Notes on: Comparative Study of Poetics of Ancient China and Greece

 

Notes on: Comparative Study of Poetics of Ancient China and Greece

An 18th-century painted album leaf depicts events chronicled by second-century B.C. historian Sima Qian, in which Qin Shi Huangdi burned Confucian texts and hurled scholars into a pit. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. (GRANGER/AURIMAGES)

This interesting paper, provocative in many aspects, deals with a Comparative Study of Poetics of China and Grece, so I find it necessary to clarify some basic points on the subject. The author's decision to incorporate literature and philosophy within their definition of poetics (p. 2) may be somewhat perplexing, given that it diverges from the conventional everyday understanding and usage of the term. It is also of some importance to note that China as a cultural and political entity emerged only after the establishment of the Qin dynasty and the assimilation of distinct populations and their distinctive cultures. It is in this respect characteristic that Qin dynasty ordered a bibliocaust so as to underline the fact that the new polity would have a new identity starting from scratch! Therefore, when terms like 'nationality' and 'China' are used in reference to periods preceding this, they should be understood expansively as corresponding to a reality that was formed later, or as simply in a geographical / descriptive sense. It is worth noting that due to this aforementioned bibliocaust, written sources of (pre-) Chinese literature are of questionable dating, usually surviving through Qin and post-Qin archives, anthologies and collections! For example influential scholars like Zhu Weizheng, Michael J. Hunter et al. have questioned the traditional status of the Analects as the oldest stratum of Confucius’ teachings, while the historicity of the latter has also been disputed (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, s.v. Confucius).

In the abstract of the paper two statements are emphasized, that warrant a reappraisal:

FIRST STATEMENT

“while Western poetics came into being in the Hellenistic period ..”

This assertation is lacking accuracy. The works of the two most prominent Greek poets, Homer and Hesiod, were written down at circa the 8th century BC, but they drew upon motifs and narrations that had been orally transmitted for centuries, dating back at least to the Mycenaean era! Possibly earlier than these two Greek poets, there exists a nearly complete poem by Orpheus (Orphics – Orphica) while fragments of other epics are partly accessible through the writings of other ancient authors! It is important to acknowledge that the author revises this initial statement within the body of their paper, as on page 2, they admit that the origins of their concept of Greek poetics are rooted in what they term "ancient Greece" (500-336 BC).

 

SECOND STATEMENT

“Although there was no mutual communication and influence between the two kinds of poetics, due to both geographical distance and chronological displacement ..”

Between the two worlds, i.e. the Aegean and Serindia, there seem to have existed some kind of contact through migration or other means, as it is seemingly shown from the transfer of technologies, ideas and motifs. This contact was facilitated by the expansion of the Persian Empire, while Alexander’s conquest put Greece side by side to China and India from the end of the fourth century BC onwards! In this sense even the assertion of Derk Bodde (pp. 2-3):

“There are, for example, the facts that Chinese civilization, though not so autochthonous as once supposed, was founded and thereafter developed in relative isolation from any other civilizations of comparable level.”8

proves to be very conservative and outdated by as many as 70 years of research since the publication of the relevant paper at 1953! Without going intο further details, we may simply note here that between Greeks and Chinese there were even military contacts, friendly or warlike, as in the battle in Talas – Kyrgystan (36 BC), in the conflict between Han China and the Greco-Saca Jibin / Chi-pin, in the conflict with Ferghana (Dayuan – Greater Ionia) over the heavenly horses of the latter and in the conflicts between Han China and Xiongnu over the Hexi Corridor (king Xiutu as a vassal of the Xiongnu and later member of Chinese elite)! (Konidaris 2020). Yinmofu (Hermaios ?) seems to have been the first and also the last Indo-Greek king who accepted investiture from China and established a formal political relation with the Han court, while the hybrid Greek kingdom of Jibin could be admitted as a vassal state of China!

Speaking about Xiutu we may mention that this enigmatic and important figure in Chinese history was possibly of Greek descend. He had a son named Midi (Ridi), who would later receive the epithet “Golden Midi” from Wudi, the emperor of the Han (157–87 BC). According to the Hanshu, King Xiutu had his capital city in one of what were later the Han Chinese “ten districts of Wuwei”, and he has been described as a Xiongnu king by most historians. (Christopoulos 2022) According to wikipedia, wikipedia, s.v. Jin Midi, Jin Midi was born in 134 BC to a Xiongnu allied royal family probably of Greco-Bactrian origins ruling central Gansu. He was the heir of the king Xiutu (Soter/Σωτήρ), one of the major kings serving under the supreme ruler of the Xiongnu, Gunchen Chanyu. After Gunchen's death in 126 BC, his brother Yizhixie succeeded him. During this time, the king of Xiutu and another major king, the king Hunxie, were assigned for defending Xiongnu's southwestern border against the Han Dynasty – in modern central and western Gansu. This very person, Jin Midi, along with Xiutu have been the genetic founders of the famous Ban family (Sanping Chen 2011). 

