ABSTRACT
The Han-shu records the occurrence of two somewhat strange events in 5 b c . Chu Po, whose background and point of view was utterly different from those of contemporary statesmen and officials, was appointed Chancellor; and the government adopted a regnal title which immediately evoked memories of the one that had been chosen exactly one hundred years pre viously, at the height of Chinese pride and prestige and at a time when Modernist policies were in high favour. Neither of the two events of 5 b c bore a long-lasting result. Within four months of his appointment Chu Po had committed suicide; and after a mere two months the new regnal tide was withdrawn by edict. But transient as these events were they deserve con sideration in the major context of dynastic history; for while they derived from the intellectual developments and political attitudes of the past, they serve to illustrate the force of the dynastic rivalries that coloured the reign of Ai ti (7-1 b c ) .
