The Comparative Study Of Livy And Ban Gu's Historical Thoughts

This is the comparative study of the historiography of the early Roman Empire counterpart Livy, and of the historian Ban Gu living in the East Han Dynasty, who are both famous for the great history works and the historical idea about the relationship between God and man, the thought about the change of history and the compiling methods. Their historical method innovation on the basis of the tradition with their own characteristics of the times has an important impact on later historians. Based on "History of Rome" and "History of the Han Dynasty", the author try to search the similarities and difference in Livy and Ban Gu's historical thought. As it the starting point, search the similarities and difference in the West and East classical history and hopefully to be able to find out the reasons and causes.About the relationship between God and human, Livy and Ban Gu belive that the presence of the fate. In their works, they record something about it. God occupies an important position in the the west and east people's ideas. However, with increased levels of the human's knowledge, God is not a panacea and not the only motivation of historical development, the status and role of people in history continuously improve. But the God is not away from the word, its role is no longer so obvious, the role of people in history is gradually revealed itself. On the specific knowledge for the relationship between God and human, there are significant differences between the west and the east historians'ideas, in the traditional Chinese and Western historians, the God's degree of interference of the word is different. And more important difference is that the God in China exists as a form of moral ruler, but the God in west does not have the function of the moral judgment. For the understanding of human, they are subject to influence of the classical heroic view of history, recorded the emperors in the history phase and the deeds of heroes. Livy and Ban Gu's knowledge about primitive history not only inherits the traditional ideas but also adds the characteristics of the times, reflecting the understanding of the problem in Chinese and West classical period. Overall, there appears binary concept of history in Livy and Ban Gu's historical thoughts. The difference of the idea of history mainly attribute to the geographical environment, the political system, as well as the influence of religion and philosophy. Marine national and the nature are opposite to the existence. This kind of situation reflects to western people's thought consciousness is God intervene in human affairs and people resist God. China as a farming nation, for god, hold attachment feelings. Reflected in the mythology, God helps human and there people and God get along with each other friendly. Different countries structure mode also lead to the different knowledge for people. The western countries formed under the way in peace, the operation of the society depend on the law and equal. In this social system, the people's historical position is highlighted to come out. God is placed in the position of the unreal, although it can interfere with the human events, eventually social development depends on people own power. Therefore, in the western thought the relation between God and human is opposite,"Heaven-phase separation" theory is the existential foothold of the western thought.China found the original nation by the tribal war, so the idea of consanguinity has been preserved. Authoritarian rule give birth to Monotheism, family ancestor worship and the god worship hang together. Finally, in China the unity of heaven and humanity represents our ancestor's cosmology. In China and western, the thought was followed down in traditional philosophy and history. It is reflected in the works of scholars. These traditional ideas affected the history of idea of Livy and Ban Gu. And after their development, the concept about the relationship between God and human has produced profound influence for later scholars.Livy and Ban Gu admitted that the history cyclical changed. They used the "Annal" and general history recording the process of historical change. But which had significant different, Livy used the "Pessimistic" perspective while Ban Gu used the concept of "evolutionary" interpreted the historical movement. There have several reasons cause it. The main reason is the environment which marked with the stigma to the people's mind. In early western living environment are changing coupled with the subjugation and genocide war, turmoil in people's lives, people always think that the era is a recession period, even if there has hope of revival, ultimately inevitably slide into the abyss of darkness, which makes history as a regressive cycle. On the contrary, in China people also advocate the ancient social practice, but in the eyes of many scholars, it is better than ancient history, history is constantly moving forward. In addition, for the understanding of regularity in the movement of history, Western scholars always believed that the changes of history were unable to grasp, so hard to find the constant in the history, people think that "all for one", Chinese scholars believe that historical change has its own rules to follow, they seek the law of the history. But the cyclic view of history in China still has a close relationship with the orthodox view of history, the two closely together, the orthodox view rely on the cyclic view of history, the Five Elements and the three EC theory as the core. In china the change of the dynasty is combined with the fate, showing the uniqueness of Chinese history.History in Western and Eastern classical period has a strong moral appeal, in Livy's "History of Rome" and Ban Gu's "History of the Han Dynasty", there are many records on ethics, historians do this to establish a moral example for contemporary people, which highlights the attention to the education function of the history. The moral view of history has various characteristics in west and east world. It includes the object of moral education, moral content and the starting point of moral education. The main reason which causes the difference between the Chinese and Western can be attributed to the difference of the political system. The moral education is a major for the upper ruling strata, while the other is for all citizens. The difference in social traditions and cultural backgrounds lead to different moral content in historical writing. China as an ethical society, the moral requirements are extensive, containing both a moral requirement for the monarchy but also containing the ethical requirements for the ministers and ordinary people; Greek and Roman historians limited by the historical horizons, they pay attention to the military history and political history, the moral requirements become narrow, mainly fasten on brave, piety and loyalty, etc. Furthermore, the starting point of moral education in the West and China is different, in traditional Chinese society, the moral order to safeguard the rule of the monarch; and in the West, especially in Rome the moral is to highlight the superiority of the nation, which lead to the difference of the emphasis.Except of the historical ideas in the Chinese and Western classical history, in the history of the writing and compilation, there are also a lot of similarities and differences. For historiography, truth is a necessary condition for the existence of history. On the degree of truth, the western historiography based on the research and seek is obviously higher than the Chinese historiography which is ruled by the official ideology. But in leaving the question open, the Chinese historiography is more outstanding. Seeking the truth and leaving the question open is the essential conditions for history. And a history work can be able to spread in the world lies in its beautiful writing, in this respect, the performance of the Chinese and western historiography are good, especially the Livy and Ban Gu, their works are considered to be the superb which be loved by the generations of scholars, concise language and elegant language are the strengths of them. From the history compiling learning look, history compiling method reflects the real life. What kind of socio-cultural and social thought is what kind of historiography. Livy and Ban Gu are based on their own background of the age, creating a new history compiling. And "History of the Han Dynasty" is our first history book which narrates the story by dynasty, it occupies an important in the history which is inheritance from generation to generation.After the comparison about the historical thinking of Livy and Ban Gu, we can see that in the classical period there has no communication between the Chinese and Western history but there are born to a similar historical thinking. To explain the problem, we only use the comparative method to realize. The comparative method is also bring us a lot of enlightenment. Historians in China and western are in pursuit of true and beauty in history, the history is ultimately a true, the good and the beautiful combination. To do this would require the morality of historian. History is written by people, if the one who writes the history work is lack of good moral character, the history work must not spread in later ages. The history is a knowledge which explores the nature of mind. The history is in search of human kindness, beauty and truth. The hub of human civilization exists in academic, the hub of academic exists in history. History with beauty and good, the civilization of the human race will be more progress.