged version of Lives (covered thousands of people's detailed lives versus 23 pairs).

ps. Sima Qian did have some other portions like timelines, geography, rites, ceremonies etc but his work was more known of biographies of individuals that played huge roles in earlier history of China. And the way he wrote those biographies became standards.

[hellheaven1987]

So perhaps more like Plutarch's lives?

Kind of, except the main focus is the Chinese leaders. Those people were used as characters to draw out the political situation of their time too. Personally I find it more close to historical record used by Medieval royal family, except Shima Qian was far more neutral and more in grand history style.

[Getwulf]

I do not know much about Sima Qian but with Herodotus I have major problems especially with his depiction of the "Thracians" and the Getae.

[hellheaven1987]

Well, we cannot forget that historians are affected by their time. During Herodotus' time Thracians were really not too civilized, so cannot really blame him.

[bushbush]

Well, we cannot forget that historians are affected by their time. During Herodotus' time Thracians were really not too civilized, so cannot really blame him.

and those people had no written history for Herodotus to access and he had to write down what others told him, some of the information were plain wrong. (even written history could be highly exaggerated and inaccurate, Sima Qian rejected a lot of legends written in books before his time when he wrote his book, though he still kept many).

[hellheaven1987]

and those people had no written history for Herodotus to access and he had to write down what others told him, some of the information were plain wrong. (even written history could be highly exaggerated and inaccurate, Sima Qian rejected a lot of legends written in books before his time when he wrote his book, though he still kept many).

The problem is that most history was preserved for religious purpose at that time, so facts would definately had certain amount of religious colour. Technological problem was another issue faced by ancient historians, as slow traveling speed and poor local security could not guarantee a safe and fast traveling for ancient historians. Hence Herodotus was highly praise for his professional attitude and style, even it was pretty sure he never traveled to the heartland of Persia and had to use stories he heard to describe Persian Empire (he did try his best to make sure those stories were true).

Hence, similar situation were also happened for Shima Qian. Clearly, he had no reliable historical sources for any timeline before Zhou, hence had to rely sources from Zhou to write anything before that (even the existence of Shang and Xia were only proved recently by archaelogists - definately not Shima Qian could do). That was why he had to use a numbers of legends for anything before Zhou.

[bushbush]

Hence Herodotus was highly praise for his professional attitude and style, even it was pretty sure he never traveled to the heartland of Persia and had to use stories he heard to describe Persian Empire (he did try his best to make sure those stories were true).

Hence, similar situation were also happened for Shima Qian. Clearly, he had no reliable historical sources for any timeline before Zhou, hence had to rely sources from Zhou to write anything before that (even the existence of Shang and Xia were only proved recently by archaelogists - definately not Shima Qian could do). That was why he had to use a numbers of legends for anything before Zhou.

also we need to remember that despite inaccuracies in their work (due to limitation of their time), these two historians played crucial (if not defining) roles in their respective history-writing traditions from such an early era while most of the world had no such written history. Their legacy far outweighed small errors (though they did the best with what they had) in their work.

[Gertrudius]

Some posts deleted, a continuing discussion on Thracian civilization can be found here.