Western Jin prince and historian whose Continued History of the Han survives in its eight treatises, later bound into Fan Ye's Book of the Later Han
Mural guide
In an archive hall, tall wooden shelves hold scrolls and bound books with small tags, and one person climbs a ladder with their back turned; a long table in front holds an unrolled river map, a bronze lamp and a copper jug, with a city wall seen through the window.
Sima Biao, courtesy name Shaotong, was a member of the Western Jin imperial clan, the eldest son of Sima Mu, Prince of Gaoyang, and was nominally adopted into the line of Sima Yi's younger brother Sima Min. Studious but dissolute as a young man, he was rebuked by his father and passed over as heir, after which he withdrew from society and devoted himself to scholarship. He served as a cavalry commandant and then in the imperial library, wrote a commentary on the Zhuangzi and compiled the Jiuzhou chunqiu. Finding the records of the Eastern Han scattered and confused, he wrote the Continued History of the Han (Xu Hanshu) in eighty sections of annals, treatises and biographies, from Emperor Guangwu to Emperor Xian. He died at the end of Emperor Hui's reign, aged over sixty. Since Fan Ye's Book of the Later Han lacked treatises, Liu Zhao of the Liang annotated Sima Biao's eight and added them, and later editions print them together.
Compiled the Sequel to the Book of Han in eighty chapters
After the Taishi years, Western Jin (exact years not given)
The Book of Jin says Sima Biao, courtesy name Shaotong, was the eldest son of Sima Mu, Prince of Gaoyang, and in the Taishi years became Secretary Gentleman and then Assistant. Because the period from the Han restoration to Jian'an had no good historian and its accounts were confused, and Qiao Zhou's pruning had not gone far enough, he examined the many books and gathered what he had heard. Beginning with Emperor Shizu (Guangwu) and ending with Emperor Xiaoxian, the work covers two hundred years and twelve reigns in eighty chapters of annals, treatises and biographies, and he named it the Xu Han shu (Sequel to the Book of Han).
Three Kingdoms
Jin