Bān Gù 班固
Zì Mèngjiān 孟堅. Native of Ānlíng 安陵 in Fùfēng 扶風 (modern Xiányáng 咸陽, Shǎnxī). Son of the historian Bān Biāo 班彪 (3–54) and elder brother of the general Bān Chāo 班超 (32–102) and the historian Bān Zhāo 班昭 (ca. 49–ca. 120). Born into the Bān 班 lineage, one of the great Eastern Hàn historian families.
After his father’s death in 54, Bān Gù took up Biāo’s unfinished Hòu zhuàn 後傳 (a continuation of the Shǐjì) and began to compose what became the Hànshū (KR2a0007). In Yǒngpíng 5 (62) he was denounced for unauthorised composition of national history and briefly imprisoned; he was then formally commissioned by Hàn Mǐngdì 漢明帝 to continue the work as Lánltái lìngshǐ 蘭臺令史 (Imperial Library Secretary). For thirty years he prosecuted the Hànshū in tandem with the Báihǔ tōngyì 白虎通義 (the official transcript of the Báihǔ Pavilion conference of 79 CE on Confucian doctrine; KR3i0014) and his own substantial corpus of fù poetry — the Liǎngdū fù 兩都賦 (the standard model for Hàn capital-rhapsody) and the Yōutōng fù 幽通賦.
In 89 he accompanied the General-in-Chief Dòu Xiàn 竇憲 on the great northern campaign against the Northern Xiōngnú; the resulting victory at Mt. Yānránshān 燕然山 was commemorated by Bān’s Fēng Yānránshān míng 封燕然山銘. When Dòu Xiàn fell from power in 92, Bān Gù was implicated, imprisoned, and died there. The Hànshū was unfinished at his death — the Bā biǎo 八表 and the Tiānwén zhì 天文志 were still incomplete — and was brought to completion by his sister Bān Zhāo at the imperial commission of Hàn Hédì.
His biography is in Hòu Hànshū 40 (KR2a0009), with extensive treatment of his historiographical work and his fù. The Bān family altogether produced four major figures of Eastern Hàn historiography and statecraft: Biāo 彪, Gù 固, Chāo 超, and Zhāo 昭.