La conception du Barbare prsente des similitudes entre le monde antique

classique et la Chine ancienne. Comme les Grecs, les Chinois ont considr
les peuples situs autour deux comme des Barbares et se sont reprsent le
monde comme tant form par deux parties opposes : les Chinois et les
autres. Mais, contrairement aux Grecs, qui tablissaient cette division sur
des critres ethniques (un Barbare ne pouvant devenir normalement un
Grec), les Chinois fondaient cette division sur des critres culturels : les
Barbares pouvaient devenir Chinois, une fois quils ont accept la culture
chinoise, civilisatrice . cet gard, lattitude chinoise envers ltranger
semble similaire plutt celle des Romains.
Lobjet de cette srie de confrences, proposes par M. Yang Huang
lAOROC, dans le cadre de la coopration du Labex TransferS avec
lUniversit de Fudan, est la comparaison de la conception du Barbare en
Chine, en Grce et Rome. Cela concerne limage de lautre et, en
consquence, la dfinition de soi : or, cette dfinition se fait par lacceptation
ou le refus daccepter, de manire consciente, les transferts culturels entre
cultures voisines. Cette tude sera donc une contribution la comprhension
des identits ethniques (asiatiques et europennes) et des ides et pratiques
politiques dans les diffrentes socits prmodernes. La mthode utilise est
celle du comparatisme culturel, pour mettre en avant les similitudes et les
diffrences entre civilisations qui ont volu, en contact avec des cultures
voisines, dans des contextes gopolitiques distincts.

Mardi 17 mars
Inventing the Barbarian in Early Greece and China
13h-15h, salle Fabri de Peiresc, INHA (2, rue Vivienne, 75002 Paris)
(dans le cadre du sminaire de Stphane Verger lEPHE)

Mardi 31 mars
The Representation of the Barbarian Other in Herodotus and Sima Qian
17h30-19h30, salle F, ENS (45, rue dUlm, 75005 Paris)

Mardi 7 avril
The Barbarian and Ethnic Identity in Greece, Rome, and China

17h30-19h30, salle F, ENS (45, rue dUlm, 75005 Paris)

Mardi 14 avril
Classical Studies in China
17h30-19h30, salle F, ENS (45, rue dUlm, 75005 Paris)

Perceptions of the Barbarian in Early Greece and China

March 14,

Posted by Yang Huang under E-journal, History, Research Symposium

2014

Citation with persistent identifier:

Huang, Yang. Perceptions of the Barbarian in Early Greece and China. CHS Research
Bulletin 2, no. 1 (2013). http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn3:hlnc.essay:HuangY.Perceptions_of_the_Barbarian_in_Early_Greece_and_China.2013

1 Questions of Greek ethnic identity and Greek perceptions of the barbarian continue to
stimulate inspiring studies some of which have contended what can be called orthodox theories
or models by adopting new perspectives and making use of materials not drawn into the
discussions previously. Erich Gruen, for example, argues against scholars who emphasize the
role of the barbarian other in shaping ancient Greek ethnic identity. He concludes that Greek
(together with Roman and Jewish) attitudes towards other peoples are far more mixed,
nuanced, and complex than has usually been assumed, and that ethnic identity in antiquity rests
less on distinctiveness from the alien than on postulations of links with, adaptation to, and even
incorporation of the alien.[1] On the other hand, Joseph Skinner has studied the Greek tradition
of ethnography from Homer onwards and suggests that discursive elements in that tradition were
constitutive of Greek identity, and that cultural and ethnic differences did play a part in
constructing Greek ethnic identity from a time much earlier than is usually assumed.[2] While the
debate is unlikely to be resolved in the foreseeable future in view of the nature of the evidence
and the multifaceted perspectives which can be adopted, it might be helpful to bring in a
comparative perspective to the discussion. Ancient peoples often described others, especially
their enemies, in derogatory terms and even called them barbarians,[3] and perhaps none were
more typical than the ancient Greeks and Chinese whose notions in this respect betray certain
striking similarity, at least in appearance. While the former clearly differentiated themselves from
all others whom they often called barbaroi, the latter typically called the surrounding tribes by
terms which can be neatly translated as barbarians. A comparative analysis on how and in
what sense the Greeks and Chinese came to see other people as barbarians might inform us
about the respective perceptions of the barbarian in either of the two ancient societies.[4] It is the
purpose of this paper to look at the early perceptions of the barbarians in early Greece and
China in a comparative perspective in the hope that the comparison might shed some more light
on the issues involved. It will outline the early Chinese perceptions of other peoples down to the
third century BC before attempting some preliminary comparative analysis.
2 The ancient Chinese used a number of words which are conveniently translated as barbarians.
The two words most commonly used are the yi and man . The former is found in the earliest
Chinese written records, i.e. the Oracle Bone Inscriptions of the late Shang period (Shang, c.1554c.1046 BC; Oracle Bone Inscriptions, 14th11th centuries BC), in which the largest group of
relevant texts refers to the Shang campaigns into theyi region[5] as in the example divination on
the day of xinzhi (the eighteenth day): is it good for ? to campaign into the yi region next month? In
the eighth month.[6] The pictogram for yi is , believed to denote literally a dead body, i.e. the killed
enemy.[7] A variant of the pictogram, , also appears in the Oracle Bone Inscriptions. It is adopted in

