Conclusion

In the period between the late third and the early seventh centuries there emerged new ways of looking at the past, interpreting it, writing about it, and instructing others about it. The old and new flourished, side by side. Genres were neither always rigidly nor exclusively compartmentalized, nor were they stratified horizontally, as once thought. The heirs of Thucydides such as Procopius and Theophylact could just as easily write about Christian life and events. Indeed, Procopius planned to write a church history (Goth. 4.25.13), while Theophylact included much material that could have been found in one (Whitby 1992: 50-54). Histories also had to accommodate the non-Roman nations that had intruded into the empire, especially those which had settled and displaced Roman authority. Space was found to explain the Huns (Ammianus, Priscus), Franks (Agathias), and Avars (Theophylact), while the Goths eventually required their own separate histories (Cassiodorus, Jordanes, Isidore). Christian authors reinterpreted and refashioned their classical historiographical models. In particular, the newly emergent genres of ecclesiastical history and the chronicle quickly established their own historiographical conventions and shaped the future course of history writing for centuries to come.

FURTHER READING

Around 1970 there was virtually no substantial contemporary study of such major historians as Ammianus and Procopius, none on any of the ecclesiastical historians, some of whom even lacked a modern critical edition, none on any of the numerous chronicles of the period, and none on any of the various historians preserved only in fragments and extracts. Since then all these gaps have begun to be filled. Studies of Ammianus (Matthews 1989; Barnes 1998; Sabbah 2003) and Procopius (Cameron 1985; Brodka 2004; Kaldellis 2004) have begun to proliferate, as well as attention paid to Agathias (Cameron 1970) and Theophylact (Whitby 1988), while Paschoud has created, or otherwise inspired, a whole shelf of studies on Zosimus (Paschoud 1971-2000; Bleckmann 1992) and his main sources, Eunapius (Baldini 1984) and Olympiodorus (Baldini 2004). So, too, research on the ‘‘fragmentary’’ historians has been facilitated by new texts and translations (Blockley, FCH; 1985; Roberto 2005). Another largely unexplored frontier is opened up by the translations of the earliest Armenian historians (Thomson 1976, 1978, 1982, 1991; Thomson with Howard-Johnston 1999), and those in Syriac (Trombley and Watt 2000). Reevaluation has also occurred of the Latin histories of Jordanes and Gregory of Tours (Goffart 1988; Croke 2003).

Recent editions/translations have appeared of the ecclesiastical histories of Socrates (Maraval 2004, 2005), Sozomen (Festugie;re 1983, 1996), Theodoret (Martin et al. 2006), and Evagrius (Whitby 2000). There are also new editions and translations of most of the main writers of summary histories (above, p. 311): Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, Festus, the Epitome de Caesaribus, and Sulpicius Severus. The study of the Greek, Latin, and Syriac chroniclers has been advanced by new editions/translations of John Malalas (Jeffreys et al. 1986; Thurn 2000), the Chronicon Paschale (Whitby and Whitby 1989), Hydatius (Burgess 1993), Marcellinus (Croke 1995), Pseudo-Dionysius of Tel-Mahre (Witakowski 1996), Victor (Placanica 1997), Victor and John of Biclar (Cardelle de Hartmann 2002), and Isidore (Martin 2003). Especially useful will be the translations and study in Burgess and Kulikowski forthcoming. While recent times have seen an outpouring of editions, translations, and studies of individual texts, there have been only a few minor attempts at critically surveying the historiography of the period as a whole (Momigliano 1963b, 1969a, 1969b; Demandt 1982; Croke and Emmett 1983a). However, two recent monographs suggest possibilities: Marasco 2003b is a series of specialist essays on periods and genres, while Rohrbacher 2002 is narrower than the title implies in respect of chronology, geography, genre, and methodology. Fundamental are two learned works by Inglebert (1996, 2001). The research opportunities for current and future students of late antique historiography are manifold and exciting.