Historical past is Written by the Losers – The Scholar’s Stage

This publish was originally published as a part of the Thucydides Roundtable project over at Zenpundit. I encourage you to learn all the posts within the roundtable.
Meet Sima Qian. I maintain him in excessive regard. You could possibly say that this was a historian with balls.
Sima Qian is usually known as the “Herodotus of the East.” It’s a good title. Herodotus is one among two males who can declare to have invented historical past. Sima Qian is the opposite.
It is a uncommon feat. It was completed in precisely two locations. Herodotus did it in Greece; Sima Qian did it in China. Of the opposite nice civilizations—the Mesoamericans, the Egyptians, Summerians, and their descendants, the Andean kingdoms, the early rulers of the Eurasian steppe, the good empires that sprouted up alongside the Indus and Ganges rivers, together with their cultural satellites throughout South and Southeast Asia—historical past is nowhere to be discovered. I keep in mind my shock once I found our information of historical India depends extra on historical Greek historians than historical Indian historians. Conventional Indic civilization merely didn’t have any. In historical India, playwrights, poets, lyricists, grammarians, philosophers, story-tellers, mathematicians, army strategists, non secular authorities, and non secular upstarts all put pen to palm frond, leaving a treasury of Sanskrit literature for the longer term. This literature is subtle. It’s significant. Even in translation, a lot of it’s lovely. However search as you might, nowhere on this huge treasury will you ever discover a work of historical past. That a terrific thinker might profitably spend his time sorting by means of proof, attempting to tie collectively trigger and impact, distinguishing reality from legend, then current what’s present in a written historic narrative—it’s an concept that appears to have by no means occurred to anybody on the complete subcontinent. Solely in Greece and in China did this notion catch maintain. The work of each historian who ever lived finds its genesis in one among these two locations—and with one among these two folks.
Sima Qian is not only celebrated for the concept of historical past. He was additionally a splendidly gifted historian. His ability exceeds Herodotus, that dispenser of legends and collector of hoary wives’ tales, and is matched by only some greats within the West. Polybius. Tacitus. And naturally, Thucydides.
Sima Qian had a personality to equal his skills. He was the courtroom astronomer and calendar keeper within the reign of the egotistical emperor Han Wudi. On this function he was typically current at courtroom deliberations. One courtroom debate scarred him for the remainder of his life. He instructed the story in a letter to a good friend named Ren An:
“Occasions didn’t unfold as I had deliberate. I dedicated an egregious error.
Li Ling [a general who had just been defeated in battle and surrendered to the enemy Xiongnu] and I have been each officers within the palace, however we had had no alternative to change into pals. Our duties saved us busy in numerous places of work and we had by no means a lot as sipped a cup of wine collectively or loved the slightest pleasure of friendship. However I noticed that he performed himself with extraordinary self-possession. He was filial in the direction of his dad and mom, reliable together with his colleagues, scrupulously trustworthy in issues of finance, upright in exchanges with others, deferential in issues of priority, respectful, modest, and humble. His ideas have been at all times animated by selfless devotion to the wants of his nation—this was his means, and I noticed in him the very picture of a statesman. A topic who dashes to the general public’s support, risking ten thousand deaths with out considered his life as he rushes to his nation’s protection, such a person rises far above the unusual. And so when, due to a single indiscretion, courtiers whose sole concern had been preserving themselves complete and defending their wives and youngsters seized on his mistake to brew disfavor in opposition to him, I felt ache for him in my innermost coronary heart…..
it occurred that I used to be summoned to offer an opinion, and in simply this fashion I spoke of Li Ling’s deserves. My hope was to broaden my ruler’s perspective and block the phrases of jealous-eyed courtiers. However I used to be myself insufficiently clear and the emperor couldn’t understand my sense… and believing that I used to be talking as a partisan of Li Ling he had me despatched down for prosecution. Not all my earnest loyalty might justify myself to my inquisitors. I used to be convicted of trying to delude my ruler and the sentence acquired imperial approval.