the bronze inscriptions of a slightly later period which also used another sign, namely , to express
the same idea. The latter literally denotes a man bound by a rope, i.e. a prisoner or slave. The
word man is first found in the bronze inscriptions of Western Zhou (c.1046-771 BC) and the sign is a
compound ideogram in the form of
, with the lower component taken to mean snake in ancient
Chinese. Two other words were also used to denote groups of people other than the Chinese,
namely rong and di , with the former first appearing in the Oracle Bone Inscriptions and
denoting warlike people and the latter first appearing in the Bronze inscriptions and denoting
people with hounds.
3 Apart from the yi, the Oracle Bone Inscriptions also record a number of other regions that the
Shang force habitually campaigned into, especially the qiang region.[8] This fact suggests that the
term yi probably did not carry the sense of barbarian. Rather it simply denoted one of the many
tribes or regions that were the target of the Shang military campaigns. In the bronze inscriptions of
the Western Zhou period the yi people were yet again targets of repeated campaigns. However, they
do not seem to have been always tied to a particular region any more. Instead they now began to be
associated more often with different regions or directions such as Eastern yi, Southern yi, yi of
the Huai region or yi of the Southern Huai region. A bronze inscription of the very early Western
Zhou period reads, The Duke of Zhou personally led a campaign against the eastern yi,[9]and a
late Western Zhou bronze inscription records a certain chieftain leading the yi of Southern Huai and
the Eastern yi to campaign extensively against the eastern and the southern regions (of Zhou).
[10] There are also records of other yi such as the Xi Men yi, the Xiong yi, and the Jing yi.
[11] The yi thus had become a common name for a number of tribes hostile to the Zhou regime.
[12] Similarly, when the word man first appeared in the bronze inscriptions of the Western Zhou
period, it denoted regions or directions that were targets of Zhou campaigns.[13] The inscriptions
show that on different occasions it is used to denote different groups in the north, west, and south.
[14] A bronze inscription also includes the words bai man (literally the hundred man) which also
appear in the Shijing, or Book of Poetry, a collection of poems and the earliest extant literary work in
China.[15] The man, therefore, also seems to have denoted different tribes in different regions and
directions.
4 We see, therefore, that at the beginning the yi might haven been certain particular tribe or group
of people that was neighboring the Shang. However, by the Western Zhou period the yi as well as
the man had come to denote different groups of people in widely different regions and directions. In
either case they were recorded mostly because of hostilities between them and the Shang and
Western Zhou regimes. By the time of the late Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States
Period, that is, from the fifth to the third centuries BC, when the earliest extant literary records
appeared, the Chinese seem to have distinguished themselves clearly from the
various yi, man, rong and di. They called themselves Xia or Huaxia after what was believed to be the
earliest political entity of the Chinese, the Xia (c. 2000-1554 BC), which predated and was
conquered by the Shang, and generally considered the barbarians enemies of the Chinese.
The Shangshu, or Book of Documents, which claims to record sayings and speeches of rulers and
kings of the three dynasties of Xia, Shang, Western Zhou and beyond, recounts a speech attributed
to the legendary king Shun who was supposed to have ruled before the Xia dynasty. The sage king
said to his minister Gao Yao:
Gao-Yao, the manyi disrupt the Xia. There are robbers, murderers, insurgents, and traitors. It is
yours, as the Minister of Crime, to use the five punishments to deal with their offences.[16] (trans.
Legge)
5 It is noteworthy that now the terms man and yi are combined to indicate the barbarians,
apparently in general terms. As a matter of fact, such combinations as manyi, rongdi or yidi were
regularly taken up in the texts of the period. The Zuozhuan, the first major historical narrative in
ancient China which probably dates back to the fifth and fourth centuries BC, records a famous

