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Liu's obituary tablet is a model of colourful self-praise, and he aims a great deal higher than Anthony Howard's "man of unusual charm". He tells us that his behaviour set a standard which was destined to cause a revolution in popular manners. In public life he was an exemplar of, "benevolence, justice, statesmanship, modesty, loyalty, truthfulness and deference", and his military skills were compared to the fabled heroes of the past. In one great feat, we're assured, he beat off invading troops "as a man brushes flies from his nose". It's great stuff!
劉廷荀的墓志是狂熱的自我褒揚的典范，其定位顯然高過安東尼提到的“他是一個極具魅力的人' 他聲稱自己行為世范，必將徹底改變百姓的舉止禮儀。在朝為官時，他“仁、義、賢.恥、忠、信、禮”。他的軍事才能可與傳說中的英雄媲美。在一次戰役中，他輕松擊退入侵的敵軍，“如拂蠅于鼻”。
Liu Tingxun pursued his illustrious, if turbulent, career in the high days of the Tang Dynasty, which ran from 618 to 906 AD. The famous Silk Road was in full swing. The Tang era represents for many Chinese a "golden age" of achievement, both at home and abroad. This great outward-looking empire, along with the Abbasid Islamic Empire in the Middle East, together created what was effectively a huge single market for luxury goods, that ran from Morocco to Japan. You won't find it written in many European histories, but these two giants, in effect, shaped and dominated the early medieval world. Western Europe, by contrast, when Liu Tingxun died in 728 and our tomb figures were created, was a remote and underdeveloped backwater, an unstable patchwork of small kingdoms and precarious urban communities. The Tang ruled a unified state that stretched from Korea in the north, to Vietnam in the south, and far west along the Silk Road into Central Asia. The power and the structure of this state-along with its enormous cultural confidence-are vividly embodied in Liu Tingxun's ceramic tomb figures.
唐朝的統治自618年起至906年止，劉廷荀顯赭而起伏不定的仕途正處于此朝的鼎盛時期。對中國人而言，無論內政還是外交，唐朝都是成就斐然的黃金時代。當時，這個擴張中的偉大帝國，與中東阿拔斯王朝的伊斯蘭帝國一起，卓有成效地建立了西起摩洛哥東及日本的龐大的奢侈品專營市場。雖然在歐洲史文獻上很難看到相關記述，但這兩大帝國一度統治并塑造了中世紀早期的世界。在劉廷茍去世、墓葬俑完工的728年，西歐還是由許多小國與城邦拼湊在一起、政局混亂、岌岌可危的落后之地。而唐朝作為一個統一的國家，趣域北至朝鮮，南抵越南，向西循絲綢之路一直延伸到中亞。這個國家的結構.實力以及對自身文化的極度自倍都在劉廷茍的陶瓷某葬誦上得到了生動體現。
