History Ancient Greek historianHerodotusHe wrote a historical book in 443 BC.
History records in detail the geographical environment, ethnic distribution, economic life, political system, historical events, customs, religious beliefs, and places of interest in West Asia, North Africa, and Greece.Although the whole book focuses on the war between Greece and Poland, it is also an important document for understanding the history of early West Asia, North Africa and Greece.[1]
In addition to narrating historical facts, "History" also contains many legends and stories, some of which also have the characteristics of local chronicles. It is a historical work and a literary reading material that can give readers good enjoyment. The whole book has a unified concept, pays attention to rhetoric, and sometimes uses epic idioms to try to attract people.[2]
The main part of History is to describe the war between Greece and Poland that took place from 492 to 479 years ago.The cause of the war was that Greece and Persia fought for control of the Mediterranean.The war lasted more than ten years, and finally Persia was defeated.Since the city state of Athens was the leader of the Greek Union in the Greek Polish War, after the Greek Polish War, Athens became the center of Greece, and prosperity appeared in all aspects of politics, economy and culture.Herodotus' History reflects this historical process.
The book is divided into nine volumes, each of which is named after a muse goddess in Greek mythology, and has its own independent theme.
The first volume first explains the purpose of writing, and then describes the situation of Persia and Lydia.The Persian EmpireCyrus Under the rule of the more powerful.Lydia felt threatened by the Persian Empire, so he took the initiative to attack the Persian Empire and was defeated.Then, the author narrates how Cyrus became the ruler of Persia, and how the Persian army, led by Cyrus, destroyed Assyria, and finally describes how Cyrus died in battle.
The second volume mainly introduces the situation of ancient Egypt.After Cyrus died, his son Cambyses came to power.Gambissis, who had just succeeded to the throne, immediately led the army to Egypt.Here, Herodotus described the history, geography and culture of Egypt, and described in detail the process of the Egyptian king building the pyramid.
The third volume introduces the situation of the Persian kings Gambius and Darius.After his invasion of Egypt, Gambius did many things to desecrate the gods in Egypt.At that time, someone in Persia pretended to be his brother and became king in Persia. Gambissis returned home with his army and died of serious wound infection.But the fake identity of the new Persian king was soon exposed, and Darius launched a palace coup and won the throne of Persia.After Darius gained the throne, he divided the country into 20 territories and sent troops to reconquer Babylon.
The fourth volume describes Darius' military conquest of Libya.After the conquest of Babylon, Darius led his army to conquer the Scythians in the western plateau of the Persian Empire, where there were abundant resources and a large population.Finally, Darius saw that he could not chase the Scythians, so he decided to leave 80000 troops there and send another army to conquer Libya.
The fifth volume describes Ionia's resistance to Bosnian rule.Aristargus, the tyrant of Miletus who was attached to Persia, decided to get rid of Darius' rule and asked for help from Athens.Athens was very strong and agreed to reinforce.This became the beginning of the dispute between Greece and Persia.Darius, knowing the news of the rebellion and the reinforcement of Athens, was determined to put it out by force.
The sixth volume begins to describe the war between Greece and Poland formally, mainly introducing Darius' attack on the Greek Federation. The main battle is the Marathon Battle.The war started at Marathon, and the joint forces of Athens and Sparta defeated the Persian army. The first large-scale conflict between Persia and Greece ended.
The seventh volume describes Xerxes're invasion of Greece, and the main battle is the Battle of Quanquan Pass.Darius died.His successor Xerxes immediately reconquered Egypt. The Athenians decided to use their powerful navy to resist the Persian attack. With Athens as the core, Greek states quickly organized and decided to defend the dangerous hot spring pass on land.The Spartan King Leonidas led 300 Spartan heavy infantry to defend at the Hot Spring Pass and repelled the Persian onslaught, but they were finally surrounded by the Persians from the path and the Hot Spring Pass fell.