Story of Jin Midi - A black and white drawing of two people sitting on a bench

According to Sanping Chen, an authority on Chinese culture and history, the family:

.... family produced not only Ban Biao(3-54), Ban Gu (32-92) and Ban Zhao (ca. 49-ca.l20), the father-son-daughter trio that authored China's first ever dynastic history Han-shu but also the extraordinarily daring and capable diplomat-general Ban Chao (33-103), who singlehandedly (reportedly with a force of only 36 fellow adventurers) re-established the Han domination in Central Asia (known at the time as the Western Regions) after the debacle under the tragicomic pretender Wang Mang (45 BC-23 AD). Chao' s exploit was further carried on by his Central Asia-born son Ban Yong.

..

The historiography of the Ban family was clearly highly influential in restoring the radically virtue-oriented, producerist and pro-peasant tenor of Confucian thought, and if Hill’s reading of the history is correct, they seem to have done it with such aplomb that it became taken for common sense in subsequent eras (Sanping Chen 2011). 

According to an interesting theory, that would explain some of the Hellenistic customs and art references existing among the Murong Xianbei, Yao Weiyuan (1905–1985) argues that King Xiutu was the ancestor of some members of the Xianbei military aristocracy too! (Christopoulos 2022). Members of this 'ethnic' group are supposed to have a long-lasting influence in China since they held prominent positions in Chinese aristocracy (Sanping Chen 1996). In this sense Greek contribution in Chinese intellectual history can be recognized as having an additional path for cultural communication facilitating cultural exchange! But the introduction of Buddhism in ancient China was another important channel for the diffusion of the artistic traits of the Greco-Indian Gandhara art as well as of the relevant religious - philosophical attributes of Buddhism.

 

Writing about his method of comparative analysis the author states:

“This style of Sino-Western comparative approach is termed by Wiebke Denecke as “ellipsis”2. For instance, both Cecil Maurice Bowra and Ernst Robert Curtius argue that Chinese culture lacks epic tradition characteristic of European culture3. Another frequently noted idea in Sino-Western comparative study is that “there is no tradition of tragedy in Chinese literature.”4”

The author attempts to base his views on the theory of Denecke, who makes use of the (Greek!) terms of ellipsis and catachresis in order to build another not colonial and non chauvinistic approach. This attempt in line with the rather extremist movement of ‘cancel culture’ is usually employed by members of the so-called ‘younger’ or ‘deficient’ cultures, such as, possibly, the Chinese compared to the Greek one. This reconsideration has been - with surprising sincerity (!) - recognized by Beecroft as a result of changing intellectual trends and shifts in global economic and political power (that) have contributed to a reassessment and to approaches that account for similarities and differences without assuming that the Greek tradition is superior or paradigmatic (Beecroft 2016). This changing political power balance urges the new major political players (mainly China and India) to ask for a reappraisal of the past, in line with what Mazower has stated: 

"As small states integrate into a wider world another future needs another past" (Mazower 2006, p. 554).

At this juncture, it is important to emphasize that in an age marked by political correctness, certain Western scholars felt compelled to challenge a hypothesis suggesting significant foreign influences on the so-called deficient cultures. Their motivation stemmed from concerns that acknowledging Greek influence might inadvertently lead to an overemphasis on assessing the accomplishments of other civilizations solely through the "Greek lens." (Solos 2021).

 

The author criticizes other scholars who have identified ellipsis (f.e. in epic tradition and tragedy) in Chinese culture. However, the author seems to conveniently sidestep addressing these particular deficiencies, downplaying their significance. Should the author wish to delve into the origins of Chinese theater and drama, it would be intriguing to explore Li Qiang's perspectives, according to which:

"Readers were surprised to discover that the traditional literary arts of China were all related to the Silk Road, where Yanshi’s puppet plays, masked Nuo plays, Buddhism music–dance plays, and religious ritual plays associated with Chinese traditional operas were bred; Sanskrit plays, highly praised in Kushan in the Western Regions, and Zhezhi plays, prevalent in the Tigris and Euphrates basins of Central Asia, shaped the patterns of exchanges between Chinese and foreign drama cultures after being introduced into the Central Plains.

..

An in-depth study may further uncover the following conclusion that such masks prevailing in the East actually originated from Gandhara art and Dionysus of ancient Greece.