instance in which Guan Zhong, a famous minister and reformer of the state of Qi, persuaded Duke
Huan in 661 BC to help the state of Xing which was under attack by the di barbarians with the
following words, The rongdi are wolves and jackals who can not be satiated; the several Xia are kin
who can not be abandoned.[17] Here the combination ofrongdi is used to denote the di barbarians.
On another occasion the same combination is used to denote the rong barbarians.[18] The beast
simile in the passage is also noteworthy as authors of the period typically compare barbarians to
birds and beasts.[19] Occasionally, those who lived around the Chinese world were even described
as part humans and part animals. In the Shanhaijing, or Book of Mountains and Seas, a mythical
and geographical work, the bulk of which was probably composed in the Warring States period,
various animals with human parts or humans with animal elements in the regions surrounding the
Chinese world are recorded.[20]
6 The barbarians, however, were compared to birds and beasts predominantly not because of
their different natural appearances, but because of their different customs. In the Royal Regulations
of the Liji (Book of Rituals), a work which is believed to contain segments from the time of Confucius
but compiled much later, the king is reminded that he should recognize that inhabitants of different
geographical settings have different customs. Then the different tribes of the man, yi, rong and di are
neatly allocated to the four directions of South, East, West and North, and their customs that differ
from the Chinese are expounded:
The Zhongguo (Middle Kingdom) and the rongyi, the peoples in these five regions all had their
several natures, which could not be made to alter. Those in the East were called yi who had their
hair unbound and their bodies tattooed, and they ate their food uncooked; those in the South were
called man who had their foreheads tattooed and their feet turned in towards each other, and they
ate their food uncooked; those in the West were called rong who had their hair unbound and wore
hides, and they did not eat grain; those in the North were called diwho wore feathers and dwelt in
caves, and they did not eat grain. The people of the Middle Kingdom, and of those yi, man, rong,
and di, all had their dwellings, where they lived at ease; their flavors which they preferred; the
clothes suitable for them; their proper implements for use; and their vessels which they prepared in
abundance. In those five regions, the languages of the people were not mutually intelligible, and
their likings and desires were different. To make what was in their minds apprehended, and to
communicate their likings and desires, (there were officers) in the east, called transmitters; in the
south, representationists; in the west, didi; and in the north, interpreters.[21](trans. Legge with some
revision)
7 At first glance the passage seems to report in a matter of fact tone the differences of the peoples
in disparate regions, and the words man, yi,rong and di do not seem to be used with apparent
derogatory connotations. Yet, the contrast between the Chinese and the other tribes is clear enough
right from the first sentence, and the customs of these tribes that are stressed actually serve to
highlight that contrast as the Chinese in the Middle Kingdom considered agriculture as the basis,
and dressing and eating properly as an essential part of the rites, for the civilized way of life. The
passage is important in that it laid out a Chinese political geography which included the barbarians,
but allocated each tribe of them to the four directions. The dichotomy of the Chinese at the center
and barbarians at the periphery had thus become a fundamental component of the Chinese
perception of the Chinese political order, the All Under Heaven (tianxia). The Shangshu includes a
political treatise on the administration of the legendary king Yu from a geographical perspective. In it
the Chinese political order is further elaborated as five concentric zones surrounding in turn the royal
capital in the center with the two outer zones reserved for the yi, man and exiles.[22] This ideological
construct seemed to be widely accepted as it was mentioned in several other sources.[23] In
the Guoyu (Discourses of the States) the Western Zhou political system is also described as
consisting of the Five Zones with the manyi and rongdi occupying the last two outlying zones.
[24] Similar accounts are also seen in theZhouli (Rites of the Zhou) and other texts.[25]