….In surrendering alive Li Ling destroyed the popularity of his household. After I adopted by submitting to the “silkworm chamber ” I turned a second laughingstock. Oh, such disgrace! This isn’t one thing I might ever deliver myself to recount to an unusual individual.… A person dies solely as soon as. His dying could also be a matter weighty as Mount Tai or gentle as a feather. All of it is determined by the explanation for which he dies. The perfect of males die to keep away from shame to their forbears; the subsequent finest to keep away from shame to their individuals; the subsequent to keep away from shame to their dignity; the subsequent to keep away from shame to their phrase. After which there are those that undergo the shame of being put in fetters; worse but these disgraced by the prisoner’s go well with; worse but these in shackles; worse but those that are flogged; worse but those that with shaven heads and iron chains round their necks; worse but those that undergo amputations and mutilations. However the very worst shame of all is castration.
…How might I’ve plunged myself into the ignominy of deliver tied and certain? Even a captive slave-girl is able to placing an finish to herself, and certainly I might have carried out in order effectively, had it been the inescapably appropriate path. The rationale why I bore the insupportable and clung to my life, refusing to launch myself from the filth into which I had been solid, was the regret I felt on the prospect of leaving the achievement dearest my coronary heart incomplete, quitting the world like a vulgar nonentity with the written emblem of my lifework unrevealed to posterity.”
(From Sima Qian’s Letter to Ren An, trans. by Burton Watson).
To restate Sima Qian’s expertise in much less emotional phrases: as a result of he was principled sufficient to contradict the emperor within the presence of his courtroom, Sima Qian was sentenced to castration. This was a dying sentence—any self-respecting man of his day would commit suicide earlier than submitting to the process. Everybody anticipated Sima Qian to take action. However in the long run Sima Qian determined to simply accept the punishment and dwell the remainder of his life in disgrace, as a result of if he didn’t he would by no means end the historical past he had began.
Not each historian has the balls to a problem despot face-to-face. For despotic Wudi was—the castration of Sima Qian was hardly essentially the most despotic factor Wudi would do earlier than his reign ended. It’s however one episode in a string of terrors, one paint-stroke in a portrait of tyranny.
However who painted the portrait? None apart from the grand historian Sima Qian. We keep in mind Wudi as Sima Qian selected to depict him. Had Wudi realized the affect his courtroom astronomer would have on future generations, he may need handled him otherwise. However Wudi realized none of this. Sima Qian was revealed brutally and embarrassed publicly. He was a loser.
However in the long run, the loser received his revenge.
We say that historical past is written by the winners. That’s typically true. We’ve no Carthaginian accounts of their battle with Rome; few historians in the present day have a lot sympathy for Hitler. However the thread that appears to attach most of the nice histories of the pre-modern world is that they have been written by the losers.
In his roundtable publish, “Treason Makes the Historian,” Lynn Rees lists just a few of the sort. Herodotus wrote his historical past solely after his exile from Halicarnassus; Xenophon wrote his memoirs solely after his faction was pressured out of Athens. Polybius was as soon as a basic for the Archean League, however wrote his historical past as a hostage at Rome. The destruction of Judea was chronicled by a Josephus, a Jew.
These males deserted their international locations and folks for the victors of the longer term. However Quislingdom was not the one shedding path to historic fame. Tacitus’s loyalty to Rome by no means wavered—however neither did his identification with Rome’s Senatorial class, a gaggle whose energy was slowly stripped away as Tacitus wrote his chronicles. Sima Guang, the second most important historian of Chinese language historical past, solely completed his huge Zizhi Tongjian after courtroom rivalries had pressured him to retire. The historical past of the Mongols was written virtually fully by their vanquished enemies. Ibn Khaldun was related to so many failed regimes that it’s a surprise he discovered time to jot down his historical past in any respect.
I’m positive extra examples could be discovered. The instance most related to this roundtable is one Thucydides, son of Olorus. It’s right here in E-book IV we lastly be taught a tad concerning the man backstage:
The passage of Brasidas was a whole shock to the folks within the city; and the seize of lots of these outdoors, and the flight of the remainder throughout the wall, mixed to supply nice confusion among the many residents; particularly as they didn’t belief each other…. In the meantime the social gathering against the traitors proved quite a few sufficient to stop the gates being instantly thrown open, and in live performance with Eucles, the overall, who had come from Athens to defend the place, despatched to the opposite commander in Thrace, Thucydides, son of Olorus, the writer of this historical past, who was on the isle of Thasos, a Parian colony, half a day’s sail from Amphipolis, to inform him to come back to their aid. On receipt of this message he directly set sail with seven ships which he had with him, so as, if doable, to achieve Amphipolis in time to stop its capitulation, or in any case to avoid wasting Eion (4.103).