..

Khotan in Xinjiang of China was adjacent to the mountains and rivers of Kushan and Gandhara, and they once shared a common destiny. Therefore, it is quite reasonable that there was a significant Hellenistic influence on performing arts and drama in Khotan."

It is also worth noting that China has never been colonized, at least not in the ancient times and especially not from the ‘usual’ western colonial powers!

 

Writing about similarities in Rhetoric the author states:

“Last but not the least important is the similarity in rhetoric as effective discourse shared by the scholars of pre-Qin and ancient Greece. James J. Murphy’s affirmation that “It is important to note at once that rhetoric is an entirely Western phenomenon”40 is again a chauvinistic idea.”

The author tries to access another similarity between pre-Qin, i.e. pre-China (!) and Greece, that in rhetoric (pp. 13-14). In this attempt he makes use of the The Book of Change which, according to available data (Wikipedia, s.v. The Book of Change) was initially a divination manual, that several centuries later at about the 2nd c BC was transformed to a philosophical commentary!:

.. is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics… was originally a divination manual in the Western Zhou period (1000–750 BC)… during .. Warring States and early imperial periods it transformed into a cosmological text with a series of philosophical commentaries known as the "Ten Wings".[1] After becoming part of the Five Classics in the 2nd century BC, the I Ching was the subject of scholarly commentary and the basis for divination practice for centuries across the Far East, and eventually took on an influential role in Western understanding of East Asian philosophical thought.

The author refutes J. J. Murphy’s view that rhetoric is an entirely Western phenomenon, and criticizes G. A. Kennedy who shares a similar perspective by arguing that rhetoric existed in Greece only because it was given such a name as “rhetoric” was, naming this affirmation as ridiculous! Forgetting his so impolite characterization in the following part of his study the author states (pp. 13-14):

the Pre-Qin scholars not only paid the same importance to rhetoric as an effective discourse as the scholars in ancient Greece did, but also coined the name “xiuci” the Chinese name for rhetoric ） even before Plato coined the term “rhetoric.” The evidence was the famous Chinese phrase “xiuci li qi cheng” (polished expressions are to be based on sincerity ） 42, which appeared in The Book of Change, a book written during the West Zhou Dynasty (roughly 1027-770 B.C. The major difference between the East and the West in studying rhetoric is that “in the East, rhetoric has been considered so important that it could not be separated from the remainder of human knowledge” while “in the West, rhetoric has been considered to be so important that it has had to be explored and delineated separately, as a special field of knowledge about human relations.”43

In conclusion the said reference to rhetoric is dated at about the 2nd century BC, in a questionable and ambivalent - polysemic - ambiguous way, as Kong Yingda of the 6th c AD interprets it differently! Even if this is the case rhetoric seems much more ancient in Greece than in Qin China by several centuries!

 

Without proceeding to analyze thoroughly this useful and informative study I would like to give the following concluding remarks on certain of its aspects.

The view that China developed a complex society and high culture without external influence has already been proved to be inaccurate. It is now known that contact and interaction did take place, based on mobility, migration and exchange processes mainly along the Eurasian Steppe Highway and the Silk Road. Not solely via the nomadic tribes but certainly through their agency as well, said interaction included the Mediterranean and Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex, as well as Afanasevo and Andronovo cultural horizons. The Hellenistic civilization is shown to be a significant party in this cultural encounter, mainly through its local cultural hybrids of Greek–Bactrian and Greek-Indian polities! The use of gold and silver as preferred luxury materials and the appearance of realistic life-size sculptures are only indicative examples with a rather pronounced Greek dimension; the above, together with architecture, landscape painting, various jewelry techniques, martial arts, and so much more, all owe a great deal to the Aegean heritage.

BIBLIOGRAPHY (OF REVIEW)https://www.academia.edu/15211511/Hel..., Juping. 2013. "Hellenistic World and the Silk Road," Anabasis 4 (Studia Classica et Orientalia), pp. 73-91.
https://research-bulletin.chs.harvard...
Yang, Juping. 2014. “Hellenistic Information in China.” CHS Research Bulletin 2 (2). http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.ess...