8 The barbarians, then, were not only differentiated from the Chinese, they were also thought to be
ruled over by the Chinese. To trace the origin of this political ideology, we need to go back to earlier
periods of Chinese history. The first Chinese kingdoms, the Xia, the Shang, and the Zhou rose
successively along the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River valley amid various other tribes
or peoples. In the course of the Shang and Zhou expansion they conquered many of these peoples
and ruled over them. This formed the historical foundation for the idea of the All Under Heaven, a
political ideology that saw the ruling Chinese at the center of a state which in concept had the
unlimited potential of expanding into surrounding territories of the different barbarians and
assimilating them. It is believed that by the time of the Western Zhou period the concept of All
Under Heaven had been firmly established.[26] Later political theorists had further elaborated this
political notion by creating a model whereby the all important ruler, the Son of Heaven, was
surrounded by five zones stretching into barbarian lands, and which formulated the configuration of
the barbarians of the four quarters with the yi, man, rong and di tied to the four directions of East,
South, West and North.
9 Thus the barbarians seem to have played a vital role in the ideological construction of the
Chinese political order which at the same time embodied the Chinese notion of the world order, with
the Chinese at the center of the world, its rulers alone enjoying the Mandate of Heaven to rule over
all. This political ideology was further justified and reinforced by Confucianism which emerged during
the late Spring and Autumn period and which took the Western Zhou as a model of civilized society.
It envisaged an ideal social, political and moral order based on humaneness and the observance of
proper rites (li). For Confucius, observing the proper rites was the hallmark of a civilized society and
the barbarians were inferior precisely because they did not adopt the rites. It is in this sense that
Confucius says, Even if the yidi have kings, they are still inferior to the several Xia when they do not
have kings.[27] It is also in this sense that commentators in the late Spring and Autumn period and
in the Warring States period stress that the civilized Chinese states should be protected against the
onslaught of barbarians. Hence Confucius praised Guan Zhong, for steering a policy of warding off
the barbarians: Were it not for Guan Zhong, says Confucius, we should now be wearing our hair
loose and folding our ropes to the left[28], meaning that the Chinese would have been forced to
adopt barbarian customs. The second great Confucian master Mencius (372-289 BC) also firmly
believed in the superiority of Chinese culture when he said, I have heard of transforming the yi by
the Xia, but never of transforming the Xia by the yi.[29] Yet, it was Mencius who developed an idea
that was already hinted at by Confucius, namely, that barbarians can become civilized by adopting
proper ritual norms of the Chinese.[30] As a matter of fact, commentators of the Warring State period
had witnessed such transformation since the southeastern states of Wu and Yue, which was seen as
barbarian in origin, and the northern state of Zhongshan established by the di, had adopted the Zhou
ritual norms and been integrated into the Chinese world by the Warring States period, and were no
longer treated as a barbarian states since then.[31] On the other hand, while fully subscribing to the
cultural demarcation between the Chinese and the barbarians, later Confucian commentators also
believed that when Confucius compiled the Chunqiu, or Spring and Autumn Annals, he upheld the
idea that even the Chinese would become barbarians if they did not observe the rites properly. In an
early Han commentary of theChunqiu, the Gongyang Commentary, the author sharply criticizes the
Middle States as new barbarians on the ground that they did not respect the status of the Zhou
king and thus disrespected the proper ritual norms.[32] Commenting on Confucius project of
compiling the Chunqiu, the great scholar Han Yu, who lived in the late eighth and early ninth
centuries, says that its purpose is to treat the dukes and lords who adopt barbarian rituals as
barbarians, and to treat those who adopt Chinese rituals as Chinese.[33]
10 From this brief treatment we see that a dichotomy of Chinese and barbarians was perhaps
already in place at the latest in the Western Zhou period, if not before, in the sense that the Zhou
people were often at war with the various barbarians; that they left the impression in their records
that the barbarians were invariably targets of campaigns and conquest; that they believed that they

