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The ‘Alexandrian World Chronicle’, its Consularia and theDate of the Destruction of the Serapeum (with an Appendixon the List of Praefecti Augustales)

R.W. Burgess and Jitse H.F. Dijkstra

Introduction

On 21 October 1901, the Russian collector and Egyptologist Vladimir S.Golenischev (1856–1947) was in Vienna to deliver a valuable package. Just overa month earlier, the recipient of the package, the controversial Austrian arthistorian Josef Strzygowski (1862–1941),1 had learned from correspondencewith his Russian colleague J.I. Smirnov about a fragmentary illustrated papyruscodex in the collection of Golenischev, which the latter had acquired some timebefore from the antiquities dealer ‘Sheikh Ali’ in Giza.2 Smirnov kindlyarranged to put the fragments at Strzygowski’s disposal for publication. Amonth later, Golenischev came by in person to hand over ‘his treasure’: eleven

folders containing 49 papyrus fragments, which had already been reassembledfrom an original 72. Strzygowski then asked his colleague at the University of Graz, the ancient historian Adolf Bauer (1855–1919), to edit the Greek text,while he worked on the images. Once in possession of the fragments, Bauer wasable to reassemble many more of them, reducing their number to 29. Inaddition, he reconstructed (parts of) six leaves of the codex, which he mountedbetween glass plates, and collected the remaining miscellaneous fragmentsunder two further plates, thus forming the basis for the edition. Uponpublication of what was called ‘an Alexandrian world chronicle’ in 1905, theeditors returned the glass plates to their rightful owner.3

1 1901 was the year in which both Strzygowski’s Orient oder Rom and Riegl’s Die Spät-römische Kunstindustrie appeared, the latter generally credited with popularizing theterm ‘Late Antiquity’ and both seminal works for the study of Late Antique art. See J.Elsner, ‘The Birth of Late Antiquity: Riegl and Strzygowski in 1901’, Art History 25(2002) 358–79.

2 The papyrus is first mentioned by S. de Ricci, ‘Bulletin papyrologique’, REG 14 (1901)163–205 at 202, who refers to it as a ‘fragment hagiographique avec miniatures’.

3 A. Bauer, J. Strzygowski, Eine alexandrinische Weltchronik. Text und Miniaturen eines griechischen Papyrus der Sammlung W. Golenis c ev (= Denkschriften der kaiserlichen

Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-historische Klasse 51.2; Vienna, 1905)

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The edition is a formidable example of collaborative scholarly work. In thefirst part (pp. 7 – 118), Bauer goes to great length to describe how hereconstructed the fragments and their order in the manuscript. After a

description of the hand, which he dates to the first half of the fifth century,and some observations on the format of the codex, he discusses his readingspassage by passage and provides a lavish commentary, usually ending thediscussion of each leaf with the text that arises from the discussion. In theconcluding chapter, Bauer argues that fol. VI was the last leaf of the codex and,since the years of Bishop Theophilus’ episcopate (385–412) are mentioned infol. VI ro 22,4 he dates the text to shortly after 412. His contribution ends withthree appendices on specific aspects of the text. In the second part (pp. 119–203), Strzygowski provides a detailed description of the images and adducesnumerous parallels in order to place them in an art historical context.5 Thevolume is crowned by eight magnificent double plates in colour, one for therecto and verso of each of the eight glass plates.6

In 1992, a tiny fragment (3.9 x 4.0 cm) of the same manuscript surfaced inthe papyrus collection of Vienna.7 The recto of the fragment shows the head of afemale figure, which joins to the top of fragment A of fol. I ro, wherepersonifications of the Roman months are depicted, in this case, of the monthJuly. The text above the head and on the verso confirms Bauer’s reconstructedtext.8 Unfortunately, the editor does not discuss the provenance of the fragment.Now we may wonder whether it is a coincidence that a fragment from the same

manuscript that was delivered to Vienna in 1901 turned up in the papyruscollection of precisely that city. One could therefore suspect that this smallfragment was brought from Russia with the others, but was then somehow lost

1–3. The collection was sold by Golenischev to the Russian government in 1909 andthereupon entered (what later became) the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. See A.I.Elanskaya, The Literary Coptic Manuscripts in the A.S. Pushkin State Fine Arts Museumin Moscow (Leiden, 1994) 1; W.R. Dawson, E.P. Uphill, M.L. Bierbrier, Who Was Whoin Egyptology (London, 19953) 170; O. Etinhof, ‘The Coptic Art Collection of VladimirSemjonovich Golenischev in Moscow’, in S. Emmel et al. (eds), Ägypten und Nubien in spätantiker und christlicher Zeit , 2 vols (Wiesbaden, 1999) 1.127–34 at 127 (our text is

mentioned on p. 131). The papyrus was accessed in 1911 and received the inventorynumber 310.

4 Throughout their edition, Bauer and Strzygowski refer to the text according to theplates on which they appear (Pls I – VIII). As the first six plates contain the fragments of six leaves of the manuscript, however, we shall refer to them as fols I– VI, while we shallrefer to the miscellaneous fragments as Pls VII–VIII.

5 The interpretation of the illustrations is clearly influenced by the principles set out in hisOrient oder Rom, which is cited several times.

6 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), Pls I–VIII.7 P.Vindob. K 11630, edited by U. Horak, Illuminierte Papyri, Pergamente und Papiere I

(Vienna, 1992) 97–102 (no. 19).

8 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 17–8.

R.W. Burgess and Jitse H.F. Dijkstra40






during the initial unpacking and accidentally left behind in Vienna after theremainder of the manuscript had been returned.9 However, no records relatingto this papyrus fragment are known to exist and so this must remain an

hypothesis.10

Otherwise we have to assume that the fragment entered theantiquities market separately from the fragments purchased by Golenischev andwas then acquired for the Vienna collection.11

From the moment of its publication in 1905, the ‘Alexandrian worldchronicle’ has generated much scholarly interest. The bibliography on variousaspects of what is sometimes unofficially called the ‘Golenischev papyrus’(P.Golenischev or P.Gol.) is vast,12 and the papyrus has been included in allmajor databases and catalogues,13 and even some encyclopediac works.14 Amongthe many aspects of the papyrus that have been studied, two main lines of scholarship can be discerned: 1. its art historical value, in particular for the study

9 From the detailed descriptions of fol. I ro, fr. A in Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 7–8, 17–8, 119, it appears that they areunaware of this fragment.

10 We would like to thank Bernhard Palme, Director of the Papyrussammlung derÖsterreichischen Nationalbibliothek, for kindly checking whether any additionalinformation could be found about this papyrus fragment.

11 Cf. Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 11–2 where Bauercomments upon the fragmentary character of the manuscript and states that he would

not be surprised if more fragments turned up on the antiquities market, but that aconsultation with several prominent papyrologists had yielded no further known piecesof the manuscript, either among the better-known dealers or the major papyruscollections.

12 O. Kurz, ‘The Date of the Alexandrian World Chronicle’, in A. Rosenauer, G. Weber(eds), Kunsthistorische Forschungen Otto Pächt zu seinem 70. Geburtstag (Salzburg,1972) 17–22 provides a solid overview of the scholarship as far as the early 1970s,including a useful list of the major reviews of Bauer and Strzygowski, AlexandrinischeWeltchronik (see fn. 3) on p. 17 (n. 3); K. Aland, H.-U. Rosenbaum, Repertorium der griechischen christlichen Papyri. Band II: Kirchenväter Papyri, Teil 1: Beschreibungen(Berlin, 1995) 1–10 (no. KV 1) provides an extensive bibliography with importantstudies up to 1995, which is, however, just the tip of the iceberg, as the many additional

references throughout this article make clear.13 J. van Haelst, Catalogue des papyrus littéraires juifs et chrétiens (Paris, 1976) 632

(no. 631); E.G. Turner, The Typology of the Early Codex (Philadelphia, 1977) 119(no. 370); Verzeichnis illuminierter edierter Papyri (ViP) nos 78–106, to be found inHorak, Illuminierte Papyri (see fn. 7), 235–7; Aland and Rosenbaum, Repertorium II 1(see fn. 12), 1 – 10 (no. KV 1); Mertens-Pack3 no. 2244, available online at http://promethee.philo.ulg.ac.be/cedopal/indexsimple.asp; Leuven Database of Ancient Books(LDAB) no. 6345 (= Trismegistos no. 65104), available online at http://www.trismegistos.org/ldab/text.php?tm=65104.

14 E.g. H. Leclercq, ‘Chronique alexandrine’, in DACL 3.1 (1911) 1546–53. Cf. A.S. Atiya(ed.), The Coptic Encyclopedia (New York, 1991), in which our text is mentioned in the

entry by D.P. Spanel, ‘Theophilus’, in vol. 7, pp. 2247–53 at 2248.

The ‘Alexandrian World Chronicle’ 41






of ancient book illumination,15 and 2. its palaeographical date, for which variousdates have been proposed between the early fifth century, following the firstedition, and the eighth century.16

Of the individual leaves, most attention by far has been given to the bestpreserved leaf, fol. VI. The text, which extends from 383 to 392, consists of a listof consuls, along with the associated year in the ‘Era of Diocletian’ and governorof Egypt ( praefectus augustalis) – two Egyptian chronological systems – to whichhave been added the occasional striking event or events that happened in thatyear. As such, this leaf has been incorporated into studies of Late Antiqueconsular lists and chronicle traditions, the chronological systems of LateAntique Egypt and the praefecti augustales of the fourth century.17 Most eye-catching and widely reproduced is the picture of a triumphant Theophilus on topof the Serapeum at Alexandria (fol. VI vo), which has been seen – especially in a

series of recent studies – as an iconic image of the episcopate of Theophilus andone of the defining moments in the history of Late Antique Alexandria.18 This

15 E.g. J. Wilpert, ‘Beiträge zur christlichen Archäologie XIII. Das Bild des PatriarchenTheophilos in einer alexandrinischen Weltchronik’, RQA 24 (1910) 3–29, with theresponse by J. Strzygowski, ‘Wilperts Kritik meiner alexandrinischen Weltchronik’,RQA 24 (1910) 172–5; H. Gerstinger, ‘Buchmalerei’, in RAC II (1954) 733 – 56 at 748(no. 17); K. Weitzmann, Studies in Classical and Byzantine Manuscript Illumination(Chicago, 1971) 106 (Fig. 80), 108 (Fig. 84), 121 (Fig. 101); Horak, Illuminierte Papyri

(see fn. 7), 97– 102 (no. 19). The illustrations also frequently appear in exhibitioncatalogues, e.g. Koptische Kunst. Christentum am Nil (3. Mai bis 15. August 1963 in VillaHügel, Essen) (Essen, 1963) 450–1 (no. 623) and, most recently, S. Hodjash in B. Alaoui(ed.), L’art copte en Égypte. 2000 ans de christianisme (Paris, 2000) 42 (no. 10).

16 Kurz, ‘Date’ (see fn. 12), 17 – 8 provides an overview, with references, of the differentdates proposed, which is updated by Aland and Rosenbaum, Repertorium II 1 (seefn. 12), 1 – 2; for more recent literature on this topic, see the discussion on thepalaeography below.

17 Late Antique chronicle traditions and consular lists: R.S. Bagnall, A. Cameron, S.R.Schwartz, K.A. Worp, Consuls of the Later Roman Empire (Atlanta, 1987) 53; B. Croke,‘City Chronicles in Late Antiquity’, in G. Clarke, B. Croke, A.E. Nobbs, R. Mortley(eds), Reading the Past in Late Antiquity (Rushcutters Bay, NSW, 1990) 165 – 203 at 186;

S. Muhlberger, The Fifth-Century Chroniclers: Prosper, Hydatius, and the GallicChronicler of 452 (Leeds, 1990) 14 – 5, 38, 41 (n. 109); B. Croke, ‘Chronicles, Annals and“Consular Annals” in Late Antiquity’, Chiron 31 (2001) 291– 331 at 294, 305– 6, 308 – 9,312, 316–7, 323–6, 331. Chronological systems of Late Antique Egypt: R.S. Bagnall,K.A. Worp, Chronological Systems of Byzantine Egypt (Leiden, 20042) 70. Fourth-century praefecti augustales: see references cited in the appendix.