It was through the Silk Road that Hellenistic information spread into China. Although the clues in the documents and the cultural elements in the historical relics are not easily recognized, it is certain that the contacts, exchanges, and fusions between Chinese and Hellenistic civilizations actually took place and developed even long after the disappearance of the latter. Of course, most of my ideas may be just tentative hypotheses. I hope I can modify my paper in the future with the discoveries of new materials.
https://staffnew.uny.ac.id/upload/132..., B., G. Griffiths, and H. Tiffin. 2007. Post-Colonial Studies. The Key Concepts, 2nd ed., London and New York.Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin 2007, p. 30
Η εφαρμογή ενός όρου σε κάτι άλλο που έτσι δεν δηλώνεται σωστά (ΟΕΔ).
Αρχικά αναφερόμενος στην γραμματική «κακή χρήση», αυτός ο όρος χρησιμοποιείται από την Gayatri Spivak με τρόπο που είναι κοντά στην έννοια της οικειοποιήσεως. Η κατάχρηση είναι η διαδικασία με την οποία οι αποικισμένοι παίρνουν και ξαναεγγράφουν κάτι που υπάρχει παραδοσιακά ως χαρακτηριστικό της αυτοκρατορικής κουλτούρας, όπως η κοινοβουλευτική δημοκρατία. Όταν η Spivak μιλάει, για παράδειγμα, για την ικανότητα του υποδεέστερου «να κατακτήσει την κοινοβουλευτική δημοκρατία» (1991: 70), εννοεί «την εισαγωγή και την επανεγγραφή, κάτι που δεν παραπέμπει κυριολεκτικά στη σωστή αφήγηση της εμφάνισης της κοινοβουλευτικής δημοκρατίας. (70). Δηλαδή, ενώ η κοινοβουλευτική δημοκρατία αναδύεται από μια συγκεκριμένη ευρωπαϊκή ιστορία και κουλτούρα, η υιοθέτησή της και η προσαρμογή της στην κουλτούρα της μετα-αποικιακής κοινωνίας, συμπεριλαμβανομένου του ισχυρισμού, για παράδειγμα, ότι υπάρχει μια προ-αποικιακή εγγενής παράδοση κοινοβουλευτικής δημοκρατίας, μπορεί να προσφέρει μια ενδυναμωτική λεωφόρο αυτοδιάθεσης στο υποκείμενο. Μια άλλη κοινή και ενδυναμωτική κατήχηση είναι η εφαρμογή του όρου «έθνος» σε μια κοινωνική ομάδα που υπήρχε πριν από τον αποικισμό, όπως π.χ το «έθνος των Ζουλού», το «έθνος των Αβορίγινων», το «έθνος των Σιού».
Li Qiang. 2019. Silk Road: The Study of Drama Culture (Series on China’s Belt and Road Initiative III), trans. Gao Fen, New Jersey.
https://books.google.gr/books?id=Fbec..., Wiebke. 2013. Classical World Literatures: Sino-Japanese and Greco-Roman Comparisons, Oxford.

Ellipsis: p. 13 of Denecke 2014

of false ellipses. China and Japan, and Greece and Rome, are not conceived as cultural binaries, but as long-standing constellations of cultural reception processes, of cultural translatio. Thus, when we come to compare the four literary cultures of the Ancient Mediterranean and East Asia, we are not in fact comparing cultures, but reception processes. This constitutes a double move. First, we shift from an ontological to a dialectical comparative approach — from asking, for example, "how do Japanese and Latin literature compare?" to asking "how did Japanese and Latin authors deal with the historical flatness of their own tradition vis-a-vis their reference culture's?" Also, we move from a comparative approach that results in detecting ellipsis — the absence of something that makes one of the cultures look deficient — to an approach that profits from Catachresis {κατά-χρησις, εως, ἡ, excessive use or consumption, PTeb.61(b).305 (ii B.C.), Gal.19.679. II. analogical application of a word (e.g. γόνυ καλάμου, ὀφθαλμὸς ἀμπέλου), Arist. ap. Cic.Orat.27.94, Demetr.Lac. Herc.1014.49, D.H.Comp.3 (pl.), Quint.8.6.34, Sch.D.T.p.459 H., etc.: pl., Suid. s.v. Γοργίας; ἐκ -χρήσεως Gal.6.136.}[What is the theory of catachresis? In postcolonial theory, according to Bill Ashcroft < https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/a... > <https://staffnew.uny.ac.id/upload/132... [p. 30] and others, catachresis “is the process by which the colonized take and reinscribe something that exists traditionally as a feature of imperial culture, such as parliamentary democracy” (34) and either render it or transform it in relation to their own culture or ...] — the temporary application of an existing name to something that does not have one. We can get stuck in unproductive ellipsis by saying, for example, 'In Japanese literary culture the earliest literature was highly valued, so that a rich textual record dating back to the earliest period survives today; in contrast, Roman literary culture lacked that respect for its origins, which led to the loss of most of early Latin literature," Only once we apply the Japanese case to the Roman one through productive cross-application, catachresis, can we make unexpected discoveries and ask intriguing questions: as we will see, the Japanese case shows that Rome's loss of its early literature is not necessarily the norm and cannot be explained away by the assumption that early stages of literary production are awkward and simply propaedeutic for a greater future and thus "deserve" their loss. Which aspects in Roman literary culture facilitated the loss of early works? And, in catachrestic turn, which features of Japanese literary culture, if applied to the Roman case, would have prevented the loss of early Latin literature? (For the curious reader, I address these questions in Chapter 3.) Indeed, comparison should be a two-way catachrestic laboratory rather than a trial court imposing on one party the guillotine of ellipsis and cultural deficiency.
https://www.academia.edu/26847898/Rit..., M. 2001. "Ritual, Text, and the Formation of the Canon: Historical Transitions of  Wen in Early China, " T'oung Pao (Second Series) 87 (1/3), pp. 43-91. Konidaris, D. N. (Κονιδάρης, Δ. Ν.) 2020. Chinese civilization and its Aegean affinities (in Greek), 2nd ed., Αθήνα. https://oxfordre.com/literature/displ... Mishra. Postcolonial Theory, https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780...
http://users.uoa.gr/~cdokou/TheoryCri... Chakravorty Spivak. . "Can the Subaltern Speak?," in Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory. A Reader, ed. P. Williams and L. Chrisman, Columbia Univ. Press, pp. 66-111.
https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/bitstream/hand...
Bih-Shia Huang. 2002. “A Comparison of Greek and Chines Rhetoric and their Influence on later Rhetoric” (diss. Texas Tech Univ.)

