Writers › Writer / Poet
Ban Biao
Eastern Han historian and writer, father of Ban Gu, Ban Chao and Ban Zhao, author of the Wangming Lun and a continuation of the Shiji.
In a study at night, a desk holds a brush pot, a porcelain vase with a plum branch, a lit red lantern, a folded fan and an unrolled blank scroll, with no one seated there, while through a round window the moon rises over a lake with a sailboat.
Also known as Zi Shupi
Ban Biao, courtesy name Shupi, came from Anling in Youfufeng (near modern Xianyang, Shaanxi) and was born in 3 CE. As a young man he fled disorder to Wei Xiao in Tianshui and wrote the Wangming Lun urging him to side with the Han; he then served Dou Rong, was received by Emperor Guangwu, was recommended as a Maocai and became magistrate of Xu, resigning through illness. He later served in the office of the Minister of the Masses. He continued Sima Qian's Shiji with a sixty-five-chapter Shiji Houzhuan, which his son Ban Gu built on for the Hanshu. He died in 54.
Life and times
Dates 3 CE–54 CE