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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 October 2014
This article offers a comparative analysis of the historiographical implications of state conflict and expansion in two key regions of ancient Afro-Eurasia, the Mediterranean Basin and East Asia. The Mediterranean-wide conflict known as the Punic Wars, and the protracted struggle between Han China and her militarized steppe nomadic neighbours in a theatre that spanned much of eastern Inner Eurasia, helped shape the direction of subsequent world history. These conflicts also shaped the methodology and approach of three historians in these two regions: Polybius, Diodorus, and Sima Qian. All three wove detailed descriptions of these processes into complex narratives that synthesized events into an organic whole. The result was a universal conception of history that added up to something much more than a mere recounting of events.
The author would like to thank the editors of the Journal of Global History, and the three anonymous readers, for their many thoughtful comments and suggestions concerning this article.
1 This paragraph paraphrases the introduction to A. Goldsworthy's The Punic Wars, London: Cassell and Co., 2000, pp. 4–9. See also Hoyos, D., ‘Introduction: the Punic Wars’, in D. Hoyos, ed., A companion to the Punic Wars, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, pp. 1–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 See Benjamin, C., The Yuezhi: origin, migration and the conquest of northern Bactria, Turnhout: Brepols, 2007, pp. 134–135CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 See ibid. on all these events.
4 The dates of Sima Qian's life, as well as for the compilation of his history, remain an almost insoluble problem, constantly discussed in Sinological literature. The dates given above – c.145–90 (or perhaps 87) BCE – are the most commonly accepted.
5 See, for example, Orosius, Paulus, Seven books of history against the pagans, trans. by Roy J. Deferrari, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1964Google Scholar.
6 For Islamic contributions to universal history, see al-Tabari, Muhammad, ‘General introduction’, in Eshan Yarshater, ed., The history of prophets and kings, New York: SUNY Press, 2007, pp. 5–135Google Scholar; Khaldun, Ibn, ‘Foreword: the meaning of history’, in Muqaddimah, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1958, pp. v–xviiGoogle Scholar; Rashid al-Din Hamadani, in M. Thackston, Rashiduddin Fazlullah's Jami’u't-tawarikh, A compendium of chronicles: a history of the Mongols, 3 vols., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998–9.
7 Hodgson, Marshall, Rethinking world history: essays on Europe, Islam and world history, ed. Edmund Burke III, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993CrossRefGoogle Scholar, p. 258, emphasis added. See also Hodgson's earlier work, The venture of Islam: conscience and history in a world civilization, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1974.
8 Herodotus, The landmark Herodotus: the histories, trans. by Andrea L. Purvis, ed. Robert B. Strassler, New York: Anchor Books, 2007, 1.1, emphasis added.
9 Mortley, R., The idea of universal history from Hellenistic philosophy to early Christian historiography, Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1996Google Scholar, p. 1.
10 Stuurman, Siep, ‘Herodotus and Sima Qian: history and the anthropological turn in ancient Greece and Han China’, Journal of World History, 19, 1, 2008, p. 39Google Scholar.
11 Polybius, , The histories: a new translation by Robin Waterfield, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 1.1.4.
12 Ibid., 1.1.3.
13 Diodorus Siculus, The library of history, trans. by C.H. Oldfather, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press, 1947, 1.3–4.
14 Useful sources on the historiographical approach of Polybius include: Walbank, F. W., Polybius, Berkeley, CA, and London: University of California Press, 1972Google Scholar; Walbank, F. W., ‘Fortune (tyche) in Polybius’, in John Marincola, ed., A companion to Greek and Roman historiography, vol. 2, John Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007Google Scholar, ch. 31, pp. 349–55; McGing, B., ‘Introduction’, to Polybius, The histories, pp. 3–16Google Scholar; Hartog, François, ‘Polybius and the first universal history’, in Peter Liddel and Andrew Fear, eds., Historiae mundi: studies in universal history, London: Duckworth, 2010, pp. 30–40Google Scholar; Lucas Herchenroeder, ‘Situating universal history’ (a review of Historiae mundi), Histos 8, 2014, pp. 1–8; Smith, Christopher and Yarrow, Liv Mariah, eds., Imperialism, cultural politics, and Polybius, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
15 Polybius, Histories, 1.1.5.
16 Ibid., 1.1.2.
17 Ibid., 1.1.3.
18 McGing, , ‘Introduction’, pp. 6–7Google Scholar.
19 Polybius, Histories, 1.1.3.
20 Ibid., 1.1.4.
21 Ibid., 12.20–1.
22 Ibid., 12.24.
23 Ibid., 16.14.
24 Walbank, , Polybius, p. 34Google Scholar.
25 Polybius, Histories, 1.1.4.
26 Ibid.
27 Walbank, , Polybius, p. 21Google Scholar.
28 Polybius, Histories, 1.1.5.
29 Marshall Hodgson, in Venture of Islam, vol. 1, p. 50, defined the oikoumene as ‘an Afro-Eurasian historical context … having a distinct inter-regional articulation in an ever-growing area’.