were entitled to rule over them. By the time we possess the earliest extant literary works, that is,
from the fifth to the third centuries BC, the barbarians were seen as clearly inferior, possessing
uncivilized customs and not observing proper rites. Nevertheless, the fundamental differences
between the Chinese and barbarians were seen as those of customs and rites, not those of race or
ethnicity. Hence barbarians could become Chinese by adopting Chinese customs and rites. On the
other hand, in the Confucian view which was to dominate Chinese intellectual and political history,
those Chinese who failed to observe the proper rites should be treated as barbarians. Hence the
statuses of the Chinese and barbarians were transformable, as has been pointed out by Yuri Pines.
[34] On the basis of this, the Chinese political ideology was further rationalized in that China was
seen as the center of the civilized world, surrounded by barbarians in the four quarters who
invariably bore the same names, but that the Central Kingdom was capable of ever expanding and
assimilating these barbarians into the civilized universe.
11 Early Chinese perceptions of the barbarian might be suggestive for the study of early Greek
attitudes to the barbarian in a number of ways. What can now be called the traditional view holds
that the distinction between Greeks and barbarians did not become apparent and that the barbarian
did not play a significant role in Greek self-identification before the Persian-Greek encounters as
advanced by Edith Hall and Jonathan Hall among others.[35] This view has been criticized for falling
into the traditional narrative trap which distinguishes phases of the relationship between Greeks and
other people, with distinct features in each phase, along with the traditional periodization of Greek
history into archaic, classical and Hellenistic periods.[36] Its arguments are essentially based on
linguistic and textual evidence. It is true that the word barbaros only appears once in the Homeric
poems in a compound form (barbarophnos, Il. 2. 867) and is not found henceforth until the late
sixth and early fifth centuries BC when it reappears in the works of Anacreon (fr. S313b, Page SLG)
and Heraclitus (fr. 22 B 107 DK), but this may have resulted from the nature of our evidence. As a
matter of fact, documentation about other peoples in archaic Greece is scanty and fragmentary, as is
also the case in early China before the fifth century BC. Yet the Chinese evidence allows us to draw
a somewhat clearer picture of the process by which encounters and hostilities between Chinese and
other peoples in the course of early Chinese expansion had gradually turned the latter
indiscriminately into barbarians. The words later used for barbarians originally designated some
specific foreign tribes in the Shang records, but had come to denote various groups of people in
different regions surrounding the Chinese regime in the Western Zhou period, implying that a
Chinese barbarian dichotomy was already perceived. More importantly the Zhou people
formulated the idea of their political order very much on the basis of an opposition between
themselves and the barbarians. It seems that from early on the barbarian had already become an
important element in the Chinese self-identification. By the time when we have the earliest extant
literary works, the general polarization of the Chinese and barbarians seems to have already been
firmed established. The barbarians were now seen as clearly inferior culturally to the Chinese who
saw themselves as the center of the civilized world. In other words, in the Chinese case perceptions
of the barbarian were an ongoing processan evolving continuum which culminated in the self
other polarity in the end. Ignoring or failing to give full weight to the early part of that process would
stop short of bringing out full implications that such perceptions entailed or even lead to distorted
pictures.[37]
12 The Chinese example, of course, by no means warrants a parallel development in early
Greece, but it may prompt us to pay due attention to the role that encounters with other peoples in
early Greek expansion might have played in Greek perceptions of the barbarian. It would be very
hard to imagine that the many encounters between Greeks and other peoples during the period of
archaic Greek colonization did not make Greek minds ponder the differences (and sometimes
enmity) between them and others. [LK1] Indeed Irad Malkin has suggested that networking in the
colonization of the Archaic period was a way of forging Greek identity,[38] and it would be hard to
imagine that the other side of the same process, the drawing of boundaries between the networking
Greeks and others, did not play a part in forging that identity. Malkin himself admits that the