https://doi.org/10.2307/495377
Kao, K. 1993. Rev. of Yi Pu 易 蒲 (Zong Tinghu 宗 å»· 虎), Li Jinling 李 金 苓; Yuan Hui 袁 暉, Hanyu xiucixue shigang æ¼¢ 語 ä¿® è¾­ å­¸ 史 綱 [An Outline History of Chinese Rhetoric; Hanyu xiucixue shi æ¼¢ 語 ä¿® è¾­ å­¸ 史 [A History of Chinese Rhetoric] in CLEAR 15, pp. 143-154.

p. 150concerns the ethical question of rhetoric in general. Quintilian's "good man" theory, or Isocrates' stress on the importance of the moral character of the orator, could be seen as comparable to the Chinese concern as expressed in the dictum from the Yijing Mg: "Xiuci ii qi cheng" (often understood as "polished expressions are to be based on sincerity" or "polishing the expressions in order to establish one's sincerity," although Kong Yingda [6th c AD] interprets it differently). In this connection, the Socratic position against rhetoric—because of its easy appropriation by the sophists to "make the worse appear the better cause"—finds a parallelism in the Taoist mis-trust of refined language ("Truthful words are not beautiful,/ Beautiful words not truthful"— Lao Zi, ch. 81), while Wang Chong's criticism of hyperbole seems to have arisen from the same consideration.

 

Schiappa, E. 1999. The Beginnings of Rhetorical Theory in Classical Greece, New Haven: Yale University Press.https://www.amazon.com/Beginnings-Rhe...    