30 For a comparison of the views of Polybius and Sima Qian on the relationship between heaven and humans, see Ning, Yi, ‘The thought of history in the works of Sima Qian and Polybius’, Journal of Beijing Normal University (Social Science Edition), 2, 2001–2, pp. 68–75Google Scholar.
31 Walbank, ‘Fortune (tyche)’.
32 Mortley, , Idea of universal history, p. 1Google Scholar.
33 Plato, Plato's cosmology; the Timaeus of Plato, translated with a running commentary, trans. by Francis Macdonald Cornford, Indianapolis: Hackett Books (1935, 1997), 70e–71a.
34 Aristotle, The Metaphysics, a new translation by Joe Sachs, Santa Fe, NM: Green Lion Press (2002), Book H, 1045a, 8–10.
35 Aristotle, Poetics, Translated with introduction and notes by Joe Sachs, Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing (2006), 145 1b3.
36 See Thucydides, , History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. Rex Warner, introduction and notes by M. I. Finley, London: Penguin Books, 1954Google Scholar, rev. 1972.
37 On the influence of Thucydides on the historiographical approach of Polybius, see Rood, Tim, ‘Polybius, Thucydides, and the First Punic War’, in Smith and Yarrow, Imperialism, pp. 50–68Google Scholar.
38 Walbank, , Polybius, p. 22Google Scholar.
39 Hartog, , ‘Polybius and the first universal history’, in Liddel and Fear, Historiae mundi, pp. 30–40Google Scholar. See also Herchenroeder, ‘Situating universal history’.
40 Polybius, Histories, 1.1.3.
41 Big history is a field of history that, according to the definition provided by the International Big History Association, ‘seeks to understand the integrated history of the Cosmos, Earth, Life, and Humanity, using the best available empirical evidence and scholarly methods’. See http://www.ibhanet.org (consulted 20 June 2014).
42 Hughes-Warrington, M., ‘Big history’, Historically Speaking, 4, 2, 2002, pp. 16–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
43 Useful sources on the historiographical approach of Diodorus include: Siculus, Diodorus, The library of history, trans. and notes by C. H. Oldfather, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933–1967Google Scholar; Burton, Anne, Diodorus Siculus Book I: a commentary, Études préliminaires aux religions orientales dans l'empire romain 29, Leiden: Brill, 1972CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sacks, Kenneth S., Diodorus Siculus and the first century, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jona Lendering, ‘Diodorus of Sicily’, Livius Articles on Ancient History, 1996–2008, http://www.livius.org/di-dn/diodorus/siculus.html (consulted 20 June 2014); Diodorus Siculus Books 11–12.37.1, trans. with introduction and commentary by Peter Green, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2014; Diodorus Siculus, The Persian Wars to the fall of Athens, Books 11–14.34 (480–401 BCE), trans. with introduction and commentary by Peter Green, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2014.
44 Mortley, , Idea of universal history, p. 7Google Scholar.
45 Diodorus, Library of history, 1.4.3.
46 Mortley, , Idea of universal history, p. 7Google Scholar.
47 Diodorus, Library of history, 1.9.9.
48 For an introduction to this debate, see Burstein, Stanley M., ‘A contested history: Egypt, Greece, and Afrocentrism’, in Stanley M. Burstein, et al., Current issues in the study of ancient history: publications of the Association of Ancient Historians 7, Claremont, CA: Regina Books, 2002, pp. 1–30Google Scholar.