18 E.g. C. Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity. Topography and Social Conflict (Baltimore,1997) 169, 179 (Fig. 17); B. Legras, Lire en Égypte d’Alexandre à l’Islam (Paris, 2002)131 (Pl. XIV); J.S. McKenzie, S. Gibson, A.T. Reyes, ‘Reconstructing the Serapeum inAlexandria from the Archaeological Evidence’, JRS 94 (2004) 73 – 121 at 107; S.J. Davis,The Early Coptic Papacy. The Egyptian Church and Its Leadership in Late Antiquity

(Cairo, 2004) 64 (Fig. 5a–b); J. Hahn, Gewalt und religiöser Konflikt. Studien zu den







text has even been deemed of the highest historical importance in an articlepublished in 2006, in which J. Hahn uses the historical entry for 392accompanying the picture as the main argument for dating the so-called

‘destruction’ of the Serapeum at Alexandria to 392,19

a date that has since foundgrowing general acceptance.20

The current article emanates from the wide-ranging project directed by thefirst-named author of this article (RWB) and Michael Kulikowski (PennsylvaniaState University) to study the Latin chronicle traditions from the late Republicto the early Middle Ages.21 In the context of this project, the first-named author(RWB) invited the second-named author (JHFD) in 2011 to collaborate on two

Auseinandersetzungen zwischen Heiden, Christen und Juden im Osten des RömischenReiches (von Konstantin bis Theodosius II.) (Berlin, 2004) 90; Z. Kiss, ‘Alexandria in the

Fourth to Seventh Centuries’, in R.S. Bagnall (ed.), Egypt in the Byzantine World, 300–700 (Cambridge, 2007) 187–206 at 193 (Fig. 9.3); J.S. McKenzie, The Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt, c. 300 BC to AD 700 (New Haven, 2007) 246 (Fig. 411); N.Russell, Theophilus of Alexandria (Abingdon/New York, 2007) 7 (cover); J. Hahn, ‘TheConversion of the Cult Statues. The Destruction of the Serapeum 392 A.D. and theTransformation of Alexandria into the “Christ-Loving” City’, in J. Hahn, S. Emmel andU. Gotter (eds), From Temple to Church. Destruction and Renewal of Local CulticTopography in Late Antiquity (Leiden, 2008) 335–65 at 350 (Figs 1–2); M. Sabottka,Das Serapeum in Alexandria. Untersuchungen zur Architektur und Baugeschichte desHeiligtums von der frühen ptolemäischen Zeit bis zur Zerstörung 391 n.Chr. (Cairo,2008) 331 (Pl. 185); T. Myrup Kristensen, ‘Religious Conflict in Late Antique

Alexandria: Christian Responses to “Pagan” Statues in the Fourth and Fifth CenturiesCE’, in G. Hinge, J.A. Krasilnikoff (eds), Alexandria. A Cultural and Religious MeltingPot (Aarhus, 2009) 158–75 at 165; E.J. Watts, Riot in Alexandria. Tradition and GroupDynamics in Late Antique Pagan and Christian Communities (Berkeley, 2010) 205–7(Fig. 5); A. Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome (Oxford, 2011) 63.

19 J. Hahn, ‘Vetustus error extinctus est. Wann wurde das Sarapeion von Alexandriazerstört?’, Historia 55 (2006) 368–83, announced in his Gewalt und religiöser Konflikt (see fn. 18), 85 (n. 338), and referred to in ‘Conversion of the Cult Statues’ (see fn. 18),344 (n. 27) and ‘Gesetze als Waffe? Die kaiserliche Religionspolitik und die Zerstörungder Tempel’, in J. Hahn (ed.), Spätantiker Staat und religiöser Konflikt. Imperiale undlokale Verwaltung und die Gewalt gegen Heiligtümer (Berlin, 2011) 201–20 at 215 (n.40).

20 E.g. J.H.F. Dijkstra, Philae and the End of Ancient Egyptian Religion. A Regional Studyof Religious Transformation (298–642 CE) (Leuven, 2008) 88 (n. 10); J.S. McKenzie,‘The Serapeum of Alexandria: Its Destruction and Reconstruction’ (review of Sabottka,Serapeum (see fn. 18)), JRA 22 (2009) 772–82 at 779; Myrup Kristensen, ‘ReligiousConflict’ (see fn. 18), 163 (n. 22); G. Bonamente, ‘Einziehung und Nutzung vonTempelgut durch Staat und Stadt in der Spätantike’, in Hahn, Spätantiker Staat (seefn. 19), 55–92 at 77, with n. 105; J.H.F. Dijkstra, ‘The Fate of the Temples in LateAntique Egypt’, in L. Lavan, M. Mulryan (eds), The Archaeology of Late Antique‘Paganism’ (Leiden, 2011) 389–436 at 394 (n. 22). But cf. e.g. Cameron, Last Pagans(see fn. 18), 672, who stays with the traditionally accepted 391 date.

21 R.W. Burgess, M. Kulikowski, Mosaics of Time. The Latin Chronicle Traditions from the

First Century BC to the Sixth Century AD , 4 vols (Turnhout, 2013–).







important papyrological texts for the study of the Late Antique chronicletraditions, both written in Greek, illustrated and from Late Antique Egypt: theparchment P.Berol. inv. 13296, better known as the Berlin ‘Chronicle’, and fol.

VI of the papyrus referred to as the ‘Alexandrian World Chronicle’. Ourcollaboration has already resulted in a first article, in which we place the formertext in the context of the Late Antique chronicle traditions and provide a re-edition and extensive commentary.22 The present article completes our diptychby presenting a study of the latter text.

Although the focus of this article will be on fol. VI, the portion of the textthat has received the most attention, in the first section we shall start by lookingat the ‘Alexandrian World Chronicle’ as a whole by discussing its nature andplace within the Late Antique chronicle traditions. We continue with adescription of the papyrus, in particular surveying the literature on itspalaeographic date, which – as we shall see – is now generally consideredamong the specialists to be in the sixth century. We then offer a new text of fol.VI, including some improvements based on a much fuller knowledge of thechronicle traditions than was available to previous scholars working on this textand a complete re-evaluation of the readings in the first edition and the latercorrections. The text is followed by a critical apparatus and, for the first time, atranslation and detailed commentary. In the light of the present study, we arguein the last section that this text cannot be used as evidence for dating thedestruction of the Serapeum to 392, which as a result throws open again its dateto 391/392. Finally, in an appendix, we shall reconsider the list of praefectiaugustales.23

The Nature of the Text and its Place in the Late Antique ConsulariaTraditions

The Golenischev papyrus, as we have seen, is usually referred to as an‘Alexandrian world chronicle’, and the same holds true for the late eighth-

century Latin translation of a similar Greek work that was first published in1606 by the great French scholar of historical chronology, Joseph Scaliger, andhas since come to be known as the Excerpta latina barbari or Barbarus

22 R.W. Burgess, J.H.F. Dijkstra, ‘The Berlin “Chronicle” (P. Berol. inv. 13296): A NewEdition of the Earliest Extant Late Antique Consularia’, APF 58 (2012) 273–301.

23 We would like to thank Olaf Kaper, Gertrud van Loon and Klaas Worp forbibliographical advice, and Peter van Minnen for discussion of the text as well as

useful comments on a first draft of this article.







Scaligeri.24 However, in spite of the common appellation neither is a chronicle.Each text contains a number of chronological summaries and regnal lists, whichmark them out as a kind of chronological compendium that should now be

referred to as a ‘chronograph’ to distinguish the genre from the annalisticaccounts that are chronicles. One of the documents in each of these chrono-graphs (represented by fol. VI of the Golenischev papyrus), however, does lookmore like an annalistic chronicle than the rest of the content and in each case weare dealing with a sub-genre of the chronicle called consularia.25

These are chronicles that in the original Latin versions in Late Antiquitywere marked by the use of consuls as the sole system for dating, short entriesthat describe for the most part imperial and local events (usually portents) andan avoidance of ecclesiastical history, all in a distinctively clipped style. Suchtexts existed from the very beginning of the Empire – the Fasti Ostienses is just

one of a number of surviving epigraphic consularia from this period – and othersurviving Late Antique examples of this sort of chronicle are the Descriptioconsulum, the Consularia Berolinensia (henceforth Cons. Ber. , that is, the workknown as the Berlin ‘Chronicle’ mentioned above), the Paschale Campanum,Consularia Vindobonensia priora (Cons. Vind. pr.) and the closely relatedExcerpta Sangallensia (Exc. Sang.), Consularia Vindobonensia posteriora (Cons.Vind. post.), the Consularia Scaligeriana (Cons. Scal. , that is, the third and lastsection of the above-mentioned Excerpta latina barbari, which can moreappropriately be called the Chronographia Scaligeriana (Chron. Scal.)), the

Consularia Hafniensia (Cons. Haf.) and the Consularia Marsiburgensia (Cons.Mars.).26 Accordingly we shall throughout this article refer to fol. VI of this

24 J.J. Scaliger, Thesaurus temporum (Leiden, 1606), second part, pp. 44–70; Thesaurustemporum (Amsterdam, 16582), second part, pp. 58–85. On Scaliger, see A. Grafton, JosephScaliger. A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship, 2 vols (Oxford, 1983–1993).

25 See Burgess and Kulikowski, Mosaics of Time 1 (see fn. 21), 8–57, 59–61 for thedefinitions of chronicle, chronograph and consularia.

26 The consularia of the Descriptio consulum, written in Latin without illustrations, whose fasti (consular list) cover the years from 509 BCE to 468 CE, survive in an early ninth-century manuscript (Berlin, Philipps 1829, fols 173 vo –183 ro, ed. R.W. Burgess, The

Chronicle of Hydatius and the Consularia Constantinopolitana. Two Contemporary Accounts of the Final Years of the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1993) 175–245). The Cons.Ber. is a single leaf of a Greek parchment containing illustrations and copied in the latefifth or early sixth century (see now the re-edition by Burgess and Dijkstra, ‘Berlin“Chronicle”’ (see fn. 22)). The Paschale Campanum is an Easter table into which havebeen added historical notes down to 512 (Vatican Library, Reginae 2077; ed. T.Mommsen, Chronica minora, 3 vols (= MGH AA 9, 11, 13; Berlin, 1892–1898) 1.745–50). The Cons. Vind. pr. and Cons. Vind. post. (collectively referred to as the Cons. Vind.)are different recensions of the same Latin text that was completed in 527 CE, the formeroriginally extending to ca. 575 (the manuscript of the Cons. Vind. pr. concludes in 493,but the closely related Exc. Sang. continues to 572) and the latter to 539 (Vienna,

Österreichische Nationalbibliothek 3416, fols 15 ro –24 vo ( post.) and 47 ro –53 ro ( pr.),







papyrus as the Consularia Golenischevensia (Cons. Gol.) and to the work as awhole as the Chronographia Golenischevensis (Chron. Gol.).

As can be seen from the following table (Table 1) both the Chron. Gol. and

the Chron. Scal. are based upon a common source made up of the samecollection of three independent texts: a Greek compilation of early 235 calledthe Sumacycµ wqº mym ja· 1t_ m !p¹ jt¸seyr j ºslou 6 yr t/r 1 mest¾sgr Bl qar

(‘A Collection of Chronologies from the Creation of the World to the PresentDay’) – better known through the Latin translations that are collectively calledthe Liber generationis – which originated as a simple guide to the genealogiesand chronology of the Old Testament;27 a compilation of regnal lists that derivesfor the most part from the Chronographiae of Julius Africanus, written in 221;and an augmented Greek translation of a witness to the Cons. Ital. that is closelyrelated to the Cons. Vind. post.28 At the same time, it will be noted from the

and St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek 878, pp. 303– 5 (excerpts of Cons. Vind. pr.), ed.Mommsen, Chronica minora 1, 263–4, 274–312, 316–20, 330–6, where they are calledthe Fasti Vindobonenses). The Chron. Scal. is a late eighth-century Latin translation of asixth-century Greek Alexandrian compilation (see the study by R.W. Burgess, ‘The Date,Purpose, and Historical Context of the Original Greek and the Latin Translation of theSo-Called Excerpta Latina Barbari’, Traditio 68 (2013) 27–82, and below). The Greekexemplar from which the Chron. Scal. was made was illustrated, but the Chron. Scal. onlypreserves the spaces occupied by the original illustrations. The Cons. Scal. is anaugmented Greek translation of a recension of the Cons. Vind. post. that forms the third

and final section of the Chron. Scal. (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale lat. 4884, completeedition: ed. C. Frick, Chronica minora (Leipzig, 1892) 184–370, and partial edition: ed.Mommsen, Chronica minora 1, 91 – 129 (first section), 272, 274–85, 290– 8 (Cons. Scal.)).The Cons. Haf. survives as additions to and a continuation of Prosper down to 523 with anepitome conclusion that takes it down to 619 with two later additions in 626 and 640/641(Copenhagen, Royal Library 454; ed. Mommsen, Chronica minora 1, 298–313, 317–21,331–3, 337–9, where they are called the Additamenta Havniensia and AuctuariumHavnisense). The Cons. Mar. is the bottom half of a worn Latin parchment leaf of theeleventh century with interlinear illustrations (Merseburg Cathedral ms. 202, ed. B.Bischoff, W. Koehler, ‘Eine illustrierte Ausgabe der spätantiken ravennater Annalen’, inW.R.W. Koehler (ed.), Medieval Studies in Memory of A. Kingsley Porter , 2 vols(Cambridge, MA, 1939) 1.125– 38). All but the first two of the above texts are witnesses to

a common tradition called the Consularia Italica (Cons. Ital.) by Mommsen, Chronicaminora 1, 251 –73. They will all appear in Burgess and Kulikowski, Mosaics of Time 2 (seefn. 21), with new introductions, editions, translations and commentaries.

27 Interestingly, the first edition of the Greek text was produced by Bauer and appeared inthe same year as the Chron. Gol. : A. Bauer, Die Chronik des Hippolytos im Matritensis graecus 121 (Leipzig, 1905). This is not a coincidence, as Bauer had requested themanuscript from Madrid for the purposes of his study of the Chron. Gol. in 1903 (Bauer,Chronik, 1 (n. 1)). It should be mentioned, however, that there is no good evidence thatHippolytus ever wrote a chronicle or, even if he did, that the Sumacycµ wqº mym /Liber generationis is a translation of that work. See Burgess and Kulikowski, Mosaics of Time1 (see fn. 21), 366–71.