In this provocative book, Edward Schiappa argues that rhetorical theory did not originate with the Sophists in the fifth century B.C.E, as is commonly believed, but came into being a century later. Schiappa examines closely the terminology of the Sophists ― such as Gorgias and Protagoras ― and of their reporters and opponents ― especially Plato and Aristotle ― and contends that the terms and problems that make up what we think of as rhetorical theory had not yet formed in the era of the early Sophists. His revision of rhetoric’s early history enables him to change the way we read both the Sophists and Aristotle and Plato. Schiappa contends, for example, that Plato probably coined the Greek word for rhetoric; that Gorgias is a “prose rhapsode” whose style does not deserve the criticism it has received; that Isocrates deliberately never uses the Greek work for "rhetoric" and that our habit of pitting him versus Plato as “rhetoric versus philosophy” is problematic; and that Aristotle "disciplined" the genre of epideictic in a way that robs the genre of its political importance. His book will be of great interest to students of classics, communications, philosophy, and rhetoric. https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2001/2001.0...
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7zv..., D. 1981. Essays on Chinese Civilization, Princeton.
https://www.academia.edu/35676781/The..., M. 2018. "The Formation of the Classic of Poetry," in The Homeric Epics and the Chinese Book of Songs: Foundational Texts Compared, ed. F.-H. Mutschler,  Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 39-72.
p. 40-41: The Records {.. of the Archivist or Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji)(Shiji) ca 145-85 BC} speaks of the Poetry as a unified and universally shared text organized by Kongzi {Confucius}; it does not yet speak of that text’s subsequent lineages of transmission or interpretation. The “Monograph on Arts and Writings” in Ban Gu’s (32-92) { of partial Greek ancestry!? } late first-century CE History of the Han (Hanshu) takes the history of the Poetry into the early empire: ..The two passages translated here are the earliest systematic accounts of the Poetry. Both date from the early empire, that is, centuries after Kongzi’s lifetime (and following the Qin imperial unification of 221 BCE). Both are centered on the role of Kongzi not as the author but as the compiler of the anthology; and neither account indicates how the poems had come into being in the first place, or who had authored any of them...  had been recited [from memory] and had not merely been [written] on bamboo and silk..p. 49: writing was not yet standardized even in Han ..
https://neoskosmos.com/en/2018/08/23/... by accident or design, the ancient cultures of Greece and China, though geographically at great distances from each other and politically, poles apart, present interesting parallels. One of many of these, would undoubtedly have to be surprising similarities in the foundational texts of both civilisations. Somewhere between 1000BC to 800BC, Homer’s epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, came into being, on the extreme western coast of Asia (Minor). At roughly the same time, at the easternmost extremity of the same continent, during China’s Zhou dynasty, the seminal Classic of Poetry {Odes} were collated.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/co... Encyclopedia of Philosophy, s.v. Confucius.. Recently, several centuries of doubts about internal inconsistencies in the text {Analects} and a lack of references to the title in early sources were marshaled by classicist Zhu Weizheng 朱維錚 in an influential 1986 article which argued that the lack of attributed quotations from the Analects, and of explicit references to it, prior to the second century BCE, meant that its traditional status as the oldest stratum of the teachings of Confucius was undeserved. Since then a number of historians, including Michael J. Hunter, have systematically shown that writers started to demonstrate an acute interest in the Analects only in the late second and first centuries BCE, suggesting that other Confucius-related records from those centuries should also be considered as potentially authoritative sources. Some have suggested this critical approach to sources is an attack on the historicity of Confucius, but a more reasonable description is that it is an attack on the authoritativeness of the Analects that broadens and diversifies the sources that may be used to reconstruct the historical Confucius.
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/classi..., A. 2016. "Comparisons of Greece and China," in Oxford Handbooks Online, <https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/classi... (28 Oct. 2023).
..  Changing intellectual trends and shifts in global economic and political power have contributed to a reassessment and to approaches that account for similarities and differences without assuming that the Greek tradition is superior or paradigmatic.
Christopoulos, L. 2022. “Dionysian Rituals and the Golden Zeus of China,” Sino-Platonic Papers 326, pp. 1-123.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41928567... Chen. 2011. "Two Notes on the Xiongnu Ancestry of the Authors of 'Hon-shu'," Central Asiatic Journal 55 (1), pp. 33-41. 
ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΖΕΥΣ / Xiutu ΣΩΤΗΡ: υποθετική αναπαραγωγή χρυσού αγάλματος με βάση αργυρά τετράδραχμα των ελληνο - βακτριανών βασιλέων: Ευθύδημος Β', Πανταλέων και Αγαθοκλής, που απεικονίζουν τον Δία να κρατά την Εκάτη (Σχέδιο του Θέμη Δερβέντζα).------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/pd... Yang. 2020. "Chinese historical sources and the Greeks in the Western Regions," in The Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek World, Routledge, pp. 446-464.
.. the Western Regions which Greeks once settled, controlled and inhabited for almost three centuries... y one Indo-Greek king, Menander, is referred to in the Chinese translation of a Buddhist sutra, Naxian Biqiu Jing (那先比丘經, Milindapañha in Pāli; see Kubica this volume)... According to W. W. Tarn and other scholars, Rong Qu is possibly the Chinese transliteration of “Yonaki” (“Greek city”). The city, then, would be Alexandria-Kapisa (Alexandria of the Caucasus). Yinmofu could be Hermaios, the son of the ruler of the Greek city. .. Hermaios would be the first and also the last Indo-Greek king who accepted investiture from China and established a formal political relation with the Han court, and the Greek kingdom of Jibin could be admitted as a vassal state of China (on diplomatic relation between Jibin and Han China, see also Yang 2013c). Ο Ερμαίος θα ήταν ο πρώτος αλλά και ο τελευταίος Ινδοέλληνας βασιλιάς που αποδέχθηκε την βασιλική ανακήρυξή του του από την Κίνα και αποκατέστησε μιαν επίσημη πολιτική σχέση με την αυλή των Χαν, και το ελληνικό βασίλειο του Τζίμπιν μπορούσε να γίνει δεκτό ως υποτελές κράτος της Κίνας (σχετικά με τις διπλωματικές σχέσεις μεταξύ Τζίμπιν και Χαν Κίνας, βλέπε επίσης Yang 2013c).
