Space: the central plains of East Asia and the Mediterranean coast.
The spring and autumn of China is also the spring and autumn of the world. The two historical masterpieces, Spring and Autumn Annals and Historical Records, not only clearly restored the eastern and western worlds filled with smoke, wars and mergers at that time, but also played an equally important role in the history of the east and the west. The authors of Confucius and Herodotus not only lived in similar ages, but also had very similar life experiences.
All lived in the late Spring and Autumn Period.
Confucius was born in 55 1 year BC and died in 479 BC. Forty years later, the "three factions divided Jin" ended the Spring and Autumn War and began to enter the Warring States period. Herodotus was born in 484 BC and died in 425 BC. At this time, after winning the Persian invasion, the Greek peninsula fought the Peloponnesian War for the hegemony of the peninsula. At this time, the Tyrol League led by Athens and the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta were in a stalemate. Twenty years later, Athens declared its surrender, and Greek hegemony began to enter the stage of integration, preparing for reunification.
Of noble birth.
The ancestors of Confucius can be traced back to Shang Zhouwang's brother. The sixth ancestor was a doctor in the Song Dynasty. He used to be a fu family, and his fief was located in Yili in the Song Dynasty. Confucius' father, Shu, later fled to Lu Qufu to escape the war in Song State and became a junior official. Shu's wife has a daughter but no children, and his concubine planted Meng Pi for him. Meng Pi has foot disease. At the age of 66, Shu married as a concubine and gave birth to Confucius. Because his mother once prayed in Niqiu Mountain, it was named "Qiu" and the word "". Herodotus was born in Halicarnassus, Ionian region, southwest of Turkey Peninsula. This is an early Greek colonial city. Although there is no ancestral glory, his father is a rich slave owner and his uncle is also a famous poet.
As young and promising.
When Confucius was three years old, he died of illness, was expelled by his wife, and led a poor life with his younger brother Meng Pi. When Confucius was young, he was a small official. It is said that he and Uncle Nangong "please be polite and please be happy in Changhong". He was exiled to Qi State because of civil strife in Lu State, and "I don't know the taste of meat in March" because he heard Shao. In 504 BC, Ji's retainer abdicated because of exceeding his authority, and began to compose poems, write books, and perform music. As many as 3000 disciples followed him, including 72 sages. In 499 BC, Confucius, who was promoted to be the viceroy of Lu, killed Shao Zhengmao, the "blaster" of Lu, only seven days after taking pictures, leaving a historical case. In 496 BC, Confucius led some disciples to leave the state of Lu for offending the noble Ji of Lu. Herodotus, whose family conditions were much superior to those of Confucius, studied hard since childhood and loved epics. At that time, the ruler of their city-state was a guy who usurped power through conspiracy. Herodotus, as an adult, actively participated in the struggle to overthrow the usurper with his uncle and others. The struggle was suppressed, his uncle was killed and he was exiled. Later, the usurper was overthrown and he once returned to his hometown. Soon, he was forced to leave again and never went back.
You can also travel around the world.
In 496 BC, Confucius, frustrated in Shandong, began to travel around the world. He had intended to go to the state of Jin. After arriving at the Yellow River, I heard that Zhao Yang killed the sage and diverted to protect his family. In 493 BC, due to the civil strife in Weiguo, Confucius left Weiguo and wanted to go to Chen State. No one received it through Cao Guo. When he passed by Song State, he was threatened and left Song State in a hurry because he criticized Sima Huan for wasting money to build a stone tomb. When he arrived in Zheng, no one received him. He was waiting at the east gate alone. He was ridiculed by Zheng people as a "lost dog". He arrived in Chen in 492 BC, moved from Chen to Cai in 49 1 BC, moved from Cai to Ye in 490 BC, and moved from Ye to Chen in 489 BC. When passing through Cai Guo, he was surrounded by Dr. Cai's "apprenticeship service" and was deprived of food for seven days. As a result, Confucius "sent Zi Gong to Chu, and King Zhao of Chu mobilized to welcome Confucius", but was discouraged by Chu Yin Zixi. So Confucius came back from Chu to defend the country. During this period, Confucius had planned to go to the state of Jin in the west, but because of the bad times, he just arrived at the edge of the Yellow River and said with emotion, "It's so beautiful! The water is overwhelming, the mountain is not good, and life is also husband! " Finally didn't cross the Yellow River. In 484 BC, Ran Qiu, a disciple of Confucius, led the army of Lu to defeat Qi, and took the opportunity to let Ji Kangzi return to Lu. At the age of 68, Confucius finally ended 14 years of exile. In 484 BC, Confucius started his greatest creation "Spring and Autumn Annals" at the age of 68, and died in 479 BC. His disciples sorted out the words, deeds and quotations of Confucius and his disciples, and compiled the Confucian classic The Analects.
Unlike Confucius' active travel, Herodotus was forced to leave home. In 454 BC, Herodotus was exiled abroad for opposing the city-state tyrant and took refuge in Samos Island. Later, I wandered around, looking for historical sites, investigating local folk customs and collecting anecdotes from all over the world. He went north to the northern shore of the Black Sea, south to the southernmost tip of Egypt, east to the lower reaches of the two river basins, west to the Italian peninsula and Sicily to make a living, and he also sold goods on long-distance trips. Everywhere Herodotus went, he visited historical sites, investigated the geographical environment, learned about local customs, folklore and historical stories, and wrote them down. During this period, he once returned to his hometown, but was soon forced to leave. In 447 BC, Herodotus came to Athens, the political, economic and cultural center of ancient Greece. At that time, Athens experienced the Greek-Persian War, with a highly developed political economy and a thriving scene. During his stay in Athens, Herodotus established a deep friendship with statesman Pericles and tragic writer Sophocles. Around 444 BC, he came to Turin, the southern tip of Italy, with the Athenian immigration team and obtained the citizenship of the city-state. After that, he wrote there until his death in 425 BC.