28 For more on these texts, see Burgess, ‘Date’ (see fn. 26), esp. 33 – 41, 71– 8.







table below that the Chron. Gol. was originally a larger compilation withadditional texts, whose place in the collection is unknown: some kind of calendar commentary, an illustrated list of Old Testament prophets with

quotations and descriptions, and illustrations of New Testament figures, of whichthe latter may, in fact, relate to material in the Cons. Scal.29

Table 1

Chron. Gol. Chron. Scal.30

fol. I ro, depictions of the Roman months (p. 18)31 –fol. I vo, synchronistic list of Hebrew, Egyptian

and Athenian months (p. 18)–

fol. II ro, islands of the Mediterranean (p. 29) = 125–6

fol. II vo

, provinces of Asia Minor (p. 29) = 123 n. 1

29 The Cons. Scal. includes a large number of sixth-century interpolations from the NewTestament and the apocryphal work called the Proteuangelium Iacobi describing eventsbetween the annunciation of the birth of John to Zachariah and the death of Judas (ed.Mommsen, Chronica minora 1 (see fn. 26), 276 – 82 (nos 45, 52, 63, 68, 75, 80 (based onan existing entry), 86, 91, 100, 106, 110, 112, 114, 117 (based on an existing entry), 118

and 120). These entries would certainly have been illustrated since there are large spacesfor the following events (* = interlinear space of twelve to thirteen lines; others aremarginal): birth of John, the Magi, Massacre of the Innocents*, death of Zachariah,baptism of Christ, death of John*, Crucifixion* and Resurrection*. As a result thefragmentary illustrations on Pl. VII ro – vo of the Chron. Gol. – Anna, Elisabeth,Zechariah, John (?), Mary and the infant Christ, along with an angel (Bauer andStrzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 80–1, 122–4) – could well belongto this third, consularia section of the text. If they do not belong here, then there is noother place for them on the evidence of the Chron. Scal. The same is true for theillustrations of the prophets: there is no place for them in a text that looked like theChron. Scal. and so Bauer’s placement of them as fol. III is unlikely to be correct. Likethe calendar commentary they may have been part of an independent work that

preceded or followed the three sections that parallel the Chron. Scal. and the same couldbe true of the New Testament fragments (cf. Bauer and Strzygowski, AlexandrinischeWeltchronik (see fn. 3), 36–9). Such texts may also have originally been a part of theChron. Scal. , but have been lost before it was copied into Latin: we know for a fact thatthe end of the text was lost before it was copied (see Burgess, ‘Date’ (see fn. 26), 38–9,57).

30 In the following references to the Chron. Scal. , the numbers refer to the entry numbersin the edition by Mommsen, as elsewhere in this article, but the page numbers are toFrick’s edition, as they come from the section of the Chron. Scal. that was not includedin Mommsen’s Chronica minora (see n. 26 above).

31 This includes the new fragment published by Horak (see n. 7 above). The page numbers

refer to Bauer’s edition.







Table 1 (Continued)

fol. III ro – vo, list of prophets with quotationsor descriptions (pp. 35–6)

–

fol. IV ro, list of Roman kings and chronologicalsummary of Alban and Roman kings (p. 43)

= p. 302.23–8

fol. IV vo, Lacedaemonian kings and chronologicalsummary (p. 43)

= p. 304.6–23

fol. V ro, Macedonian kings and summary (p. 48) = p. 310.16– 24fol. V vo, summary of Lydian kings (p. 48) = p. 312.14–7

fol. VI ro – vo: consularia from 383– 92 (pp. 73 – 5) = 321–9

The similarity between the Chron. Gol. and the Chron. Scal. , the moreimpressive because it incorporates the same three independent works, stronglyindicates that both derived from a common source, a hypothetical text that wecan call the Chronographia Alexandrina (Chron. Alex.).32 We have abundantevidence for an even earlier source used by the compiler of the Chron. Alex. , adistinctively augmented recension of the Sumacycµ wqº mym/Liber generationis(the first section of the Chron. Gol. and Chron. Scal.) that was used by theauthors of later works, particularly the Chronicon Paschale (henceforth Chron.Pasch.) and the so-called Annales of Eutychius.33 There is also substantial

independent evidence for a distinctive portion of the Sumacycµ wqº mym thatprobably even predates it (that is, pre-235), the Dialeqisl ¹r t/r c/r, the‘Division of the World’, an expansion of Genesis 10 that recounts the peoplesand features of the world according to the three sons of Noah. 34 Thus we can seehow an Urtext can grow and accumulate in different ways as it is read, compiled,

32 Following the lead of Frick, Chronica minora (see fn. 26), lxxxix – xc, cxc.33 The Chron. Pasch. is a Greek chronicle/chronograph written in Constantinople ca. 630

(ed. L. Dindorf, Chronicon Paschale, 2 vols (Bonn, 1832)). The Annales are moreaccurately referred to as the Nazm al-jawhar , which is an Arabic chronicle that extended

from Adam down to 935 (ed. M. Breydy, Das Annalenwerk des Eutychios von Alexandrien. Ausgewählte Geschichten und Legenden kompiliert von Sa‘ı d ibn Batrı qum 935 AD (= CSCO 471–2; Leuven, 1985)). For the relationship among the Chron.Scal., Chron. Pasch. and the Nazm al-jawhar , see Frick, Chronica minora (see fn. 26),lxxxix–xc, cxc–cxcv, cxcviii–cxcix, cciii.

34 For the many traditions of this work, see A. von Gutschmid, ‘Zur Kritik des Dialeqisl ¹r

t/r c/r’, RhM 13 (1858) 377 – 408, repr. in Kleine Schriften, 5 vols (Leipzig, 1889–1894)5.240–73, and ‘Untersuchungen über den Dialeqisl ¹r t/r c/r und andere Bearbeitun-gen der Mosaischen Völkertafel’, in Kleine Schriften 5, 585–717; Bauer andStrzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 92–105; J.M. Scott, Geographyin Early Judaism and Christianity. The Book of Jubilees (Cambridge, 2002) 135–58, who

argues that the Diamerismos itself had a Hellenistic Jewish source, the Book of Jubilees.







and copied, modified, edited and augmented to suit the compiler or copyist, aphenomenon that is typical of all Byzantine chronography. As a result, one textwas rarely an exact copy of any other single text but an amalgam of different

traditions, texts and personal modifications. This explains why texts like theChron. Gol. and the Chron. Scal. that have abundant similarities and rely uponthe same ultimate source can still exhibit differences.35

The close relationship that we have established between the Chron. Gol.and the Chron. Scal. allows us to use the more substantial remains of the Chron.Scal. as a guide to the original content of the Chron. Gol. and most especially itsdate, since both chronographs are linked by a common source and must be laterthan that source. This is particularly important because neither the Cons. Gol.nor the Cons. Scal. reports anything that must be later than 412, the death of Theophilus, whose years in office are given in his ordination notice. It is sectionstwo and three of the Chron. Scal. that provide us with the crucial datingevidence we need. First of all, the Chron. Scal. contains an emperor list withregnal years that continues in a complete form down to the deaths of Basiliscusand Marcus after a reign of twenty months (January 475 to August/September476) and the names of Zeno and Anastasius without regnal years, which impliesa date after the death of Anastasius (10 July 518).36 The key for dating thecommon source, however, is part three of the Chron. Gol. , its consularia section,because it has parallels of content, wording and chronology to the extant Latintexts that allow us to place it into a historiographical context.37

These parallels are best understood presented year by year. In the followingcomparisons single underlining highlights general parallels among the texts, doubleunderlining highlights parallels only between the Cons. Gol. and Cons. Scal.

383Cons. Gol.

[To ¼t\ t` 5 tei 1sv²cg C]q.[atiam¹r b basike »r rp¹] L. an¸lou [to O tuq² mmou 1 m

Keud]o ¼ m\ pq¹ [g- jak(amd_ m) Septel (bq_ym), f 1sti] m H½h j¬, [ja· a qt` t` 5 tei

1ce] mm¶hg [j m¾qior 1 m Jymstam]timoupº[kei pq¹ e- Qd_ m Septel ]b.

q¸ym, f [1stim H½h

ia.]

Cons. Scal.Eo anno occisus est Gratianus imperator sub Maximo tyranno in Leuduna VIII kl.Septembris et eodem anno coronatus est in imperio Arcadius in Constantinopolim V idus Septembris. (321–2)

38

35 A good sense of how complicated the results of Quellenforschung can be can be found inthe survey of sources and parallels for the Chron. Scal. in Appendix 1 of Burgess, ‘Date’(see fn. 26), 71–8.

36 See Burgess, ‘Date’ (see fn. 26), 38, 44, 68, for more details.37 For these texts, see n. 26 above.

38 For the dating error here, see commentary at ro 1 – 8 below.







(see 385: natus est Honorius in Constantinopolim V idus Sep.)Cons. Vind. pr.

His consulibus Gratianus occisus est a Maximo Leuduno [ms. V: Leudimo] VIII kl.

Sept. Eo anno natus est Honorius Constantinopoli V idus Sept. et leuatus est Arcadius <imperator >. (502–3)

384Cons. Gol.

[Uiwol ¶dou ja· Jke²qw ]o. u t_ m kal (pqot\tym) [1p· to O a qto O ) mtym mou

a qcousta]k¸ou.

Cons. Scal.Richomedo et Chlearco clarissimorum, sub eodem Antonino <augustalio>. (323–4)

Eo anno Timotheus episcopus Alexandrinus obiit Epifi XXVI et sedit pro eoTheofilus archidiaconus annos XXVIII et illos sacrilegos exterminauit. (325)

Cons. Vind. post.Recimede et Clearco (504)

Cons. Vind. pr.Richomere et Clearco (504)

385Cons. Gol.

)qjad¸ou a[ qc(o ¼stou) uRo O Heodos¸ou t]¹ a- ja· Ba ¼dymor t[o O kal (pqot\tou)

1pû E qs]e.b. .

o. u. a. qcou[st]a.k(¸ou).

Cons. Scal.

Arcadio augusto filio Theodosii et Baudone clarissimo, sub Frorentio augustalio.(326–7)

Eo anno natus est Honorius in Constantinopolim V idus Sep. (328)

Cons. Vind. post. Archadio augusto et Bautone (505)

Cons. Vind. pr. Arcadio et Bautone (505)

386Cons. Gol.

j myq¸ou 1p[ivamest²tou ja¸]saqor t¹ a-

ja· E qod¸ou to. O. [kal (pqot\tou)] 1p·Pauk mou a qcoustak(¸ou).

Cons. Scal.–

Theophanes, Chronographia39

To ¼t\ t` 5 tei Heodºsior A ucoustor j m¾qiom, uR¹ m a qto O, … 1pivam´statom ja· vpatom ! m´deinem. (AM 5877 = 385; p. 70.3– 5 de Boor)

39 Ed. C. de Boor, Theophanis Chronographia, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1883–1885). The relevance

of Theophanes for these comparions will be explained below.







Cons. Vind. post.Honorio et Ebodio (506)

Cons. Vind. pr.

Monorio nobilissimo puero et Euuodio (506)

387Cons. Gol.

Bakemtim. i.a. [ mo O a] q.c(o ¼stou) t¹ e- ja· E qtqop¸ou to O kal (pqot\tou) 1.p. û [9quh]q.¸ou

a qcoustak¸ou.

To ¼t\ t` 5 [tei Til º]heor b 1p¸sjopor ). [kenamd]q.

e¸ar, b !dekv¹r P´[tqou to O1]pisj ºpou, 1teke ¼. [tgsem 9p]e.·v jr Q mdij (t_omor) b

-j [a· 1j ²hise] m ! mtû a qto O

Heºv[ikor 5 tg jg] ja· a qt` t` 5 [tei L²nilor] 1p¶qhg eQr basik[á pq¹ 1 – 2jaka] md(_ m) Laqt¸ym ja[· 1sv²cg 1 m J ]o.qt_ mi pq¹ e- jakam[d(_ m) Sept]elbq(_ym).

Cons. Scal.Valentiniano augusto III et Eutropio clarissimo (329) [text ends]

(see 384: Eo anno Timotheus episcopus Alexandrinus obiit Epifi XXVI et sedit proeo Theofilus archidiaconus annos XXVIII et illos sacrilegos exterminauit .)

Theophanes, ChronographiaTo ¼t\ t` 5 tei Tilohóu tekeut¶samtor to O 1pisj ºpou )kenamdqe¸ar lgm· 9piv·eQj ²di 6 jt, weiqotome ? tai ! mtû a qto O Heºvikor … 5 tg jgf. (AM 5879 = 387; p. 70.23–5 de Boor)

To ¼t\ t` 5 tei Heodºsior … L²nilom t¹ m t ¼qammom ! me ? ke pq¹ ibf jakamd_ m

A qco ¼stou. (AM 5880 = 388; p. 70.27– 8 de Boor)

Cons. Vind. post.

Valentiniano IIII et Eutropio (507) [text ends]

Cons. Vind. pr.Valentiniano III et Eutropio (507)

(see 510 ( s.a. 388): occisus est Maximus V kal. Septembris.)

388Cons. Gol.

Heodos¸o. u a qc[(o ¼stou) t¹ b-

ja·] Jumg[çou] to O. k.al (pqot\tou) 1[pû )ken²] m.dqou

[a qc]o. us[t]a. k¸ou.

Cons. Vind. pr.

Theodosio II et Cynegio (509)His consulibus occisus est Maximus V kal. Septembris. (510)

389Cons. Gol.

[Tilas¸ou j ]a· P[qol ¾tou t_] m. [kal (pqot\tym) 1pû E qa]c..q. .

o.[ u a qcousta]k. .[ou].[To ¼t\ t` 5 tei let± to O uRo O] j m[yq¸ou Heodºsior eQs/khe] 1 m [U¾l , ja· a qt¹ m eQrbasi]k´[a 5 stexem Qd(o ? r) Youm(_air) ja·] 5 d[yje jocci²qiom Uyla¸oir.]

