Sima Qian
c. 145 BCE–c. 86 BCE · Historian · Xiayang / Longmen (modern Hancheng, Shaanxi)
Sima Qian was a historian and astronomer-archivist of the Western Han dynasty, remembered as the principal author of the Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian), a sweeping account of China from legendary antiquity to his own era. He inherited the post of Grand Historian (taishi) from his father, Sima Tan, and drew on court archives and youthful travels across the empire. After defending the surrendered general Li Ling before Emperor Wu, he was condemned and subjected to castration; he chose to live in order to complete the history. His annals-biographies-treatises structure became the enduring model for later Chinese dynastic historiography.
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Xiayang / Longmen (modern Hancheng, Shaanxi)
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