49 Diodorus, Library of history, 1.15–16.
50 Ibid., 1.1.1.
51 Ibid., 1.1.2.
52 Goldsworthy, , Punic Wars, p. 79Google Scholar.
53 Ibid., p. 80.
54 Ibid., p. 82.
55 Useful English language sources on the historiographical approach of Sima Qian include: Watson, B., trans., Records of the grand historian by Sima Qian: Han Dynasty II, rev. edn, New York: Columbia University Press, 1993Google Scholar (hereafter referred to as Shiji, for the name of Sima Qian's great work); Nienhauser, William H. Jr., ed., The grand scribe's records vol I: the basic annals of pre-Han China by Ssu-ma Ch'ien, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994Google Scholar; Hardy, Grant, Worlds of bronze and bamboo: Sima Qian's conquest of history, New York: Columbia University Press, 1999Google Scholar; Cosmo, Nicola di, Ancient China and its enemies: the rise of nomadic power in East Asian history, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Markley, J., ‘Gaozu confronts the Shanyu: the Han Dynasty's first clash with the Xiongnu’, in C. Benjamin and S. Lieu, eds., Walls and frontiers in Inner-Asian history, Turnhout: Brepols, 2002, pp. 131–140Google Scholar; Benjamin, Craig, ‘“Hungry for Han goods”: Zhang Qian and the origins of the Silk Roads’, in M. Gervers and G. Long, eds., Traders and trade routes of Central and Inner Asia: the ‘Silk Road’ then and now, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006, pp. 3–30Google Scholar; Stuurman, ‘Herodotus and Sima Qian’; Martin, Thomas R., Herodotus and Sima Qian: the first great historians of Greece and China: a brief history with documents, Boston, MA, and New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2010Google Scholar.
56 See di Cosmo, Ancient China, p. 2.
57 See Martin, Herodotus and Sima Qian, for a thoughtful comparative analysis of the work of these two ancient historians, complete with a useful document selection. Stuurman, ‘Herodotus and Sima Qian’, is also useful.
58 Sima Qian, Shiji 110, in Watson, Records, p. 162.
59 Watson, , Records, p. 162Google Scholar, n. 17.
60 Sima Qian, Shiji 110, in Watson, Records, p. 129.
61 See Benjamin, ‘Hungry for Han goods’.
62 Sima Qian, Shiji 123, in Watson, Records, p. 236.
63 ‘Account of Dayuan’, Sima Qian, Shiji 123, in Watson, , Records, pp. 239–240Google Scholar.
64 ‘Biography of Sima Xiangru’, Sima Qian, Shiji 117, in Watson, Records, pp. 291–2.
65 Zurcher, E., ‘The Yueh-chih and Kani⋅ka in the Chinese sources’, in A. L. Basham, ed., Papers on the date of Kani⋅ka, Leiden: Brill, 1968, p. 348Google Scholar.
66 Cosmo, Di, Ancient China, p. 258Google Scholar, n. 10.
67 Ibid., p. 258.
68 Ibid., p. 259.
69 Ibid., pp.259–63, offers an excellent overview of the principal theories that have been proposed to explain Sima Qian's motivation.
70 See Watson, ‘Introduction’, in Watson, Records, p. xi.
71 Hardy, , Worlds of bronze and bamboo, p. 22Google Scholar.
72 Letter to Ren An, Appendix 2, in Watson, , Records, p. 231Google Scholar. Sima Qian offers another description of this fierce confrontation in Shiji 110, where he notes that Li Ling killed 10,000 Xiongnu. Only 400 Han troops survived, and the Shanyu was apparently so impressed with the Chinese general's bravery that he ‘treated Li Ling with great honour and gave him his own daughter for a wife’. See Watson, , Records, p. 161Google Scholar.
73 Sima Qian, Letter to Ren An, in Watson, , Records, p. 231Google Scholar.
74 Ibid., p. 235.
75 Hardy, , Worlds of bronze and bamboo, p. 22Google Scholar.
76 Ibid., p. 23.
77 For a superb annotated translation of chapters 61 and 96 of the Han Shu, see Hulsewe, A. and Loewe, M., China in Central Asia: the early stage: 125 b.c.–a.d. 23: an annotated translation of chapters 61 and 96 of the history of the former Han dynasty, Leiden: Brill, 1979Google Scholar.
78 See Cosmo, di, Ancient China, p. 268Google Scholar, n. 42, for various references to Sima Qian's travels.
79 See ibid., pp. 268–9, nn. 43 and 44.
80 Some idea of this comprehensiveness can be seen in the fact that the Shiji mentions some 4,000 different individuals by name. See Hardy, Worlds of bamboo and bronze, p. 42.
81 See Nienhauser, Grand scribe's records, vol. 1., p. xxi.
82 Qian, Sima, Shiji 30Google Scholar, in Watson, , Records, p. 63Google Scholar.
83 Qian, Sima, Shiji 30Google Scholar, in Watson, , Records, pp. 83–84Google Scholar.
84 Hardy, , Worlds of bamboo and bronze, p. 45Google Scholar.
85 Ibid., p. 45.
86 This Mayi Incident of 200 BCE is not to be confused with the ambush later attempted by Wudi at Mayi against the Xiongnu in 134 BCE. For analysis of Sima Qian's treatment of the 200 BCE confrontation, see Markley, ‘Gaozu confronts the Shanyu’, pp. 131–140Google Scholar.
87 Ibid., p. 133, n. 7.
88 Ibid., pp. 139–40.
89 Hardy, , Worlds of bamboo and bronze, p. 47Google Scholar.
90 Ibid., pp. 46–7.
91 Polybius, Histories, 1.1.5.