Insufficient text survives for comparison. See the commentary for the parallels

used for reconstruction.







Eugenius’ proclamation in 392 to 391 prove a common source behind theCons. Vind. , Cons. Scal. and Cons. Gol. traditions. Likewise, it is the parallelsof selection and wording, along with the additions of the praefecti augustales

and the episcopal note on the death of Timothy and ordination of Theophilus aswell as the use of clarissimo/to O kalpqot²tou for non-imperial consuls, subeodem/1p· to O a qto O for multi-year augustales after their first year and eo anno/to ¼t\ t` 5 tei instead of his consulibus/ ta ¼t, t0 rpate¸ô41 that confirm theAlexandrian common source (Chron. Alex.) behind the Cons. Scal. and Cons.Gol. that we hypothesized above on the basis of the same three works that areshared in both texts. The parallels with Theophanes, moreover, prove that theChron. Alex. was relying on an even older Alexandrian consularia/chronicletradition.

Theophanes wrote a chronicle in continuation of the chronograph of Syncellus in ca. 814 and one of his sources was an Alexandrian chronicle thatwas based upon a Greek translation of an early witness to the Cons. Ital. (see n.26 above), earlier than the one that lies behind the Cons. Gol. and Cons. Scal.(that is, the Cons. Vind.), as we shall see.42 The Alexandrian material extendsfrom around the third quarter of the fourth century to 470. The parallels withthe Cons. Ital. tradition extend from 385 (noted above) to 461 (the accession of Libius Severus), which suggests a date between 461 and 465 (the death of Severus) for the recension of the Cons. Ital. and a date soon after 470 for theAlexandrian chronicle/consularia. In addition to the episcopal parallel above( s.a. 387), the Chron. Scal. also shares with Theophanes two of his distinctlyAlexandrian entries in the years 361 and 371.43 There is also a shared errorbetween Theophanes and the Cons. Gol. concerning the date of the death of Timothy/ordination of Theophilus that further confirms the closeness of these

41 Cf. e. g. the consistent use of ta ¼t, t0 rp(ate¸ô) in the Cons. Ber. (P.Berol. inv. 13296 i 2,11, ii 1, 4, 6, 14, 25, 27, 32, 38, 42, 47).

42 C. Mango and R. Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor. Byzantine and Near

Eastern History, AD 284–813 (Oxford, 1997) lxxviii–lxxx, 101 (n. 8), 107 (n. 1), 168 (n.2). It is unlikely that the Alexandrian entries after 470 adduced by Mango and Scott(p. lxxix) were part of this Alexandrian source, first because they appear 40 years afterthe previous Alexandrian entry and second because they are too long and involved forconsularia. For Theophanes as a witness to the Cons. Ital., see Burgess and Kulikowski,Mosaics of Time 2 (see fn. 21).

43 Mommsen, Chronica minora 1 (see fn. 26), 294 (269) = AM 5852 (p. 46.16–7 de Boor;eleventh Easter cycle and the age of the world) and p. 371 (286) = AM 5870 (p. 66.4–5de Boor; the martyrdom of Dorotheus in Alexandria). The chronological systememployed in 361 was developed in Alexandria by the chronographer Annianus wholived during the episcopate of Theophilus; see A.A. Mosshammer, The Easter Computus

and the Origins of the Christian Era (Oxford, 2008) 198–203, 359–71.







traditions.44 These are exactly the sorts of entries that would have belonged tolocal chronicle traditions and been copied from earlier chronicles into laterones.45

While confirming the close relationship among these various texts andtraditions, the above comparison also demonstrates that the chronology of theCons. Gol. is unfortunately the most corrupt of all these texts: the proclamationof Arcadius (383) and the portent of 390 have been lost, the death of Timothyand the ordination of Theophilus have been shifted ahead two years, theproclamation of Magnus Maximus in 383 has been added to 387, the death of Maximus has slipped or been moved from 388 to 387 and the death of Eugeniushas slipped or been moved from 394 to 392. The date of the proclamation of Maximus is not only in the wrong year, four years after he has already beencalled a usurper (b t ¼qammor in 383), but this date is otherwise unknown and

given the lack of such a date in the underlying tradition of the Cons. Ital. (oranywhere else in the extant historical traditions) it must have been added from

44 Timothy died on 20 July 385; the Cons. Scal. dates it to 384 and the Cons. Gol./Theophanes to 387. In the Cons. Scal. the death of Athanasius is dated three years late(376 instead of 373) and the stated durations of the next two bishops, Peter and Timothy,are correct (seven and five years, Cons. Scal. 300 and 313: 373 + 7 = 380, the correctdate of Peter’s death, and 380 + 5 = 385, the correct date of Timothy’s death). If we

count twelve augustales (7+

5=

12) in the Cons. Scal. from the death of Athanasius andinclude the missing consuls and augustalis for 386, which are present in the Cons. Gol. ,we reach 387, the date of Timothy’s death in the Cons. Gol. and Theophanes.Athanasius’s death must therefore have been misdated to 376 in the Chron. Alex. aswell. Obviously, the chronology of the Cons. Scal. does not agree with this count, andthat is because we are counting by augustales. There are two extra consular pairs thatwere mistakenly added to the Cons. Scal. after the establishment of the Alexandrianchronology (309 and 310; they have no associated augustales), no doubt to compensatefor the missing consuls of 382 and 383. If a reader or scribe had counted the years byconsuls, he would have found that the ordination of Timothy was nine years later, notthe stated seven. As a result he must have attempted to resynchronize the laterepiscopal entries by moving them back two years each. Unfortunately, he must have

miscounted, because Timothy’s death is only four years after his ordination, not five.Knowing this, we can conclude that the Cons. Gol. (and Chron. Alex.) was probablymissing the consuls of 382–383 as well, just as the Cons. Scal. is (otherwise Timothy’sdeath would not have appeared in 387, it would have been in 385). See commentary at ro

1–8 below. The two pairs of intrusive consuls may also have existed in the Cons. Gol. , asis suggested by the accuracy of the Diocletian years (see the commentary at r o 9, below),but a different method may have been employed to ensure the continued accuracy of this chronological system.

45 Like the entry in the Cons. Gol. , Theophanes’ entry on Theodosius’ visit to Rome (AM5881 = 389; p. 70.31–3 de Boor) also notes that Honorius was proclaimed emperorthere, which is untrue. See the commentary at vo 1–5 below, where all the parallels are

quoted.







an unknown source.46 If Bauer’s reconstruction of this part of the text can betrusted, and we think it can, we can also add to these problems the fact thatHonorius was not proclaimed emperor in Rome in 389; it happened at the

Hebdomon, seven miles outside Constantinople, in 393.47

This type of confusionand misdating is very much what we can see in the earlier sections of the Cons.Scal. and hence it is not surprising to find it here.

Only the death of Gratian and birth of Honorius (383), Theodosius’ visit toRome (389), and the death of Valentinian II and proclamation of Eugenius in392 are dated correctly (according to the Cons. Ital.). Unfortunately, as notedabove, two of those events were already dated incorrectly in the Cons. Vind. (itis a characteristic of the entire Cons. Ital. tradition). We can thereforesummarize these observations on the chronology as follows:

Table 2

Event Cons. Gol. Date Real Date Difference

Death of Gratian 383 383 0Birth of Honorius 383 384 –1Timothy/Theophilus 387 385 +2Proclamation of Maximus 387 383 +4Death of Maximus 387 388 –1Theodosius visits Rome 389 389 0Valentinian II/Eugenius 391 392 –1Death of Eugenius 392 394 –2Total 2 correct / 6 incorrect

The relationship between the texts discussed above can be summarized inthe stemma found below (Fig. 1). As can be seen from this stemma, the Cons.Scal. and the Cons. Gol. derive from a Greek translation (the Chron. Alex.) of aLatin text that was part of the Cons. Vind. tradition, so that the Cons. Gol.cannot be any earlier than the Cons. Vind. The common source of the threeextant Cons. Vind. texts was completed at the end of 527, the date of the last

common entry found in both the Exc. Sang. (=

Cons. Vind. pr.; see n. 26) and theCons. Vind. post. ; the latter recension was completed in 539.48 Since the Cons.Scal. shares several of the distinctive lacunae and corruptions found in the Cons.Vind. post. , while still retaining in many places the more accurate text found inthe Cons. Vind. pr. that has been lost or corrupted in the Cons. Vind. post. andavoiding text appearing only in the Cons. Vind. post. , we can determine that theCons. Scal. derives from an intermediary tradition between the edition of 527,

46 See for more details the commentary at ro 22–6 below.47 See commentary at vo 1 – 5 below.

48 Mommsen, Chronica minora 1 (see fn. 26), 332 (678–80) and 334 (695–7).







represented to a great extent by the more accurate Cons. Vind. pr./Exc. Sang.tradition, and the final recension of the less accurate Cons. Vind. post. of 539.This would put the original Latin text that underlies the Greek text of the Cons.Scal. shortly after 527 and in any case well before 539, and the Greek translationof that text (the Chron. Alex.) some time afterwards.49 This close relationshipbetween the Cons. Scal. and the Cons. Vind. (527) proves that there can be no

close connection between the witnesses to the Cons. Ital. used by Theophanes’Alexandrian source (of ca. 470) and by the Chron. Alex. (of post-527). As aresult, since the Chron. Alex. is also the text underlying the Cons. Gol. , thisprovides a terminus post quem of 527 for that text as well.

As we have seen in the introduction, Bauer dates the Cons. Gol. , and hencethe Chron. Gol. as a whole, to soon after 412, the date of the death of Theophilus (on the basis of fol. VI ro 22, where the length of his episcopate ismentioned). One of the main arguments for this date is the close relationshipbetween the Cons. Gol. and the Cons. Scal. , whose text terminates in 387 andalso mentions how long Theophilus was bishop. Yet he dates this text to ca. 412as well, a date that is definitely too early, as had already been demonstrated bycontemporary scholars.50 Another argument he uses is that he regards fol. VI as

49 This agrees with the incomplete emperor list in the Chron. Scal. that seems to peter outin the reign of Justin I (518 – 527) since no regnal years appear for Zeno and Anastasius,the last two emperors named. See, for more details, Burgess, ‘Date’ (see fn. 26), 38, 44.

50 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 82–3 (n. 2). Bauer isswayed here by Mommsen, Chronica minora 1 (see fn. 26), 255–6 into thinking that theLatin consularia behind the Cons. Scal. ended in 387, which is disproved by the

continuing parallels with the Cons. Ital. in the Cons. Gol. Almost thirty years earlier O.

Figure 1







the last folium of the codex. The fact that it is the best preserved of all the leavesis, according to him, an indication that this is the last leaf, which would havebeen protected by the binding. However, there are many ways to account for the

condition of this folium and since we know nothing about the state of thebinding at any point during the codex’s existence, an argument centered on thepresence (or absence) of the binding can tell us nothing about the position of fol.VI in that codex. Besides, as we shall see below, while the recto of the last foliumis indeed well-preserved, the verso is not. In fact, the lower half of the verso is byfar the most poorly preserved of the surviving fragments, which seriouslyundermines Bauer’s claim.51 Moreover, in all the extant examples where wehave the end of consularia preserved, it can be shown that they were continueddown to the time of compilation, which strongly suggests that our consularia didnot end with the year 392, but would have continued until the time of

compilation in the sixth century.52 Bauer’s conclusion, ‘Aus diesen inneren undäußeren Gründen bin ich der Ansicht, daß die Chronik mit dem Verso von TafelVI, d.h. mit dem Jahre 392 schloß und bald nach 412 geschrieben wurde’, cantherefore be discarded.53 As we shall see in the next section, the palaeographysupports the date that we have observed above from the place of the Chron.Gol. in the chronicle traditions.

Thus at some date after 527 someone in Alexandria came across an earlyrecension of the Cons. Vind. post. and decided to incorporate it into a largerchronographic work. It was translated into Greek and many additions were

made to it, most of them distinctively Alexandrian: the Diocletian years andaugustales for dating, some Egyptian month equivalents,54 deaths and ordina-

Holder-Egger, ‘Untersuchungen uber einige annalistische Quellen zur Geschichte desfunften und sechsten Jahrhunderts III. Die Ravennater Annalen’, Neues Archiv 1 (1876)215–368 esp. at 344–5 had already demonstrated that the common source of the Cons.Vind., which he called the Annales Ravennatenses (‘Die Ravennater Annalen’) and isnow referred to as the Cons. Ital., dated no earlier than 445 and that the major edition of the text was produced in 493.

51 Cf. Kurz, ‘Date’ (see fn. 12), 18.

52 The obvious examples are the Descriptio consulum, Paschale Campanum, Cons. Vind. post., Cons. Vind. pr./Exc. Sang. and Cons. Haf. , ranging in date from 468 to 626 (see n.26 above). The Chron. Pasch. should also be considered here, though it is not purelyconsularia.

53 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 82 – 3 (quote at p. 83),summarised in his ‘Alexandrien und die Verbreitung christlicher Weltchroniken’,Zeitschrift des historischen Vereines für Steiermark 15 (1917) 1–6. Bauer (pp. 83–92)continues with a detailed exposé on the place of the text in the context of the LateAntique chronicle traditions, but almost all of Bauer’s information, culminating in thestemma on p. 92, is now out of date.