Similar writing motivation
According to Sima Qian, Confucius wrote Spring and Autumn Annals because "Zhong Ni ou wrote Spring and Autumn Annals", that is, Confucius edited Spring and Autumn Annals because of embarrassment. During the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the royal family declined and the etiquette was lax. As a Lu Sikou, Confucius was often hurt by governors and attacked by doctors. Confucius knew that his suggestions and policies would not be adopted, so he set an example for the world by evaluating the 242-year history of Lu, criticizing the emperor's faults, hindering the prince's ambitions, and condemning the immorality of doctors, thus helping the country to govern. The whole Spring and Autumn Annals is permeated with Confucius' praise for the ritual and music system of the Western Zhou Dynasty.
Herodotus' history is full of praise for Athenian democracy. At the beginning, he clearly stated that "it is to preserve the great achievements made by mankind so that it will not be lost because of its long history;" It is to keep the epic achievements of Greeks and foreigners from losing their due glory, especially to record the reasons for the war between them for future generations. "Although their purposes are different, they all want to use history to educate future generations, which greatly affects the development of eastern and western historiography.
Are the history of private practice.
It must be pointed out that the Spring and Autumn Annals compiled by Confucius and the History compiled by Herodotus belong to private history. For China, which has the tradition of official historiography, it broke the monopoly of official historiography and became the pioneer of a hundred schools of thought, so that only one third of Twenty-six Histories was privately compiled. For the west, which lacks systematic official history, it has undoubtedly become an important channel for people to learn and study history.
A completely different style
The Spring and Autumn Annals written by Confucius is a typical chronological style and one of the three general forms of historiography. From Lu Yingong (722 BC) to Lu Aigong (48 BC1year), the time span is 242 years, and the full text is now more than 16,000 words. However, compared with some research works of some scholars in Cao Wei era, the existing Spring and Autumn Annals probably lost more than 1000 words. Although Spring and Autumn Annals is a history of Lu, it records the great events of various countries in this period. However, because its words are too simple and difficult to understand, later generations have written many works to explain it, which is called "biography". According to Hanshu? According to Yiwenzhi, there were five writers in the Spring and Autumn Period. Among them, Zuo Qiuming's Spring and Autumn Zuos Family Biography, Gong Yanggao's Spring and Autumn Zuos Family Biography, Gu Liangchi's Spring and Autumn Zuos Family Biography and Three Biographies of Spring and Autumn are combined into one. Chunqiu Gongyang Biography and Chunqiu Guliang Biography focus on explaining the "righteousness" of Chunqiu, while Chunqiu Zuoshi Biography focuses on supplementing its historical details.
Compared with Confucius' Spring and Autumn Annals, strictly speaking, Herodotus' history does not have a mature style. The first half of the book mainly describes the rise and expansion of the Persian empire and the basic situation of the surrounding areas of the Mediterranean; In the second half, from the Ionians' resistance to the Persian invasion to the Greeks' victory in the battle of Micale in 479 BC, it describes the whole process of the Persian war, so it is also called the history of the Persian war. Later generations divided it into nine volumes for the convenience of reading. Because of this, the style and writing of the two parts of this book are very different. Most scholars believe that this is because the writing of this book may last for decades. Herodotus wrote some national history in his early travels, and only after he came to Athens did he completely record the history of the Persian War, and sorted out some old books related to the Persian War in the early stage. Although Herodotus' history is not perfect from the perspective of historical books, it contains a lot of information about history, geography, humanities, etc., which makes people know about the ancient Greek city-states on the Turkish peninsula, as well as the ancient history of Lydia, Persia, Egypt, Syria, Libya, West Xu Ya, etc., and makes people lucky to remember the seven ancient wonders of the world, such as the Colossus of Rhode Island, the Hanging Gardens and the Temple of Artemis. Therefore, from the perspective of an encyclopedia, history is undoubtedly a treasure in the world history library.
It is worth noting that Herodotus' history, on the one hand, contains many fatalistic elements, believes in supernatural forces such as fate and divine will, and even fabricates many historical facts, such as the dialogue between King Clos of Lydia and Solon. In fact, Solon's trip to Asia Minor took place decades before Clossus took office, and the dialogue between them was impossible. Therefore, some people call him "the father of lies" or "a liar". On the other hand, Herodotus has a critical spirit of "seeking truth from facts" when evaluating and processing historical materials, and some archaeological achievements in recent years have also confirmed that most of Herodotus' history is accurate.
The same famous giant.
In 48 1 year BC, Confucius, who was 7 1 year old, learned that the forest manager had caught a monster. His son, who was writing Spring and Autumn Annals, read it and said, "This is a unicorn! Why did it come! Why do you want to come! " As he spoke, he hid his face and wept, so he wrote "the western expedition wins the forest" and terminated the editing of Spring and Autumn Annals, which is called "the last stroke wins the forest" in history.
In 430 BC, Herodotus officially published History. As a result of these two stunning works, Confucius, who advocated "courtesy" and "benevolence", became the founder of the Confucian school and gained the reputation of "Confucius sage" in all aspects. Herodotus was awarded the reputation of "the father of history" by Cicero in Rome, and became the founder of western literature and an outstanding representative of humanism.
Confucius wrote the Spring and Autumn Annals, and Herodotus detailed the Mediterranean countries in history. Only take this article as the last chapter of the World Spring and Autumn Festival, which represents the Chinese civilized world, and pay tribute to the two masters of the World Spring and Autumn Festival!
This article is the external part of "The World Expressing Chinese Civilization" in Six Thousand Years of World History.