ABSTRACT
This chapter compares the nature of Herodotus’ narrative in his Histories of the story of the Athenian general Miltiades the son of Cimon with the distinctive method of narrative employed by Sima Qian in his Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian), the first extended history of ancient China. Miltiades’ enduring reputation as a hero of Greek freedom rested on this wonder that shocked the world. To explain the comparison between historians’ approaches to narrative, neither of whom, to state the patently obvious, was aware of the other’s work, the chapter presents a survey of Sima Qian’s invention of a new method of writing history in ancient China. With this background in mind, it is now possible to consider the nature of Herodotus’ narrative of the story of Miltiades. Herodotus’ next fragment in his narration of the story of Miltiades goes back in time to describe complicated background history of how Athenian had originally acquired his tyranny in Hellespontine Chersonese.