54 As we shall see in the commentary at ro 3–4 below, there are two sets of Egyptian year

equivalents, those preserved in the Cons. Scal. , which are for the most part accurately







tions of Alexandrian bishops, events of the New Testament (and apocrypha),early Christian history and the destruction of the Serapeum. We see theseextensive Alexandrian interpolations more clearly in the Chron. Scal. , because

so much more of it survives.55

All this Alexandrian material was added fromdisparate sources that we can no longer identify, but as we have seen above fromTheophanes there was a local tradition of these sorts of texts in the fifth andsixth centuries in Alexandria just as there was in Constantinople, Rome andRavenna.56

As we shall see in the discussion of the date of the Serapeum in the lastsection below, these many additions to the basic translated consularia raise manyproblems for us: we have no idea how this Alexandrian material was dated inthese original sources, how the various compilers understood the consular year,how they thought it related to the Egyptian year and how that affected theinsertion of the material from disparate local sources into the translated Latinconsularia. Evidence from other chroniclers who used non-Roman calendarssuggests that foreign dating systems, such as consular years and Olympiads, weresimply mapped onto familiar or local calendars so that all were coterminous.57 Inthis case it would mean that an Alexandrian compiler would have equated theconsular year with the Alexandrian year (New Year’s Day = 1 Thoth = 29August), so that anything that happened from 29 August to 31 December of oneyear would actually be dated by the consuls of the next year. But we just have toolittle evidence to judge the situation in this case. Finally, as we have seen, theordinations of Peter, Timothy and Theophilus were misdated by a number of years in the Chron. Alex. and their chronology was further altered in the Cons.Gol. to take into account the later addition of two erroneous pairs of consuls. 58

These problems led to errors in the relationship of these entries to othercontemporary events, like the destruction of the Serapeum, a confusion thatsuggests some considerable passage of time between the events and thecompilation of these various Alexandrian events from their various sources.

calculated, and those of the Cons. Gol. alone, which were added later by someone with

an insufficient knowledge of Roman dates.55 See Burgess, ‘Date’ (see fn. 26), 29, 30, 38 (n. 23), 40– 1, 42 (n. 36), 46, 68 for several lists

of the many and diverse Alexandrian aspects of this text. These aspects are so strongthat our first surviving reference to the Chron. Scal. , from 1579, calls it a ‘chronicaAlexandrina’, see Grafton, Scaliger 2 (see fn. 24), 564, with n. 11.

56 See Croke, ‘City Chronicles’ (see fn. 17), with the caveat that the differences Crokerightly identifies are the result of private, not official or public, compilation. On this seeBurgess, Chronicle of Hydatius (see fn. 26), 180–6, and Burgess and Kulikowski,Mosaics of Time 1 (see fn. 21), 146–71 passim.

57 R.W. Burgess, Studies in Eusebian and Post-Eusebian Chronography (Stuttgart, 1999)28–35.

58 More will be said on this in the commentary at ro 17–22 below and in the appendix.







Description of the Papyrus

As we have seen, the fragments of the Chron. Gol. were acquired by

Golenischev at some point before 1901 from a certain ‘Sheikh Ali’ in Giza.59

Nothing further is known about the provenance of the papyrus fragments inEgypt or the date of their acquisition.60

Given the extremely fragmentary condition of the papyrus, the preservationof both the text and illustrations at the time of Bauer and Strzygowski wasactually quite good. This is true especially for the best-preserved leaf, fol. VI,which holds our specific interest here. We owe a debt to Bauer for having donesuch careful groundwork in reconstructing as much as he could of the fragments.In the case of fol. VI, he juxtaposed the two main fragments (A and B), whichthemselves were both put together from two pieces, and added to them severalsmaller fragments, three to fr. A and two to fr. B, as well as reinforcing thecreases with tape. As was noted by Bauer, even though the recto was in pristinecondition, inkblots appear in two spots, one over the y of Ba ¼dymor in ro 11(which does not prevent the reading of the letter) and a larger one in ro 14–16,which obscures the reading of the last two or three letters before the lacuna.These spots are minor compared to the text on the verso, however, which wasless well preserved and already much abraded in Bauer’s time, making anyreading, especially after vo 24, difficult.61 An additional problem is that on theverso less text has been preserved on each side of the lacuna between fr. A and

B than on the recto, which makes the verso even harder to reconstruct.Today fol. VI is in a deplorable condition, as can be determined from the

high-resolution photographs we received from the Pushkin Museum. First of all,fr. A and B are no longer aligned properly, with fr. B needing to go up severallines (or fr. A down). There have also been several clumsy attempts atrestoration. For example, the top part of fr. B has been retaped to the lower part(at ro 12–13) by three instead of the original two pieces of tape but appears tohave come loose, leading to the tilting of the top of the fragment.62 Moreover,the removal has left a brown trace of the old tape furthest to the right. Here, as

in other places, the new tape has been applied without any regard for the lettersof the text, which has led to some of them being partially obscured.63 In several

59 This may be ‘Ali the Arab’ of Giza known to have sold several Coptic manuscripts toCharles L. Freer in May 1908, see B. Layton, Catalogue of Coptic Manuscripts in theBritish Library Acquired since the Year 1906 (London, 1987) xxvii.

60 Strzygowski’s suspicion in Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (seefn. 3), 132, 186, 190 that this work was originally copied and then later discovered in amonastery in Upper Egypt is pure speculation; Bauer (p. 16) leaves the question open.

61 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 9 – 10.

62 Several other creases are loose, e.g. the one at fr. B, below ro 9.







places fragments are misplaced or have been misaligned.64 To make matterseven worse, on the edges some small parts of the papyrus have disappeared,leading to the loss of text.65 Finally, the papyrus has suffered some staining and

other damage.66

In general, the bottom part of the recto especially is much lesslegible than it was in 1905. The condition of the verso is even worse. The texthere has largely vanished and vo 24–29, which was already difficult to read, hasalmost entirely disappeared and seems to have been ‘cleaned’ at some point –with disastrous consequences.67 Given its current condition we have based ourreadings on the old plates of the first edition and reproduce them here with thisarticle (Pls 1–2).68

An idea of the dimensions of the codex can be gained from the largestfragments, those of fol. VI. They measure (height x width) 18.3 x 8.4 cm (fr. A)and 22.5 x 10.5 cm (fr. B), respectively.69 None of the margins has beenpreserved, which makes it impossible to reconstruct the exact format of theoriginal leaf, and thus of the codex. Bauer speculates, because the approximatedistance between fr. A and B is known, and allowing for some space out to themargins, that the format would have been ca. 30 x 24 cm. 70 In his standard workon the ancient codex, however, E.G. Turner prefers a format of either 32 x 22 or33 x 25 cm, which would be in agreement with his Group 2 or 3, and either seemsmore likely.71

63 E.g. at ro 27 there is tape over the s of Heodos¸o. u.64 The small fragment containing the letters ep in ro 14 is loose and should join fr. B down

to the right; in ro 15, after Bakemti-, there is a misplaced small fragment (where theinkblot is) that should go at the end of fr. A, ro 20–1, just before the lacuna (an u and j

above each other); the small fragment of six lines (ro 26– 31) that Bauer had correctly joined to the right of fr. A, ro 26–9, has wrongly been glued below ro 29; and the smallfragment below fr. B, ro 31 (the letters ki) is wrongly attached.

65 In ro 18 after -p¸sjopor the beginning of the a is now missing; in the small fragmentcovering ro 26– 31, at ro 28–9 the k of k.al (pqot\tou) and the a of -a.k¸ou are no longerthere; and the letters visible of ro 31 at the bottom of this fragment, c

..q. .

o. , are completelygone.

66 E.g. in l. 2 behind L. an¸lou and in l. 7 through the y of Septel ]b.

q¸ym.67 The papyrus has been in this ruinous state for quite some time, as is witnessed by the

exhibition catalogue Koptische Kunst (see fn. 15) of 1963, when our leaf was displayed(together with another leaf) in Essen, Germany, and a new photograph was made (foundunder cat. no. 623) that shows the papyrus in essentially the same condition as it is now.

68 In these plates the reconstructed text in the lacunae as proposed by Bauer and includedin the original plates, has been left out.

69 Bauer does not give these numbers; they are based on Hodjash in Alaoui, Art copte (seefn. 15), 42.

70 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 15–6.71 Turner, Typology (see fn. 13), 119 (n. 49), agreed upon by Aland and Rosenbaum,

Repertorium II 1 (see fn. 12), 10 (n. 10). Bauer compares his proposed format to the one







The text of fol. VI has been written in a dark-brown ink, one column perpage. The dating formula for each entry of the consularia consists of thefollowing: a number in the left margin denoting the year in the Era of

Diocletian; the pair of consuls, starting slightly to the left of the column marginwith the first letter of the first consul’s name written in larger script and any non-imperial name followed by to O kalpqot²tou ;72 and the augustalis, in the setformula 1p_ ‘at the time of’, followed by the name of the augustalis and his title,a qcoustak¸ou.73 Interestingly, these entries are set off by a horizontal stroke inthe left margin in front of the last line of the dating formula.74 In some caseshistorical entries of varying length have been added, always starting with to ¼t\t` 5 tei ‘in this year’ and ending with the Roman and/or Egyptian date.75 As wehave already noted above, several of these features – the use of to O kalpqot²tou

and to ¼t\ t` 5 tei and the addition of Diocletian years, augustales and Egyptianmonths – are not found in other Late Antique consularia except for the Cons.Scal., indicating a common source for both texts.

The format of the text is also different from most other Late Antiqueconsularia and related texts. For instance, the Cons. Ber. and Cons. Vind. pr. arewritten two columns to the page, with centrally spaced ja_/et between bothconsuls and different inks for the consuls and historical entries; the Fasti Parisiniwas also written in this format, though because it is fasti and has but onehistorical entry (of 490), it has no colours;76 the Descriptio consulum is writtentwo columns per page with the introductory His cons(ulibus) in red; and the

Cons. Vind. post. and the regular fasti of the Chronograph of 354 (contained inthe same manuscript as the Cons. Vind. pr.) also have the central et and coloured

of Paris, Bibliothèque nationale lat. 4884, that is, the manuscript of the Chron. Scal. , 33 x28 cm, which comes closer to the dimensions proposed by Turner (it fits into Turner’sGroup 2). For Turner’s division of papyrus codices in groups according to their format,see his Typology, 14–22.

72 Or the plural at the end if both are non-imperial. The starting of the names of theconsuls slightly to the left of the column and with the first letter written in larger script is

preserved at ro 13, 15, 27; vo 6, 17. Cf. the Cons. Ber. , e.g. P. Berol. inv. 13296 ii 26 and 30,where the historical entries start slightly to the left of the consuls’ names and the firstletter of ta ¼t, t0 rp(ate¸ô) is written in larger script.

73 If the augustalis is the same as in the previous year, the wording is 1p· to O a qto O ‘at thetime of the same’, which is restored at ro 10 and found at vo 18–9. A qcoustak¸ou can beabbreviated or not depending on the space.

74 Extant at ro 12, 14, 16, and perhaps vo 20. Cf. Bauer and Strzygowski, AlexandrinischeWeltchronik (see fn. 3), 12. These have been indicated in our text.

75 Roman date with the equivalent (f 1stim ‘that is’) Egyptian date: ro 3– 4, 7– 8, vo 15–6,22–3. Egyptian date alone: ro 20–1. Roman date alone: ro 26, vo 4, 13.

76 On the Fasti Parisini see M. Klaassen, ‘The Fasti Parisini: An Independent Consular List

from the Fifth Century’, Journal of Late Antiquity 5 (2012) 145 – 65, esp. 162 – 5.







inks.77 In contrast, the Cons. Scal. and Cons. Gol. were copied in a single column,in one colour and without the centrally spaced ja_/et , though the Cons. Scal. retainssome evidence of the use of the central et with widely spaced consuls earlier in the

text. This fact again serves to demonstrate the closeness of these two texts.78

Most of the historical entries are illustrated with pictures, in some cases eventwo pictures.79 They have been drawn in black ink after which various colourshave been added and they are found into the margins on the sides and at thebottom of the page. The illustrations carry captions that have been written in asmaller, more cursive and forward-leaning script than in the text, a script also usedfor the Diocletian years in the left margin. The inks used for the captions,sometimes the black of the pictures, other times the dark-brown of the text,however, suggest that at least the captions with the dark-brown ink were writtenby the same scribe who wrote the text.80 The fact that the same hand used theblack ink of the drawings for a caption makes it likely that this scribe alsoproduced the images.81 The pictures were drawn before the text was written as ismade clear by the instances where letters of the text are squeezed or abbreviatedtowards the end of a line at the edge of a picture.82 The division of the images hadan impact on the spacing of the text, as can be seen from comparing the recto withthe verso : even if on both sides the number of letters per line is usually 20–24,on the recto, where there are only pictures in the right margin, the letters are

77 For the Chronograph of 354, see now R.W. Burgess, ‘The Chronograph of 354: ItsManuscripts, Contents, and History’, Journal of Late Antiquity 5 (2013) 345– 96.78 For a comparison of (most of) these texts from the point of view of the Cons. Ber. , see

Burgess and Dijkstra, ‘Berlin “Chronicle”’ (see fn. 22), 284–5.79 The only historical entries that are not illustrated are the proclamation of Maximus as

emperor and his death (ro 23 – 6), perhaps because of the double illustration of the otherhistorical event of the same year (Picture 2 and 3) or because it was depicted in the topright margin of the vo (and thus now lost), and the proclamation of Eugenius as emperor(vo 13–6), no doubt as a result of his death in the next entry, which is depicted to theright. Historical entries with two illustrations are the death of Timothy/ordination of Theophilus (ro 17–22, with Pictures 2–3) and the destruction of the Serapeum (v o 23–9,with Pictures 5, 8), both Alexandrian events.