----------https://www.researchgate.net/publicat..., I. 2021. "Early Interactions between the Hellenistic and Greco‑Roman World and the Chinese: The Ancient Afro‑Eurasian Routes in Medicine and the Transmission of Disease," Chinese Medicine and Culture 4 (3), pp. 148-157... It was clear that in the era of political correctness some Western scholars felt it necessary to refute such a hypothesis[5,6] because they felt that the mentioning of Greek influence could lead to viewing the achievements of other civilizations through the “Greek lens.”--------------------------------------------https://academictrap.files.wordpress.... Chakravorty Spivak. 2012. An Aesthetic Education in the era of Globalization, Harvard Univ. Press.  https://poulantzas.gr/wp-content/uplo...
Χατζηαναστασίου, Τ. . "Κριτική αξιολόγηση των θεωριών εξιδανίκευσης της Οθωμανικής αυτοκρατορίας," <https://www.academia.edu/34097547/%CE... (30 Οκτ. 2023). 
Mazower, M. 2006. Î˜ÎµÏƒÏƒÎ±Î»Î¿Î½Î¯ÎºÎ·, Πόλη των φαντασμάτων, χριστιανοί, μουσουλμάνοι και Εβραίοι, 1430-1950 (Salonica, City of Ghosts : Christians, Muslims and Jews), ελληνική έκδοση: Αλεξάνδρεια, Αθήνα.
"Καθώς τα μικρά κράτη ενσωματώνονται σ’ έναν ευρύτερο κόσμο ένα άλλο μέλλον χρειάζεται ένα άλλο παρελθόν". Κοντολογίς παραδέχεται ότι κατασκεύασε ένα άλλο παρελθόν της Θεσσαλονίκης το οποίο ουδέποτε υπήρξε στην πραγματικότητα, αλλά το οποίο είναι απαραίτητο για να ταιριάζει κουτί "στο άλλο μέλλον" και στον άλλο ρόλο για τον οποίο κάποιοι προορίζουν τη Θεσσαλονίκη στον "ευρύτερο κόσμο", όπου τα "μικρά κράτη ενσωματώνονται"... Σε διάστημα μικρότερο της από το 1990 η μεσοβαλκανική ζώνη έχει κατακερματισθεί σε μικρά θνησιγενή κρατίδια αλληλοϋποβλεπόμενα.... Η βαλκανική σκακιέρα μένει ανοικτή στους δύο Μεγάλους Παίκτες».
Μαζάουερ, όπ. π., σ. 554. Ομολογείται δηλαδή πως πρόκειται για πραγματική αυτή τη φορά «κατασκευή» του ιστορικού παρελθόντος που νομιμοποιείται να γράφει ό,τι νομίζει πως εξυπηρετεί καλύτερα συγκεκριμένες σκοπιμότητες και προθέσεις του παρόντος που επιχειρούν να καθορίσουν και να ελέγξουν το μέλλον.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41931010... Chen. 1996. A-Gan Revisited - The Tuoba's Cultural and Political Heritage," Journal of Asian History 30 (1), pp. 46-78.p. 6280. .. (or Ma Heluo), a colleague of the famous courtier Jin Midi of Xiongnu Xiutu origin, hence quite possibly of non-Han origin too. See HSh 68.2960-61 and ZZhTJ 22.743-44.
p. 46: The rise of Tuoba Gui led to the hardening of the North -South partition, which in turn led to the eventual absorption of the South by the North. Alas, from the Sui era onward, 60 to 70 percent of those who were prominent in their times have been descendants of the Tuoba [and other Xianbei and Xiongnu groups]!1This long-lasting influence is also exemplified by the name Tabgach, generally considered a metathesis ...
Christopoulos: An interesting theory that would explain some of the Hellenistic customs and art references existing among the Murong Xianbei comes from the work of Yao Weiyuan (姚薇元1905–1985). He argues that King Xiutu was the ancestor of some members of the Xianbei military aristocracy.100
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/documen..., E. 2007. The Buddhist Conquest of China. The Spread and Adaptation of  Buddhism in  Early Medieval China, 3rd ed., Leiden.
p. 266King Wen had grown up among the Western barbarians; the Hun Jin Midi 金日磾 had once saved the Han dynasty.77 {77 Jin Midi was the son of the Hun chieftain of the Xiuchu 休屠; he became a court official and was greatly favoured by emperor Wu. In 88 BC he saved the emperor’s life by striking down the courtier Ma Heluo 馬何羅 (whose surname was posthumously changed into Mang 莾) when the latter was about to enter the emperor’s bedroom with a dagger. Jin Midi was ennobled as a marquis in 87 BC and died shortly afterwards. See his biography in Hanshu 68.20b sqq.}p. 32530 Colonies of foreigners, named after their place of origin, existed already on Chinese territory in Former Han times. Thus the chapter on geography of the Hanshu mentions a Yuezhi Dao 月氏道, one of the twenty-one prefectures (xian) of Anding 安定 commandery, in present-day Gansu (HS 28 B.5a), and a Qiuzi 龜茲 Xian in Shang 上 commandery (Shanxi) (ib. 6a). According to all commentators, these were settlements of Yuezhi and Kuchean immigrants (although these Yuezhi may have belonged to the “Small Yuezhi” of Western Gansu [NEXT PAGE IS 326] rather than to the “Great Yuezhi” who after their trek around the middle of the second century BC had settled in Bactria). See also P. A. Boodberg, “Two notes on the History of the Chinese Frontier”, HJAS I (1936), pp. 283–307, esp. pp. 286–291 for Qiuzi Xian in Gansu and an “Aqsu” in Shanxi, and H. H. Dubs, A Roman city in Ancient China (The China Society, London 1957) for a possible “Alexandria” (驪靬) in central Gansu (cf. Hanshu buju, large edition, 28BI.16a). It is no doubt due to the presence of such early Western immigrants that some faint but unmistakable traces of Buddhist influence are to be found in early Han literature and art.Chavannes (Cinq cents contes et apologues vol. I, pp. xiv–xv) has already called the attention to the occurrence of Buddhist themes in Huainanzi; another remarkable example in the  field of art is the representation of two six-tusked elephants on a bas-relief from Tengxian 滕縣 (S. Shandong) which probably dates from the middle of the  first century (cf. Lao Gan 勞幹, “Sixtusked elephants on a Han bas-relief”, HJAS XVII, 1954, pp. 366–369; picture of the relief ib. and in Corpus des pierres sculptées Han, Beijing 1950, vol. I, pl. 113). Of course the influence may have been very indirect, and the occurrence of such themes does not imply any knowledge about their Buddhist provenance and original significance.
https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/... Raphals. Sino-Hellenic Studies, Comparative Studies of Early China and Greece
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20789893..., J. 2009. "Ancient Greece, Early China: Sino-Hellenic Studies and Comparative Approaches to the Classical World: A Review Article," The Journal of Hellenic Studies 129, pp. 89-109.
https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/pdf..., A. 2021. Rev. of G.E.R. Lloyd and Jingyi Jenny Zhao, Ancient Greece and China Compared, in Comparative Critical Studies 18.1, pp. 95–121.
p. 97: Jeremy Tanner’s essay on ‘Visual Art and Historical Representation in Ancient Greece and China’ {https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint...} similarly derives an intriguing argument from a methodological innovation. Tanner examines artistic representations of historical events in the Stoa Poikile in Athens and in the Wu Liang Shrine, in what is today Shandong province