Hellnion at Naukratis (Herodotus, 2. 178) with the dedications to the gods of the Hellenes (
) implies a self-aware religious convergence. It was a Greek convergence that
could happen only within a colonial context.[39] Earlier Carla Antonaccios analysis of ethnicity in
Sicily had come to a similar conclusion.[40] Moreover, the Homeric poems which are of a
Panhellenic nature both in terms of composition and in terms of proliferation as suggested by
Gregory Nagy[41] must have already made the Greeks aware that they were opposed not only to the
Trojans, but also to an array of peoples in the East as attested in the Catalogue of Ships. Hilary
Mackie has shown that the Iliad in fact differentiates Greek and Trojan culture by constructing two
languages that differ in style, civic function, genre, and linguistic orientation.[42] On a closer
scrutiny even the supposedly free-from-prejudice wording of barbarian-speaking Carians (
) may not have been free of prejudice if understood within the Homeric context.
[43] In a remarkable inquiry into Greek voyages, Franois Hartog discusses how Odysseus as a
frontier-man marks out frontiers through his travels and adventures. He thus concludes that
the Odyssey provides the basis for the Greeks vision of themselves and of others.[44] Indeed
stories of Odysseus imagined adventures and Greek settlers travels might have interplayed in
mapping out the boundaries of the Greek world. Both Carol Dougherty and Irak Malkin have
illuminated the ways in which the Odyssey and Greek colonization interacted in conceptualizing
Greek encounters with others and delineating the contours of Greek identity.[45] More recently in an
intriguing study, Joseph Skinner has made use of material evidence so far not drawn into the
discussion to argue that Greek ethnographical interest and discourses on cultural identity are an
ongoing continuum from Homer to Herodotus.[46]
13 In the light of the foregoing discussions I suggest that an alternative approach to Greek
perceptions of the barbarian and self-identity is possiblean approach that does not narrowly focus
on linguistic usage and genealogies, or on decisive moments for a clear articulation of oppositional
self-identification, but is broad enough to also take into consideration the impact of Greek expansion
in the form of trade and colonization and of the Homeric poems on the Greek imagination of
themselves and others from the early Archaic period onwards. Seen in this way Greek perceptions of
the barbarian, like those of the Chinese, might well be an evolving process, an ongoing continuum
in the words of Joseph Skinner, from the early Archaic period onwards that leads to the articulation
of, and discourses on, the Greek barbarian polarity. The evolving notions of the barbarian other
might have already played an important role in the formative period of Greek as well as of Chinese
culture in that they helped to set up the foundations on which the political and cultural systems of the
two societies were to develop. Thus it will not do to suggest that the notions of the barbarian
represented no more than mere human prejudices and that only a faction of people in ancient
Greece and China held up those prejudices. The notions of the barbarian were perhaps fundamental
strategies by which these two ancient societies forged their cultural traditions.
14 It should be apparent by now that there are some interesting differences between notions of
barbarians in Greece and China. While both the Greeks and the Chinese tended to consider
themselves superior to the barbarians, the divide between the Greek and barbarian seemed to be
taken for granted, whereas for the Chinese the borders could be crossed either way, especially from
the barbarian side to the Chinese side. Indeed transformability seems to be a salient feature of
Chinese notions of self and the barbarian, for the great divide between the Chinese and the
barbarians did not seem to be kinship or ethnicity, but rather the proper rites for a civilized way of
life. The civilized center, that is, the Chinese, were open to the outside and would embrace those
barbarians who adopted the proper rites which means of course that they had accepted Chinese
rule. Even the birds and beasts simile is culturally determined as Yuri Pines argues. In fact the
same simile abounds in the literary works of the period of our concern and beyond, and is also often
applied to situations when Chinese did not abide by the moral codes deemed indispensible for the
Chinese social and political order. Thus Mencius comments:
When the five kinds of grain were brought to maturity, the people all obtained subsistence. But men
possess a moral nature; and if they are well fed, warmly clad, and comfortably lodged, without being