80 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 14–5; Kurz, ‘Date’ (seefn. 12), 21. All captions except for the one belonging to Picture 5 have been written indark-brown ink. The assumption that the scribe wrote both text and captions issupported by fol. I vo 4–6, which is written in the small, cursive hand using the dark-brown ink.

81 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 15. Cf. Burgess andDijkstra, ‘Berlin “Chronicle”’ (see fn. 22), 285, where we also assume that scribe andminiaturist of the Cons. Ber. is the same person on account of the brown and black inksused for both text and images.

82 In vo 24 the scribe solved the lack of space by writing an abbreviation sign above y forym. Cf. the Cons. Ber. , at P. Berol. inv. 13296 ii 26, where because of lack of space the

scribe wrote a bent line above the o to mark final u in Jystamt mou.







preceding scholarship, which clearly shows that while many scholars take overBauer’s date without much discussion, students of Greek palaeography havealways been in favour of a later date for the work. 89 In fact, already in 1910, D.

Serruys placed the manuscript in the sixth century, together with a number of other texts written in what is traditionally called ‘Coptic uncial’ writing. Thisdate was mostly based on a Paschal letter (P.Grenf. II 112) dated to 577 or 672,for which he preferred the sixth-century date.90 In 1914, H. Lietzmannintroduced another, eighth-century Paschal letter from Berlin (P. Berol.inv. 10677), and dated the earlier Paschal letter to 672, thus opting for aseventh-century date (or even later) for the Chron. Gol.91 In his 1959 study of manuscripts in ‘Coptic uncial’, J. Irigoin reverted to the sixth-century date.92 Forhis study, Kurz takes into consideration both Paschal letters. While preferring adate of 672 for the earlier Paschal letter, he argues that the writing of the Chron.

Gol. agrees best with the eighth-century Paschal letter, and dates the script to‘the last quarter of the seventh century or the years around AD 700’.93

Kurz’ views on a late date of our manuscript were refuted in G. Cavallo’s1975 seminal article on the script that since that date has been known as‘Alexandrian majuscle’. Not only does Cavallo argue in detail why a date of 577 is to be preferred for P.Grenf. II 112, he also provides a precise chronologyof the known undated manuscripts on the basis of the dated ones. Hence heassigns the Chron. Gol. to the mid-sixth century.94 In their standard GreekBookhands, Cavallo and H. Maehler confirm the date of 577 for P.Grenf. II 112,

though they give a less specific date of the sixth century for our text.95

In theyears since the appearance of Cavallo’s 1975 article, his palaeographical date of

89 Kurz, ‘Date’ (see fn. 12), 17– 20.90 D. Serruys, ‘Contribution à l’étude des “canons” de l’onciale grecque’, in Mélanges

offerts à M. Émile Chatelain (Paris, 1910) 492– 9 at 497 – 9. This is also the preferred dateof the first editors, B.P. Grenfell and A.S. Hunt, P.Grenf. II, pp. 164–5.

91 H. Lietzmann, ‘Ein Psalterfragment der Jenaer Papyrussammlung’, in NeutestamentlicheStudien, Georg Heinrici zu seinem 70. Geburtstag (Leipzig, 1914) 60–5, repr. in hisKleine Schriften, 3 vols (Berlin, 1958–1962) 1.410–5 at 414–5. Suprisingly, in his lateredition of the Cons. Ber. , ‘Ein Blatt aus einer antiken Weltchronik’, in R.P. Casey, S.

Lake, A.K. Lake (eds), Quantulacumque. Studies Presented to Kirsopp Lake by Pupils,Colleagues and Friends (London, 1937) 339– 48, repr. in Kleine Schriften 1, 420 – 9 at 420,Lietzmann mentions a fifth-century date for the Chron. Gol.

92 J. Irigoin, ‘L’onciale grecque de type copte’, JÖByz 7 (1959) 29–51 at 41 (no. 60).93 Kurz, ‘Date’ (see fn. 12), 20– 2 (quote on p. 22).94 G. Cavallo, ‘Cq\llata )kenamdq ? ma’, JÖByz 24 (1975) 23–54, repr. in Il calamo e il

papiro. La scrittura greca dall’età ellenistica ai primi secoli di Bisanzio (Florence, 2005)175–202 at 190–5, 199. Cf. his earlier Ricerche sulle maiuscola biblica (Florence, 1967)116 (with Pl. 106), where he dates the Chron. Gol . to the end of the sixth or seventhcentury.

95 G. Cavallo, H. Maehler, Greek Bookhands of the Early Byzantine Period, A.D. 300– 800

(London, 1987) 82 (no. 37).







the Chron. Gol. in the sixth century has been widely accepted.96 Moreover, thedate of 577 for P.Grenf. II 112 has been cemented by several recent studies, inparticular an important study by A. Camplani of 1992.97 Even though these do

not mention our text, they independently confirm its date in the sixth centurybecause of its close palaeographical relationship with P.Grenf. II 112. In fact, in arecent re-appraisal of the palaeography, Cavallo has convincingly argued on thebasis of the similarities with P.Grenf. II 112 for a more specific date of theChron. Gol. in the second half of the sixth century, probably in its last quarter.98

In sum, this brief survey of the literature on the palaeography has shownthat Bauer’s initial date of the first half of the fifth century has long beenabandoned by specialists of this type of writing in favour of a later date. Thecommon consensus is that the text dates to the sixth century, a date that hasbeen confirmed by recent discussions of the Paschal letter P.Grenf . II 112. Thisdate is now corroborated by the study of Cavallo, who opts for a date in thesecond half of the sixth century. Despite these clear indications of a sixth-century date, recent studies still frequently mention the early or first half of thefifth century as the date for this papyrus.99 As we have seen in the previous

96 E.g. A. Porro, ‘Manoscritti in maiuscola alessandrina di contenuto profano. Aspettigrafici codicologici filologici’, Scrittura e civiltà 9 (1985) 169–215 at 184–6 (no. 9; Pl.Va); Aland and Rosenbaum, Repertorium II 1 (see fn. 12), 9 (n. 2). Cf. Turner, Typology(see fn. 13), 119 (no. 370), who gives a date of the sixth-seventh centuries, but upon

completion of his study he did not yet know of Cavallo’s article.97 E.g. A. Camplani, ‘La Quaresima egiziana nel VII secolo: note di cronologia su Mon.Epiph. 77, Manchester Rylands Suppl. 47– 48, P.Grenf. II 112, P.Berol. 10677, P.Köln215 e un’omelia copta’, Augustinianum 32 (1992) 423–32 at 429–30; R.S. Bagnall, N.Gonis, ‘An Early Fragment of the Greek Apophthegmata Patrum’, ARG 5 (2003) 260–78 at 262; P. Radiciotti, ‘Una nuova proposta di datazione per il PSI 1400 con alcuneosservazioni sulla maiuscola alessandrina’, Studi di egittologia e di papirologia 5 (2008)117–28 at 121–2; G. Bastianini, G. Cavallo, ‘Un nuovo frammento di lettera festale(PSI inv. 3779)’, in G. Bastianini and A. Casanova (eds), I papiri letterari cristiani. Attidel convegno internazionale di studi in memoria di Mario Naldini (Florence, 2011) 31–45 at 32, 37–8. Cf. Aland and Rosenbaum, Repertorium II 1 (see fn. 12), 537–41 (no.KV 81) at 539–40 (n. 1), who still give the positions for both dates, 577 and 672, but do

not seem to know of Camplani’s article.98 G. Cavallo, ‘Per la data di P.Golenischev della “Cronaca universale alessandrina”’,

BASP 49 (2012) 237– 40.99 E.g. Bagnall, Cameron, Schwartz, Worp, Consuls (see fn. 17), 53; Muhlberger, Fifth-

Century Chroniclers (see fn. 17), 38; Horak, Illumierte Papyri (see fn. 7), 98; A. Martin, Athanase d’Alexandrie et l’église d’Égypte au IV e siècle (328 – 373) (Rome, 1996) 819;Haas, Alexandria (see fn. 18), 180 (caption at Fig. 17); Davis, Early Coptic Papacy (seefn. 18), 64; Hahn, Gewalt und religiöser Konflikt (see fn. 18), 90, and ‘Wann wurde dasSarapeion’ (see fn. 19), 375; McKenzie, Architecture (see fn. 18), 245 (caption atFig. 411); Hahn, ‘Conversion of the Cult Statues’ (see fn. 18), 350; Watts, Riot (seefn. 18), 205; Cameron, Last Pagans (see fn. 18), 62. Some other dates are also

mentioned, e.g. Croke, ‘Chronicles’ (see fn. 17), 305 (seventh/eighth century) and







section, however, the relationship of the Cons. Gol. to the Late Antique chronicletraditions points rather in the direction of a dating after 527, which fits perfectlywith a palaeographical date in the second half of the sixth century. For these

reasons, the fifth century should no longer be cited as the date of this work.Let us now move to the scribal features of the text. The scribe copied his textwithout any orthographic errors, at least as far as can be judged from the extanttext.100 He uses the common abbreviation mark ú throughout the text,101 and in oneinstance, because of lack of space, writes a stroke above y to abbreviate -ym (vo

24).102 In addition to the horizontal strokes to set off the end of the chronologicalpart of the entry, supralinear strokes are found above all numbers in the text. Thescribe also makes frequent use of punctuation marks. In the sequence touty-ty (ro

17) a small stroke is found above the first y to mark the division between bothwords.103 Three times a rough breathing has been written, above the relative

pronoun f (ro 7) and above the definite article b (ro 17– 8), an apostrophe in ! mtû(ro 21) and a diaeresis above the initial i of Q mdij (t_omor) (ro 21).104

In the following section we offer a re-edition and, for the first time, atranslation of fol. VI. Unlike the other fragments, which have hardly beencommented upon, the text of fol. VI has been the subject of some further work.In 1922, F. Bilabel included the text of fols I–VI, with notes, in his KleinereHistorikerfragmente.105 He makes a number of changes to Bauer’s text byresolving abbreviations and placing dots underneath doubtful letters. He alsoincludes fifteen minor corrections, which mostly concern the reading of letters

Hodjash in Alaoui, Art copte (see fn. 15), 42 (eighth century?), though neither justifieseither date.

100 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 12: ‘Der Text is sehrkorrekt geschrieben’. He mentions as orthographic errors Qd_ m instead of eQd_ m (fol. VIvo 22) and tap][ mysim instead of tape_mysim (Pl. VII, fr. B vo 3–4) but in fact the firstspelling is correct (see commentary at ro 7) and the second one was corrected totape[_mysim by F. Blaß, in his short discussion of Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrini- sche Weltchronik (see fn. 3) in ‘Literarische Texte mit Ausschluß der christlichen’, APF 3(1906) 473 – 502 at 491 – 2 (no. 339), a reading that is taken over by Aland andRosenbaum, Repertorium II 1 (see fn. 12), 10 (n. 14).

101 See the entries in K. McNamee, Abbreviations in Greek Literary Papyri and Ostraca (Ann

Arbor, 1981) 12, 43, 46, 53, 91. At p. 12, a] ucú is wrongly included under a qcoust\kior,and should resolve to a] qc(o ¼stou), not a] qc(oustak¸ou); also add ro 14. At p. 91, Ãeptel úfor Septel (bq_ym) in ro 4 is actually found in a lacuna and therefore restored, and at vo 15the papyrus has Ãeptelbú for Septelb(q_ym), not Ãeptelbqú, as in ro 26.

102 See also n. 82 above.103 See further commentary ad loc.104 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 12. Cf. the scribal

features of the Cons. Ber. , as described by Burgess and Dijkstra, ‘Berlin “Chronicle”’(see fn. 22), 286–7.

105 F. Bilabel, Die kleineren Historikerfragmente auf Papyrus (Bonn, 1922) 46–57 (no. 13).Of fol. I and Pl. VII ro only a description is given; the other fragments are left out of

consideration.







that Bauer places in a lacuna or the placement of letters in a lacuna that Bauerdoes not. These small corrections are not always improvements, however,106 andthe only major correction, a reconstruction of vo 24–29 on the basis of the

already tentative readings by Bauer, is unpersuasive.107

Forty years later C.Vandersleyen included the text of fol. VI in his study of the fourth-centuryaugustales. As he himself explains, he reverts to Bauer’s text, but takes overBilabel’s proposed reconstruction of vo 24–29, as well as the placing of dotsunder certain letters.108 He also makes two corrections to Bauer’s text, the firstof which actually derives from Bilabel while the second is rather a stepbackwards.109 The corrections proposed by both Bilabel and Vandersleyen werebased on the plate provided in the first edition.

For the transcription of our new text, we have taken a fresh look at the plate,which shows so much more of the text than the papyrus in its present conditionallows.110 In the critical apparatus, differences with the first edition are noted,except in those cases where the difference only consists of the presence orabsence of a dot. Readings by Bilabel and/or Vandersleyen have only beennoted when they differ from the first edition. To avoid overburdening theapparatus, Bauer’s readings in vo 24–29, almost nothing of which can be read,and Bilabel’s reconstruction have been left out, but will be treated in detail inthe commentary. All scribal features and orthography have also been indicatedin the critical apparatus. In general, apart from some minor corrections, Bauer’stext is reliable until vo 24, and our improvements to the text mostly concern therestorations of the lacunae on the basis of a fuller knowledge of the LateAntique chronicle traditions. Regarding vo 24–29, we shall argue that Bauer’sreconstruction is highly tentative and should be abandoned in favour of a moreprudent text.