The eighth volume mainly describes the battle of Salamis, in which the Greek navy decisively defeated the huge Persian navy, becoming the turning point of the Greek Polish war.The Persian navy gathered in the narrow Salamis Sea City to fight to the death with the Persian navy, because the terrain here is favorable to the Greek navy.As a result, the Persian navy suffered a devastating blow.Xerxes decided to return to Persia, but still left 300000 troops to continue to conquer Greece.
Volume 9 describes two campaigns, namely, the Battle of Prathai and the Battle of Mireka.This volume is the end of the war between Greece and Poland.The two sides had a decisive battle in Prathai. Although the Persian army was large in number, it lacked training and was defeated by the Greek coalition.At the same time, in the Miraka Sea.Once again, the Greek navy defeated the Persian navy.At this point, the Persian army that invaded Greece was basically eliminated, and the war between Greece and Poland ended.
From the perspective of sub volumes, the first to fifth volumes of the book deal with the background of the war between Greece and Poland, describing the history, geography, nationality and customs of the Mediterranean region;The sixth to ninth volumes are the official records of the war between Greece and Poland, which is the core of the full text.[3]
Catalogue of works
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catalog
Volume I
Clio
Volume II
Euterpe
Volume III
Thalia
Volume IV
Melpomene
Volume V
Terpsichord
Volume VI
Erato
Volume VII
Polymnia
Volume VIII
Urania
Volume IX
Calliope
Chronology
reference material:[4]
Creation background
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History
Herodotus began to travel around when he was about 30 years old. He started a very wide range of travel. He not only reached the north bank of the Black Sea in the north, but also travelled to the southernmost end of Egypt. He even reached the lower reaches of the two river basins in the east, reaching the Italian peninsula and Sicily.In order to survive during his travels, Herodotus made a living by selling goods.Whenever he arrives at a certain place, Herodotus will immediately visit the historical sites there to investigate and understand the local geographical environment and local customs. At that time, his favorite thing is to listen to the local people telling the folk legends and historical stories there.In the process of listening to the local people, Herodotus will record everything he hears carefully and take it with him.
Around 445 BC, Herodotus reached Athens, the political, economic and cultural center of Greece.As Athens experienced the Greek Polish War at that time, the local politics and economy were highly developed and presented a prosperous scene, especially the academic culture there was the best development in Greece.Herodotus was very happy when he arrived in Athens. He actively participated in various gatherings and political and cultural activities in Athens. At a chance, he also met the statesman Pericles, the tragedian Sophocles and other figures, and forged deep friendship with them.
Herodotus admired the democracy implemented in Athens, especially the Greek city states led by Athens that had just ended in the Greek Persian War and defeated the slavery power Persia.In order to understand the process, Herodotus kept asking about all aspects of the war that had just happened, and collected a lot of historical data from it.
Since the Athenians established the city state of Turion along the coast of Tallington Bay in southern Italy, Herodotus followed the Athenian immigrants to settle there and became citizens of Turion.It was from then on that Herodotus began to devote all his time and energy to writing.After a long time of persistence and writing, a historical work, History, was born.[5]
In the process of writing, Herodotus mainly relied on the direct investigation and understanding of ancient sites and people's customs, through the collection and collation of messy raw materials, and with his own observation and creativity to complete this work.[2]
Appreciation of works
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Ideological analysis
Chinese Business Edition
History is a collection of wars between Greece and Persia.Some are true, some are fictional for Herodotus, but they are full of charm.As a historian, Herodotus looked at the past history from a more objective perspective.It is very rare to attach importance to the influence of the Eastern civilization on Greece and take a fair stand against non Greek nations.As recorded in the book, the Egyptian solar calendar is more accurate than the Greek calendar, and the Greek letters were learned from the Phoenicians.The sundial used by the Greeks was first invented by the Babylonians, and so on.