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/15914..., R. 2013. "A Stick Which may be Grabbed on Either Side: Sino-Hellenic Studies in the Mirror of Comparative Philosophy" Int class trad 20, pp. 1–14.
https://summer-schools.uoc.gr/greece-...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:... story of Jin Midi. Wu Liang Shrine, Jiaxiang, Shandong. 2nd century AD. Ink rubbings derived from stone-carved reliefs as represented in Feng Yunpeng and Feng Yunyuan, Jinshi suo (1824 edition), n.p.
Jin Midi 金日磾 (lived 134–86 BC) was born a prince of the nomadic Xiongnu, a confederation of Central Asian tribes that once dominated the eastern Eurasian Steppe. He was captured by Han-dynasty Chinese forces and made a slave who tended horses in imperial stables. However, he gained the trust of Emperor Wu when he thwarted an assassination attempt against him. When Emperor Wu lay dying at his bedside, he designated Jin Midi, Huo Guang, and Shangguan Jie as regents to rule over his Liu Fuling, then crown prince and later Emperor Zhao of Han. Jin Midi thus became one of the top officials in central government.Date 2nd century ADSource Lillian Lan-Ying Tseng's "Mediums and Messages: The Wu Family Shrines and Cultural Production in Qing China," in Rethinking Recarving China's Past: Ideals, Practices and Problems of the "Wu Family Shrines" and Han China (London and New Haven: Yale University Press and Princeton University Art Museum, 2008), page 279.
https://faculty.ucr.edu/~raphals/pubs..., G. E. R. and Jingyi Jenny Zhao. 2018. Ancient Greece and China Compared, Cambridge Univ. Press.
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