106 E.g. in ro 7 he wants to see Qd_ m abbreviated, but this is not necessary. See commentaryad loc.

107 See commentary ad loc.108 C. Vandersleyen, Chronologie des préfets d’Égypte de 284 à 395 (Brussels, 1962) 172–3,

with the explanation on p. 171 (n. 4). He places Bilabel’s dots only underneath letters

that have been read by Bauer, e.g. at ro 11, where Bauer reads QC, and Bilabel QC. , hetakes over the latter’s reading. However, in ro 12 where Bauer has E q]seb¸ou, andBilabel E qs]e.b

. .o. u. , Vandersleyen takes over Bauer’s reading but places dots under the

remaining letters, thus ignoring what was observed by Bilabel, namely that the s is in thelacuna: E q]s. e.b

. .o. u. . Moreover, he does not take over the dots consistently. E.g. at r o 7,

where Bilabel has Septel ]b.

q¸ym, Vandersleyen prints Septel ]bq¸ym (without a dot) of the ed. princ.

109 In ro 3, he takes over Koucd]o ¼ m\ from Bilabel, rather than Bauer’s Kouc]do ¼ m\ (the d

belongs inside the lacuna). At ro 18, he proposes )[kenamdq]e¸ar but, as both Bauer andBilabel saw, the q is (partly) visible outside the lacuna.

110 We have checked our transcription against the current photographs from the Pushkin

Museum, but these have only been useful in comparing some of the traces of ink.







Text and Translation

Fol. VI, recto

Provenance unknown second half of VI CE

H x W = 18.3 x 8.4 cm (fr. A) + 22.5 x 10.5 cm (fr. B)

[To ¼t\ t` 5 tei 1sv²cg C]q.[atia-]

[ m¹r b basike »r rp¹] L. an¸lou (Picture 1)

[to O tuq² mmou 1 m Keud]o ¼ m\ pq¹

[g- jak(amd_ m) Septel (bq_ym), f 1sti] m H½h jr,

5. [ja· a qt` t` 5 tei 1ce] mm¶hg

[j m¾qior 1 m Jymstam]timoupº-

[kei pq¹ e- Qd_ m Septel ]b.

q¸ym, f[1stim H½h ia.]

[QB Uiwol ¶dou ja· Jke²qw ]o. u t_ m kal (pqot\tym) 384

10. [ _ 1p· to O a qto O ) mtym mou a qcousta]k¸ou.

[QC] )qjad¸ou a[ qc(o ¼stou) uRo O Heodos¸ou t]¹ a- ja· 385

_ Ba ¼dymor t[o O kal (pqot\tou) 1pû E qs]e.b. .

o. u. a. qcou[st]a.k(¸ou).

QD j myq¸ou 1p[ivamest²tou ja¸]saqor t¹ a- ja· 386

_ E qod¸ou to. O. [kal (pqot\tou)] 1p· Pauk mou a qcoustak(¸ou).

15. Q-

E Bakemtim. i.a. [ mo O a] q.c(o ¼stou) t¹ e- ja· E qtqop¸ou 387

_ to O kal (pqot\tou) 1.p. û [9quh]q. ¸ou a qcoustak¸ou.To ¼t\ t` 5 [tei Til º]heor b 1- Til º-

p¸sjopor ). [kenamd]q.

e¸ar, b !- heor

dekv¹r P´[tqou to O 1]pisj º- (Picture 2)

20. pou, 1teke ¼.[tgsem 9p]e.·v jr b ûcio. [r]

Q mdij (t_omor) b-

j [a· 1j ²hise] m ! mtû a q- Heºv..[i-]

to O Heºv[ikor 5 tg jg] ja· a q- ko. [r]

t` t` 5 [tei L²nilor] 1p¶qhg (Picture 3)

eQr basik[´a pq¹ 1-2 jaka] md(_ m) Laq-

25. t¸ym ja[· 1sv²cg 1 m J ]o.qt_- mi pq¹ e- jakam[d(_ m) Sept]elbq(_ym).

Qr Heodos¸o. u a qc[(o ¼stou) t¹ b-

ja·] Jumg- 388

[c¸ou] to O. k.al (pqot\tou) 1[pû )ken²] m.dqou

[ _ a qc]o. us[t]a.k¸ou.

30. [QF Tilas¸ou j ]a· P[qol ¾tou t_] m. 389

[ _ kal (pqot\tym) 1pû E qa]c..q. .

o. [ u a qcousta]k. .[ou].







Fol. VI, verso

(Picture 4) [To ¼t\ t` 5 tei let± to O uRo O]

j m[yq¸ou Heodºsior eQs/khe]

1 m [U¾l , ja· a qt¹ m eQr basi-]k´[a 5 stexem Qd(o ? r) Youm(_air) ja·]

5. 5 d[yje jocci²qiom Uyla¸oir.]

QG. Ba[kemtimiamo O a qc(o ¼stou) t¹ d-

ja·] 390

M[eyteq¸ou to O kal (pqot\tou) 1p· ]

au[ ]

Ta. [tiamo O ja· Sull ²wou t_ m] 391

10. [kal (pqot\tym) 1pû E qacq¸ou a qcoust(ak¸ou).][b] ûcior H. [e]ºv

.i.[kor]

(Picture 5) [To ¼t\ t` 5 tei Bakemtimia-]

[ m¹r 1teke ¼tgsem 1 m Bi mm,]

[pq¹ d-

Qd_ m Youm(¸ym) j ]a. ·. 1.p.¶.

q- (Picture 6)

[hg eQr basik´a E] q.c..

mior

15. [pq¹ ia jakamd(_ m)] Sept.e.l .

b(q_ym), Bakem.t.[imiamºr]

[f] 1.s. t.i. m H. [½h] jc.

QH )qjad¸o. [ u a qc(o ¼stou)] t¹ b-

ja· Uou- E qc m[ior] 392

v mou [to O kal (pqot\tou)] 1.p. ·. t.o O a. q. - (Picture 7)

to O E qa. [cq¸ou a qco] u.s. t.a.k. (¸ou)

20. _ )ken.[amdqe¸ar.]

To ¼[t\ t` 5 tei 1 m] ….ir 1s. v²-cg E q. [c mior pq¹] g-

. Q.d._ m Ya-

mou. [aq(_ym), f 1stim H½h] g-., ja· a qt`

t` [5 tei ]…..q.

y( m)

25. e.k.[ ]…….qi

….[ ].ouepi

….[ ]traces? to.j .…..

…[ ]…..

mou. [ ] [Sa]q\.p. i.t.o.r.

(Picture 8)

t¹

[R]e.qº m.

Recto 2. L. an¸lou : L]an¸lou ed. princ., Lan¸lou Bilabel 3. Keud]o ¼ m\: Kouc]do ¼ m\ ed. princ., Koucd]o ¼ m\ Bilabel, Vandersleyen 6 – 7 . 1 m Jymsta m]timoupº[kei : eQr Jym-stam]timo ¼po[kim ed. princ. 7. [Qd_ m]: [eQd_ m] ed. princ., [eQd(_ m)] Bilabel j b pap.8. [H½h]: [Va_vi] ed. princ. 9. [Uiwol ¶dou]: [Uiwol ¶qou] ed. princ. j kal ú pap. 10.

[1p· to O a qto O ) mtym mou : [1p· ) mtym mou (?) ed. princ. 11. [QC]: [Q]C ed. princ.,[Q]C. Bilabel, Vandersleyen 12. E qs]e.b

. .o. u. : E q]seb¸ou ed. princ., E qs]e.b

. .o. u. Bi-

label, E q]s.e.b. .

o. u. Vandersleyen j aucou[Ãt]akú pap. j a. qcou[st]a.k(¸ou): a qcou[sta]k(¸ou) ed. princ. 13. 1p[ivamest²tou : 1pi[vamest²tou ed. princ. , 1pi.[vamest²tou Bilabel, Vandersleyen

14. aucouÃtakú pap. 15. Bakemtim.i.a. [ mo O : Bakemtiam[o O ed. princ. j a] ucú pap. 16. kal ú pap.







17. touty- pap. j b pap. 18. ). [kenamd]q.

e¸ar : )[kenamd]qe¸ar ed. princ., )[kenamdq]e¸ar

Vandersleyen j b pap. 20. 9p]e.·v : 9pe]·v ed. princ., 9p]e·v Bilabel 21. zmdij ú pap. j amt û pap. 24. jaka] mdú pap. 26. Ãept]elbqú pap. 28. to O. : to[ O] ed. princ., to O.Bilabel j kal ú pap. j k.al (pqot\tou): k]al (pqot\tou) ed. princ., k.al (pqot\tou) Bilabel 31.

E qa]c..q. .o.[ u : E qac]q¸o[ u ed. princ. , E qac]q. .o. [ u Bilabel, Vandersleyen Verso 4. [Qd(o ? r)]:[eQd(o ? r)] ed. princ. 6. Ba[kemtimiamo O : Ba[kemtiamo O ed. princ. 10. [E qacq¸ou]: [E qacq¸ou

(?)] Vandersleyen 11. in marg. H. [e]ºvi.[kor]: H[eº]vik[or] ed. princ., H[eº]vikor Bilabel11–2. [Bakemtimiam¹r]: [Bakemtiam¹r] ed. princ. 13. [Qd_ m]: [eQd_ m] ed. princ. 14.

E] q.c..

mior : E q]c mior ed. princ. , E] q.c mior Bilabel 15. Ãeptelbú pap. j in marg. Bakem.t.[imia- mºr]: Bakem[tiamºr] ed. princ., Bakemti[amºr] Bilabel 17. )qjad¸o. [ u : )qjad¸[ou ed. princ. jin marg. E qc m[ior]: E qc mio[r] ed. princ., E qc m[ior] Bilabel 18. [to O : t[o O ed. princ. jkal (pqot\tou)]: kal ](pqot\tou) ed. princ., kal (pqot\tou)] Bilabel j 1.p. ·.: [1]p· ed. princ. 19.

auco] uÃtakú pap. 21. 1 m] ….ir : 1 m ….]a. ir ed. princ. , 1 m] ….a. ir Bilabel, Vandersleyen 23.

[1stim]: [1sti] ed. princ. j [H½h]: [Va_vi] ed. princ. 24. -q.

y( m): -qy- pap. 27. in marg.to.j .…..: Tajaq¸om ed. princ. 29. in marg. [Sa]q².p. i.t.o.r

.: [Sa]qap ? j[o] m ed. princ. j l. Saq²pi-

dor j [R]e.qº m. : Reqº m ed. princ.Translation

Recto

In this year Emperor Gratian

was killed by the usurper (Picture 1)

Maximus at Lugdunum on

25 August, which is 26 Thoth,

5. and in the same year Honorius

was born in Constantinople

on 9 September, whichis 11 Thoth.

102 Ricomedes and Clearchus viri clarissimi, 384

10. when the same Antoninus was augustalis.103 Augustus Arcadius, son of Theodosius, I and 385

Baudo vir clarissimus, when Eusebius was augustalis.104 Nobilissimus Caesar Honorius I and 386

Evodius vir clarissimus, when Paulinus was augustalis.15. 105 Augustus Valentinian V and Eutropius 387

vir clarissimus, when Erythrius was augustalis.In this year Timothy the Timo-

bishop of Alexandria, the thy

brother of Bishop Peter, (Picture 2)

20. died on 26 Epeiph Saint

in the second indiction and in his place sat Theophi-

Theophilus for 28 years and in lus

the same year Maximus was proclaimed (Picture 3)

emperor on [14–28] February







25. and was killed in Cortona

on 28 August.

106 Augustus Theodosius II and Cyne- 388

gius vir clarissimus, when Alexander wasaugustalis.30. 107 Timasius and Promotus 389

viri clarissimi, when Evagrius was augustalis.

Verso

(Picture 4) In this year with his son

Honorius Theodosius arrived

in Rome and crowned him

emperor on 13 June and5. gave a congiarium to the Romans.

108 Augustus Valentinian IIII and 390

Neoterius vir clarissimus, when

[…] was augustalis.Tatianus and Symmachus 391

10. viri clarissimi, when Evagrius was augustalis.Saint Theophilus

(Picture 5) In this year Valentinian

died in Viennaon 10 June and Eugenius (Picture 6)

was proclaimed emperor

15. on 22 August, Valentinian

which is 23 Thoth.

109 Augustus Arcadius II and Ru- Eugenius 392

finus vir clarissimus, when the same (Picture 7)

Evagrius was augustalis20. of Alexandria.

In this year […] Eugenius

was executed on 6 Jan-uary, which is 8 Thoth, and in the same

year […]

25. […]

[…]

[…]

[…] (?)