Due to the limitations of the times, Herodotus inevitably has the color of fatalism and fatalism, which was nothing at that time, but is seen as flaws and limitations in contemporary times.But modern people can't be too strict with the ancients.If modern people lived in the conditions at that time, they would not be the same.Although many historians accused his "History" of being mixed with many baseless myths, legends and nonsense.But it seems that these are unavoidable.Because it was an era full of superstitions, and his performance was representative of that era, and Herodotus could not avoid it.Many examples recorded by him have been confirmed by modern archaeologists, anthropologists and historians.[1]
The belief in supernatural power in History shows that the author's historical view is still very young.Another example is that the author's pro Athens stance, although there are reasons for advocating democracy, often makes him biased against historical facts.Overly fond of anecdotes and anecdotes, which inevitably lead to a large number of complicated and not concise contents.At that time, the work of textual research on historical data had just begun, so there were inevitably many inaccuracies in the book.However, all these cannot erase the great historical achievements of History.This immortal historical work is a valuable cultural heritage of mankind.[6]
Creative Features
First, it has broad vision and rich content.In the book, Herodotus not only describes political, military and diplomatic events in detail, but also involves economic life, mountain geography, ethnic distribution, religious beliefs, and even local customs and anecdotes.In addition to Greece, the history of Egypt, Babylon, Syria, Persia and other countries also occupies a considerable space in the book.
Secondly, "History" is not satisfied with the narrative of historical events and environment, but is still trying to find the reasons that led to historical events.For example, how could the Greek city states, as small bullet states, finally defeat the huge Persian Empire?Herodotus emphasized that the fundamental reason for the victory was that the citizens of Athens enjoyed democratic freedom, and the result of the Greek Polish War was that the democratic system of Athens defeated the autocratic system of Persia.Through narrating to express and reveal the causes of historical events, History has an unprecedented meaning.
Thirdly, Herodotus advocated textual research on historical data and identification of authenticity, which reflected the spirit of seeking truth and criticism in historical research and writing.He was the first person to use historical criticism in the history of western historiography.Herodotus clearly said: "My responsibility is to report everything that people say, but I do not necessarily believe that these things are true. This statement of mine applies to all my works." Although he has heard everything and sometimes lost faith, his critical spirit and truth seeking spirit have established important principles for historical research and writing.
Finally, Herodotus paid attention to the role of moral education in his history study. For example, his admiration of the Athenian democratic system, his aversion to the autocratic system, and his condemnation of the Persian aggression all had the role of moral education.[6]
Later influence
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The method used by Herodotus in writing History, that is, the historical narrative centered on historical events, has opened up a new field for western historiography.This kind of historical compilation method is still a common genre when western scholars write historical works.In addition, in the absence of any standard dating method at that time, he used the ruler's ruling age or the method of arranging the age by referring to the concurrent events in other places, which was also accepted by many later historians.Herodotus' pioneering historical achievements in the field of historiography have had a profound impact on the later historiography in the West.[2]
Version information
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There are many biographical manuscripts and proofreading notes of History, and there are more than ten kinds of biographical manuscripts from the 10th to the 15th century alone.Since modern times, most countries in the world have introduced their translations to their own readers.
The Chinese version was published by the Commercial Press in 1959.The translator, Wang Jiajun, is mainly based on the Oxford classic series, with reference to the Polish version of Severin Hammel, the Japanese version of Aoki Yan, and three English versions of George Lawlinson, Henry Carey, and Goodley.[7]
About the author
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Herodotos (ca. 484-425 BC).Born in Harikanasu, a Greek city on the southwest coast of Asia Minor, he was born in a noble family and his father was a slave owner.Herodotus loved reading and epics when he was young.He has visited Egypt, Babylon, the north coast of the Black Sea and other places to investigate the geographical environment, understand local customs, visit folk legends and historical stories, and collect historical data of war.In 443 BC, he wrote History with great concentration in the city-state of Tullion, which made Herodotus known as the "father of history" in western history.[8]
