Chronicles

Writing at Constantinople in ad 381, Jerome translated Eusebius’ chronicle into Latin and supplemented it with material drawn from Suetonius and the Kaiser-geschichte. He also continued it from ad 325 to the death of Valens in ad 378. Although Jerome specifically states that this was what he was doing, a comparison of his text with the Syriac Chronicle of 724 and with that composed by Theophanes Confessor c. ad 814 reveals similarities that prove he shared with them a common source - namely, an earlier continuation of Eusebius’ chronicle that proceeded down to AD 350 (Burgess 1999: 123-6; but in my opinion further). This highlights one of the most importance differences between the chronicle and the complex narrative history. The brevity and apparent simplicity of the chronicle encouraged its latest owner to add a few entries to it in order to bring it up to date. Hence a chronicle tended to grow as it circulated, and was recopied from one manuscript to another, until someone finally proceeded to compose a formal continuation of the original text for a more extended period but retained the anonymous intervening additions also.

The attractiveness of the chronicle format is amply illustrated by the number of different authors who attempted to write a continuation of Jerome’s chronicle itself. Prosper abridged it and added the names of the consuls for each year from the death of Christ, before then continuing it until ad 433. Furthermore, he continued it twice more also, to ad 445, then to ad 455 (Muhlberger 1990). Again, the anonymous author of the so-called Gallic Chronicle of452, who probably lived, to judge from the contents of his text, in the province of Viennensis in Gaul, continued Jerome’s chronicle to ad 452 (Burgess 2001a). Similarly, Hydatius, bishop of Aquae Flaviae in Gallaecia (northern Portugal), discovered a copy of Jerome’s chronicle, added Spanish era dates to its existing dating systems, and continued it from ad 379 to 468 (Burgess 1993). The anonymous author of the Gallic Chronicle of 511 continued the chronicle of Jerome, or an epitome of it, to ad 511, and used Orosius, Hydatius, and the Gallic Chronicle of 452 (in addition to other unknown sources) to assist him in this matter (Burgess 2001b). Finally, writing in Latin at Constantinople, Count Marcellinus continued Jerome’s text, first down to ad 518 and then to 534 (Croke 2001: 20-35). Eventually, further continuators added to this first generation of continuations of Jerome’s chronicle, and the process continued throughout the medieval period. Hence Victor, bishop of Tunnuna in Africa, continued the chronicle of Prosper until ad 567, while John of Biclaro, bishop of Gerona in Spain, continued the chronicle of Victor until ad 590 (Wolf 1990: 2-3). Then the anonymous author of the Chronicle of 741 continued John of Biclaro until ad 741 at least, although the transmitted text breaks off in ad 724 (Hoyland 1997: 610-27). Sometimes the earliest sections of such continuations were severely abridged, but on other occasions they were left untouched.

The story in the east was no different. In addition to the anonymous continuation of Eusebius’ chronicle that Jerome had used as the basis of his text, two early fifth-century Alexandrian monks, Panodorus and Annianus, composed revised editions and continuations of Eusebius according to their rather different calculations. Neither work has survived, but George Syncellus preserves scattered testimonies to their contents in the chronicle that he composed c. ad 810. The first Greek continuation to survive in large part at least is the chronicle of John Malalas. As it survives, it covers in eighteen books the period from creation to ad 563, where the main manuscript breaks off; but it had probably continued to the death of Justinian in ad 565. John seems to have composed a first edition at Antioch c. ad 532 and a second edition at Constantinople c. ad 565, although an anonymous continuator may also have been responsible for this alleged second edition (Croke 1990a: 17-22). The most noteworthy feature of Malalas’ chronicle is that he composed it as continuous narrative rather than in the traditional tabular form; but he was not the first to do this. When the Spanish priest Orosius composed his Historiarum adversus paganos libri VII in AD 418, he converted much of Jerome’s chronicle into narrative form also. The next Greek chronicle to survive almost in full is the Paschal Chronicle, which covered the period from creation to ad 630. Its anonymous author used a variety of sources, including a lost Arian history used also by Philostorgius, the chronicle of Count Marcellinus, and that of John Malalas; but he also drew on his own experience and on official records for the last period c. ad 602-30. As noted above, a gap then occurs until Nicephorus produced his Breviarium in the ad 780 s, although some activity continued in the regions conquered by the Arabs. Writing perhaps in Coptic c. AD 650, Bishop John of Nikiu in Egypt composed a continuation of the chronicle of John Malalas down to the Arab capture of Alexandria in ad 641 (Hoyland 1997: 152-6), while several anonymous authors composed continuations of Eusebius’ chronicle into the seventh and eighth centuries in Syriac.

A final point requires emphasis. The evidence of chronicles is often much more complex, and unreliable, than may appear at first sight. Even if one can assume that the original author of a chronicle or section of a chronicle was perfectly informed about the events that he describes (which is never necessarily the case), the nature of the genre itself encouraged serious errors during the transmission of a chronicle, even at the earliest stage. First, the regnal or other chronological markers often shifted in their column so that they were no longer aligned against the notices to which they had originally referred. Second, chronicles were not self-correcting in the manner of complex narratives. A copyist who could not read a name at one place in a complex narrative could correct his reading of this name from its reoccurrence at other points in the same narrative. In contrast, notices in chronicles tended to be brief and isolated, so that a name usually occurred once only. The copyist simply had to make his best guess at what he thought the text had intended to say, and the results could be disastrous, especially when the copyist operated in a geographical or political context different to that of the original author. Hence it was probably the relatively unknown town of Boresis that revolted against Diocletian c. ad 293, not Busiris (Bowman 1984: 33-6), and the alleged name of the officer who began the persecution of Christians in the army c. ad 300, Veturius, is probably a corruption of the name of the legionary base where this persecution had begun, Betthorus (Woods 2001b). As for the fleet of UFOs that appeared in the skies over Ireland in ad 749, some skepticism is warranted (Woods 2000).

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Several different series combine to provide modern translations of most of the works cited above that have survived in full: Byzantina Australiensia (Zosimus, John Malalas); The Fathers of the Church (Orosius); Loeb Classical Library (Ammianus, Procopius, Bede); Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Eusebius, Sozomen, Socrates, Theodoret); Liverpool Translated Texts (Chronicon Paschale, Eutropius, Evagrius, Irish chronicles, Isidore, John of Biclaro); Penguin Classics (Bede, Gregory of Tours), while Oxford University Press has published several important translations as monographs (Consularia Constantinopolitana, George Syncellus, Hydatius, Rufinus, Theophanes, Theophylact Simocatta). Modern editions of the Greek texts have slowly appeared in the series ‘‘Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller’’ (Eusebius, Philostorgius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, together with the Latin texts of Jerome and Rufinus), and in the ‘‘Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae’’ (John Malalas, Nicephorus). Most of the Latin texts, especially the chronicles, can be found in the Monumenta Germaniae historica, while the Syriac texts are usually available in the Corpus scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium. Blockley 1981-3 provides text and translation of the more important fragmentary works. Two recent handbooks complement one another to provide a detailed treatment of most historical authors from the fourth to eighth centuries: Marasco 2003 and Hoyland 1997. Treadgold 2007 provides a detailed survey of every significant Byzantine historian from Eusebius of Caesarea to Theophylact Simocatta.