taught at the same time, they become almost like birds and beasts. This was a subject of anxious
solicitude to the sage Shun, and he appointed Xie to be the Minister of Instruction, to teach the
relations of humanity: how, between father and son, there should be affection; between sovereign
and minister, righteousness; between husband and wife, attention to their separate functions;
between old and young, a proper order; and between friends, fidelity.[47]
15 The bestiality of the barbarians, therefore, did not prevent them from becoming Chinese as they
regularly did so throughout Chinese history. The Greeks, on the other hand, do not seem to have
accepted the general transformability of the barbarians into Greeks, at least in the Classical period,
even though they might have done so in the Archaic period as ethnic borders were still fluid[48] and
despite some argument for transformability in the Classical period.[49] The differences show that
kinship or blood is a key element in Greek ethnicity, but that they do not play the same role to the
same extent in the Chinese self-identification. I think more importantly, they betray and perhaps even
help to perpetuate the very different natures of the two societies and their cultures. The Chinese had
consolidated an imperial system with ecumenical pretensions which relied heavily on the efficacy of
a system of moral and ethical codes, whereas the Greeks had consolidated a world of self-contained
communities in which citizens celebrated their autonomy and freedom.
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2005
1956
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1933 1982
1962
2004 514522
20062006 1 8792
20112011 5 14
20042004 1 410 35

The author would like to thank Dr. Douglas Frame, Dr. Wu Xin and CHS fellows for Autumn 2013 for their
help and criticism in preparing this paper. Special thanks are to Professor Fritz-Heiner Mutschler, Dr. James
Collins and Dr. Wu Xin for reading and correcting earlier versions of the paper.
[1] Gruen 2011a. See also Gruen 2011b, Introduction, esp. 1-2.
[2] Skinner 2012.
[3] See, for example, Mu-Chou Poo 2005.
[4] Such an attempt has already been made by Hyun Jin Kim. See Hyun 2009. Kim, however, stops short of
bringing out some of the key points.
[5] The relevant Oracle Bone inscriptions are now collected in 2005713
[6] 33038
[7] 1933462
[8] 195626991
[9]2739See also 2005131
[10]2833
[11] 428891See also 1962 2004
[12] 2011
[13] 10173
[14] 1962
[15] 10342The Book of
Poetry () was compiled in the late Spring and Autumn Period, but some of the poems are believed
to date back to the Western Zhou period.
[16]
[17]
[18]
[19] See Pines 2004 for a
detailed discussion of the beast simile.

[20] The work is often treated in the Chinese literary tradition as mostly fictitious and hence often put in the
miscellaneous category, but its imagination of others conforms to the pattern of the period and should not be
neglected. See Poo 2005, 2 and 83-4.
[21]

The book on Royal Regulations is

believed to have been written in the Warring States period.
[22]

[23] Di Cosmo 2002, 95-96.

[24]

[25]
[26] 1956 2010
[27]
[28] The English translation is taken from Pines 2005.
[29]
[30] For discussions of the relevant texts, see Pines 2005.
[31] Pines 2005. Another well-known pre-imperial example would be the Chu, which was typically seen as
being of barbarian origins, but became a powerful state in the Spring and Autumn period. See Cook and
Major 1999.
[32]

cf. See
2006
[33]
[34] Pines 2005.
[35] Schwabl 1962; Dubois 1982, 78-79; E. Hall 1989, 5-13; J. Hall 1997, 47 and 2002, 175-9; Hartog, 2001,
10-11; Hyun Jin Kim 2009, 2 & 23-29.
[36] Vlassopoulos, 9-10, 34-41.
[37] Hyun Jin Kim argues that a Chinese barbarian dichotomy only became apparent in the Warring States
period.
[38] Malkin 2005.
[39] Malkin 2011, 87-85. Quotation is from 92. See also Vlassopoulos 2013, 97-100. The italic is the authors
own. For a thorough analysis of the archaeological finds and Herodotus description of Naukratis, Bowden
1996.
[40] Antonaccio 2001.
[41] Nagy 1979, 7.
[42] Mackie 1996. Quotation is from 161.
[43] Vlassopoulos 171. cf. Weiler 1968, Herda 2013.
[44] Hartog 2001, 25.
[45] Dougherty 2001; Irak Malkin 1998.
[46] Skinner 2012.
[47]

[48] Hartog 2001, 80.

[49] J. Hall 2002, chapter 6.