1 - The sources

Summary

The Han shu (Former Han History; henceforth abbreviated HS) is disappointingly brief on the bureaucracy of Former Han times. It offers a valuable, though overly concise, description in chapter 19A, which serves as an introduction to the chronological table of high officials in 19B. The account is little more than an enumeration of official titles, gives few dates, and says next to nothing about duties or status in the bureaucratic hierarchy. The Hou Han shu (Later Han History; henceforth abbreviated HSS) possesses a far superior source in its Treatise on Bureaucracy (chih 34–8) which is mainly concerned with Later Han conditions, but sometimes has useful entries also for the Former Han. Even this splendid text is incomplete, and particularly weak on lesser officials. Some additional information is found in the HS Commentary by Yen Shih-ku (581–645), in the Commentary to the HHS imperial annals and biographies written under the patronage of the imperial Heir-apparent Li Hsien (651–84) and presented to the throne on 11 January A.D. 677, and in the Commentary to the HHS treatises by Liu Chao (fl. 502–19). More recent text-critical scholarship has been collected by Wang Hsien-ch'ien (1842–1917) in his two monumental editions of HS and HHS entitled Ch'ien Han shu pu-chu and Hou Han shu chi-chieh.

There is no doubt about the authorship of HS 19A. The text was compiled by the historians of the Pan family in the first century A.D.