Now items of Thucydides work begin to click on collectively. Few Spartans are talked about by title; fewer nonetheless are Spartans talked about by nams on a number of events. The exception is Brasidas. Brasidas, courageous defender of Methone, and thus “the primary man on this battle to obtain the official honors of Sparta” (2.25). Brasidas, whose strategems virtually defeated the Athenians at sea (2.86-87). Brasidas, the daring main who virtually stormed the fort at Pylos (4.12). Brasidas, the savior of Megara (4.70-73). Brasidas, the one Spartan eloquent and smart sufficient to lift all of Thessaly into revolt (4.84). Brasidas, the overall who defeated Thucydides.
Thucydides’ obsession with Brasidas is straightforward to grasp as soon as his private relation to Thucydides is made clear. His portrayal of Brasidas as daring, good, charismatic, and intelligent past measure additionally begins to make sense—the better Brasidas’ previous feats seem, the much less damning Thucydides defeat at his palms turns into.
Thucydides therapy of Brasidas is hardly distinctive. You possibly can play this recreation with many different facets of Thucydides’ Historical past, from his perspective in the direction of Athenian democracy (which voted for his exile) to his unflattering portrayal of Cleon (who changed him). Thucydides misplaced battles with all of them. The Historical past of the Peloponnesian Battle was written by a loser.
Why have so many nice histories been written by the losers?
I like Mr. Rees’ suggestion:
These males most likely didn’t see themselves following in Vidkun’s bloody footsteps. They remained loyal to a political neighborhood of their delivery, simply not the flesh and blood political neighborhood of their delivery. They pledged allegiance to a nation in being that remained moored simply over the horizon within the Scapa Circulation of their imaginations, ready for Der Tag of political change.
This works for the Quisling historians effectively sufficient, nevertheless it doesn’t clarify the plain sore losers like Sima Qian. I’ll recommend one thing easier. Defeat offers good minds like Thucydides the 2 issues they should change into nice historians: time and motive.
Those that rule do not need the time to jot down about it. Sometimes historical past produces a Caesar or a Mao, males who can lead the lots to battle on the one hand, whereas serving as prolific propogandists for his or her trigger on the opposite. The better half mankind is just not so proficient. Sima Guang would by no means have completed his historical past had he not been shunted out of Music courtroom politics. Had Thucydides defeated Brasidas, he can be identified in the present day not as a historian, however as a army strategist, a strategist who by no means had the time to journey the world and gather the fabric wanted to jot down his historical past. Even profitable historians want time in defeat to jot down their histories—had Churchill’s social gathering not been kicked out of energy by British voters after the Second World Battle was over, Churchill’s well-known account of that battle would by no means have been written.
When excessive place is stolen from you, and entry to the heights of wealth and energy denied, there may be infant can do about it—besides write. Historical past is thus hardly ever a “weapon of the weak.” The judgments of the historian don’t serve the margins. They don’t even serve the lots. They’re a weapon within the hand of defeated elites, the voices of women and men who might be in energy, however are usually not. What was true in Thucydides day is true in our personal. The best clarification for trendy teachers’ hostility to twenty first century capitalism’s “constructions of energy” is their full exclusion from them.
That is the motive of defeat. Clever sufficient to rule, however lacking the wealth and place wanted to guide, the historian continues the battle in the one area that she or he can: the web page. Right here the historian wields absolute energy. Given sufficient time, that energy would possibly bleed off the web page and into actuality. Those that know Cleon’s title keep in mind him as horrible; those that acknowledge the title Brasidas suppose instantly of daring brilliance. I’m positive nothing would have made Thucydides happier. As he wished they’d be, this loser’s scathing judgments have lasted as a “possession all the time.”