Death
Emperor Ai died in 1 BC. It is not clear what the exact cause of death was, but he appeared to succumb to illnesses from which he had always suffered. On his deathbed, Ai ordered that his throne be passed on to Dong Xian, but this was ignored by imperial counselors.
The Grand Empress Dowager acted quickly to seize his seal and to take power back from Dong Xian, reinstating Wang Mang as the regent. Dong Xian and his wife committed suicide. Emperor Ai would officially be succeeded by his cousin, Prince Jizi, as Emperor Ping, but this was merely a pretext for Wang Mang to seize the throne nine years later. Emperor Ai's abuse of power, first influenced by his grandmother and then by his love for Dong, caused the people and the officials to yearn for the return of the Wangs.
Read more about this topic: Emperor Ai Of Han
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Some say that gleams of a remoter world
Visit the soul in sleep,—that death is slumber,
And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber
Of those who wake and live.—”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“If I had my life over again I should form the habit of nightly composing myself to thoughts of death. I would practise, as it were, the remembrance of death. There is no other practice which so intensifies life. Death, when it approaches, ought not to take one by surprise. It should be part of the full expectancy of life. Without an ever- present sense of death life is insipid. You might as well live on the whites of eggs.”
—Muriel Spark (b. 1918)