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‘But from this time forth history becomes a connected whole’: state expansion and the origins of universal history*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 October 2014

Craig Benjamin
Craig Benjamin*
Affiliation:
Frederik J. Meijers Honors College, Grand Valley State University, 4046 Calder Drive, 120 Niemeyer, Allendale, MI 49401, USA E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

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.

Keywords

DiodorushistoriographyPolybiusSima Qianuniversal history
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Global History , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , November 2014 , pp. 357 - 378
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

*

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.

References

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.

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13 Diodorus Siculus, The library of history, trans. by C.H. Oldfather, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press, 1947, 1.3–4.

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16 Ibid., 1.1.2.

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19 Polybius, Histories, 1.1.3.

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21 Ibid., 12.20–1.

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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)’.

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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).

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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.

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45 Diodorus, Library of history, 1.4.3.

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47 Diodorus, Library of history, 1.9.9.

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51 Ibid., 1.1.2.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.