[…] The (Picture 8)

temple

of Serapis







Commentary

Recto

1 – 8 (383). These lines form the historical entry for 383. As Bauer explains, thetwo or three lines with the year of the Era of Diocletian, the consuls, and theaugustalis of this year must have been at the bottom of the previous page. 111 Weknow this because in the transition from recto to verso, between the last line onthe recto (ro 31) and the first traces on the verso (two letters at the beginning of vo 2), only one line is missing; as a result, no text is missing above ro 1 and therecto must have consisted of 31 lines.112 The break between chronological andhistorical entry across two pages is also found precisely between ro 30– 1 and vo

1–5. We would expect the chronological portion of this entry to have read QALeqoba ¼dou ja· Satoqm mou t_ m kal (pqot²tym) 1p’ ) mtym mou a qcoustak¸ou

(as in the Cons. Vind. post. 501 and the Cons. Scal . 324), but as we saw above inn. 44, the consuls for 382 and 383 are missing from Cons. Scal. and must havebeen missing from the Cons. Gol. as well. The original text of the commonsource, the Chron. Alex. or perhaps the Greek version of the consulariathemselves, suffered a haplography here as a scribe accidentally jumped fromthe -ou t_ m kal (pqot²tym) of 381 to the same text of 383 and omitted everythingin between. This must have happened before the episcopal entries had beenadded. As a result the consuls and augustalis in the Cons. Gol. were probably QASuacq¸ou ja· E qweq¸ou t_ m kal (pqot²tym) 1p’ ) mtym mou a qcoustak¸ou (=Cons. Scal . 319–20). It is impossible to say how these words were divided overthe lines, since we do not know whether there was a picture on the verso of theprevious leaf (in which case there would have been 20–4 letters to a line) orwhether the names would run across the full length of the column (cf. ro 9–16).

1 – 4 (383). [To ¼t\ t` 5 tei…H½h jr : Magnus Maximus was proclaimedemperor in Britain (though we do not know when, see commentary at ro 22–6(387) below). He then crossed to the continent and was met by Gratian and theRoman army near Paris. Gratian retreated, was overtaken at Lyon and

assassinated by Andragathius, Maximus’ magister equitum, on 25 August 383.Thus the date given here is correct.113

111 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 49.112 The verso has 29 lines, but this is because of Picture 8 at the bottom.113 PLRE I s.v. Andragathius 3 (pp. 62– 3), (Fl.) Gratianus 2 (p. 401) and (Magnus)

Maximus 39 (p. 588); D. Kienast, Römische Kaisertabelle. Grundzüge einer römischen

Kaiserchronologie (Darmstadt, 19962) 333, 341–2.







1 – 2 (383). C]q.[atiam¹r]: the restoration by Bauer is plausible and the letter

of which only the long vertical stroke is visible could well be that of a q. Thereare some slight traces on the edge of the papyrus of the following letters, but too

little remains to identify either of them.Picture 1. There are two scenes depicted here that adjoin each other so weshall describe them here under one heading.114 Above is a naked figure,apparently the new-born Honorius, sitting on a yellow triangle with green spots,with his right arm (of which only the lower part has been preserved) raised. Thepapyrus breaks off where the head and left arm should be. There is a verticalblue stain across the figure’s legs. Below is a green oblong object, probablyintended as a scenic base of vegetation (as in, for instance, Picture 4), abovewhich are the naked legs of a prone figure, apparently the slain Gratian.115

3 – 4 (383). pq¹ [g- jak(amd_ m)…H½h jr : Before we can look at the Egyptian

dates of the Cons. Gol. , we must briefly examine the Egyptian dates of the Cons.Scal. for context. The first Egyptian equivalent of a Roman date appears atCons. Scal. 40, 18 Epeiph for 15 July, which is incorrect (15 July is 21 Epeiph).We know from the Cons. Vind. pr. and Cons. Vind. post. (41) that 15 July iscorrect, so either the conversion was done incorrectly or one of the numbers hasbeen corrupted at some point. Other dates appear in Cons. Scal. 117 (27 May =

2 Pauni), 120 (25 March = 29 Phamenoth), 149 (29 June = 5 Epeiph) and 286 (9October = 12 Phaophi), which are correctly converted, and 219 (24 November =17 Thoth) and 271 (23 July = 27 Epeiph), which are not. In the first case we have

an originally Egyptian date that is the correct date for the Exaltation of the HolyCross (14 September), the event being dated. It is therefore the Latinconversion that is incorrect, VIII kal. Dec. for XVIII kal. Oct. This corruptionor confusion cannot be explained. In the second case both the Cons. Vind. pr.and Cons. Vind. post. (478) give the date as XII kal. Aug. (21 July), not X kal.

Aug. (23 July) as here. 27 Epeiph is 21 July, and so here the error lies in the Latindate. There seems no rhyme or reason as to why some Roman dates areconverted and others not. No Latin dates after Cons. Scal. 271, in 363, have beenconverted. There are unconverted Egyptian dates in Cons. Scal. 228 (22Pharmouthi), 300 (7 Pachon), 313 (20 Mecheir), and 325 (26 Epeiph), allordination dates for Alexandrian bishops, which indicates a local Alexandriansource for this material, as one would expect.

Although only parts of three dating equivalents survive in the Cons. Gol. , itis enough to show us how a reader or scribe converted from Roman into

114 In this description and the following ones, given that this study is mainly concerned withthe text, we aim to describe the pictures as objectively as possible without engaging inthe differing interpretations that have been proposed for specific elements, unless suchinterpretations are relevant for the meaning and understanding of the text.

115 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 121.







Egyptian dates. By some quirk all the surviving dates (ro 3 – 4 (383), 7– 8 (383), vo

15–6 (391), 22–3 (392) are founded upon the month of September, with theexception of 392, where the original September has somehow become January.

As we shall see, the date was converted on September, so ‘January’ is a laterscribal error.116 We can see from the surviving examples that a reader or scribecorrectly knew that conversion to a Greek date from a Roman date with a dayinvolving the kalends required the addition of a day to the number of days in themonth before the subtraction of the given number before the kalends.Unfortunately, that was all he knew. So his procedure was as follows: subtractthe given ‘days before’ number from the number of days in the named month (towhich one is added if it is days before the kalends) and place the result in frontof the named month. This gave him a completely incorrect Greek date (that is,in the form of day number and month, like our dates), which he could then

compare to a table of equivalents and obtain the Egyptian date. As we can seefrom the examples below, the calculated Greek date is in every case convertedcorrectly. In these examples, the surviving text of the Cons. Gol. is underlined,square brackets enclose missing text, and the missing portions of the Latin dateshave been supplied from the Cons. Vind. pr. The correct modern equivalents of the Roman dates with their correct Egyptian equivalents appear in parenthesesat the end.

ro 3–4 (383). [VIII kal. Sept.] = (30 + 1) – 8 = 23 September = 26 Thoth (25 August= 2 Epagomenae)

vo 15–6 (391). [ XI kal.] Sept. = (30 + 1) – 11 = 20 September = 23 Th[oth] (22August = 29 Mesore)vo 22–3 (392). VIII id. Ian. (= Sept.) = 13–8 = 5 September = 8 [Thoth] (6September = 9 Thoth)

In 392 a calculation based on January would have returned an Egyptian datewith a 10, not an 8, which proves that the original September date is correct.Knowing the calculation method, we can supply the missing date in r o 7 – 8 (383):

[V id. Septem]ber = 13–5 = 8 September = [11 Thoth] (9 September = 12 Thoth)

As a result of these observations, we restore H¾h in the lacuna at ro 8 and vo 23,not Va_vi as restored in both cases by Bauer. This has the added advantage thatin vo 23 the line has 23 letters/signs, not 25 as in Bauer’s restoration, which wouldyield too many letters.117

116 As already noted by Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 67.117 Cf. Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 52–3, 65, 67–8, taken

over by Bilabel, Historikerfragmente (see fn. 105), 53, who thinks that the compiler

wrongly equated August with Thoth and bases his restorations of ro 8 and vo 23 on this







3 (383). Keud]o ¼ m\: Bauer’s final text has Kouc]do ¼ m\, but it is clear that thisis a typo, since in his discussion of ro 1–8, he prints Koucd]o ¼ m\ and there is notrace of the d.118 Bilabel, followed by Vandersleyen, correctly places the d in the

lacuna and reads Koucd]o ¼ m\. However, we restore Keud]o ¼ m\ following thereadings of Cons. Vind. pr. (502–3) and Cons. Scal. (321–2), which have Leudimo(a scribal slip for Leuduno) and Leuduna, respectively, a shared error involvingthe name of Lugdunum (modern Lyon) that shows that both were relying on acommon source that spelled the city’s name ‘Leuduno’, a common Latin Antiqueand medieval spelling.119 There is no way of knowing why the translator of theCons. Scal. rendered Keudo ¼ m\ as ‘Leuduna’ instead of ‘Leuduno’.

5 – 8 (383). [ja· a qt` t` 5 tei…H½h ia]: Honorius was born in Constantinopleon 9 September 384. The Descriptio consulum, an earlier recension of which wasat this point being compiled contemporaneously, is the only source for the

year.120 The Cons. Vind. pr. and Cons. Scal. , both witnesses to the Cons. Ital.,give the same day and month as the Descriptio (which must therefore becorrect), but the former dates it to 383 (as does the Cons. Gol. , which thusfollows the same tradition here) and the latter to 385, though the use of Honorius’ birthday for Arcadius’ accession in 383 shows that the entry onHonorius’ birth once stood in 383 as well.121

6 – 7 (383). 1 m Jymstam]timoupº[kei : Bauer reads eQr Jymstam]timo ¼po[kim,imitating Frick’s back-translation of the in Constantinopolim of the Cons. Scal.122

However, clearly a locative is required by the meaning and that is what we find

in the Cons. Vind. pr.: Constantinopoli (502). The problem lies with the fact thatthe alternative locative of Constantinople is Constantinpolim,123 and the

equation. His thoughts first appeared in a preliminary publication of ro 1 – 8, A. Bauer,‘Aus einer neuen Weltchronik’, in Beiträge zur alten Geschichte und griechisch-römischen Alterthumskunde. Festschrift zu Otto Herschfelds Sechzigstem Geburtstag(Berlin, 1903) 330– 5 at 334– 5.

118 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 73, cf. 49.119 For the location of Lugdunum, see R.J.A. Talbert, Barrington Atlas of the Greek and

Roman World (Princeton, 2000) 17 (D2), 18 (B4).120 Socr. h.e. 5.12.3 (GCS Neue Folge 1, p. 286.17–20) and Chron. Pasch. s.a. 384 (p. 563.9–

11 Dindorf) derive from a Greek translation of a version of this earlier recension of theDescriptio.

121 PLRE I s.v. (Fl.) Honorius 3 (p. 442); Kienast, Kaisertabelle (see fn. 113), 340(erroneously has December). Cf. Bauer’s analysis of the sources in Bauer andStrzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 50–2, first published in Bauer,‘Aus einer neuen Weltchronik’ (see fn. 117), 331–4.

122 Frick, Chronica minora (see fn. 26), 371.9 – 10 (also 369.28).123 See e.g. the following examples from the Descriptio consulum : processit Constantino-

polim praefectus urbis nomine Honoratus (359.2), leuatus est Valens augustus Con- stantinopolim in miliario VII in tribunali (364.3), leuatus est Arcadius augustusConstantinopolim in miliario VII in tribunali (383.1), and defunctus est Cynegius

praefectus Orientis in consulatu suo Constantinopolim (388.1); or from the Cons. Vind.







translator of the Cons. Scal. has confused this with the alternative in + ablative,to produce a hybrid (hardly the least of his grammatical problems). The originalGreek would have been a translation of the normal locative we see in the Cons.

Vind. pr. , Constantinopoli, that is, 1 m Jymstamtimoupºkei.7 (383). [Qd_ m]: Bauer restores here and in vo 4, 13 what he considers to bethe correct form, eQd_ m, even if the only place where the word can actually beread, vo 22, has Q.d._ m.124 However, the spelling Qd_ m is what is found in the Cons.Ber. (late fifth/early sixth century) and throughout the Chron. Pasch. (ca. 630),for instance.125 We therefore restore this form in the lacuna. Bilabel proposes toabbreviate to [eQd(_ m)], but an abbreviation is not necessary to fit the word inthe line.

9 (384). [QB]: The years of the ‘Era of Diocletian’ were calculated from thefirst year of the reign of Diocletian, thus Egyptian year 284/285, and were used

in Egypt as a dating system from the early fourth century right down to thetwelfth century (and one survives even from the fourteenth).126 This systemappears in both the Cons. Scal. and the Cons. Gol. In the former all that remainsare years twelve and thirteen, correctly attributed to 296 and 297 (where the textreturns after the loss of a quire from the original Greek). After these two thetranslator appears to have forgotten to copy the remainder, no doubt because of their location in the margin (he was at this point skipping all the captions, whichalso appeared in the margins).127 In the Cons. Gol. years 102 to 109 have beenpreserved or are restored in the margins for the years 384 to 392.128 The years

102 to 108 (for 384 to 390) are two years too high, which is remarkable given themassive corruption of the consular list that we can see in the Cons. Scal. Yetsurprisingly enough, if we count the consuls in the Cons. Scal. from the survivingDiocletian years (including the intrusive consuls at entries 309–10; see n. 44above), we reach the figure of 101 in this year (384), which is only one year too

post.: defunctus est Theodosius imperator et leuatus est Martianus imperator Constan-tinopolim (564).

124 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 12.125 For Qd_ m in the Cons. Ber. , see P.Berol. inv. 13296 i 3 and ii 33.

126 Bagnall and Worp, Chronological Systems (see fn. 17), 63–87. This system was also usedextensively by the Alexandrian Church as a means of dating in Easter tables. It may beinteresting to note that it was Dionysius Exiguus’ rejection of these years of ‘an impiouspersecutor’ for his own sixth-century Easter table that led to his substitution of yearsfrom the birth of Christ, Anni Domini, a system that eventually came to be used as thestandard means of dating in the Western world (Mosshammer, Easter Computus (seefn. 43), 67).

127 These attestations are not included in the list of Bagnall and Worp, Chronological Systems (see fn. 17), 68–82.

128 [QB] and [QC] in ro 9 and 11 are restored on the basis of the preserved entries QD – Qr inro 13, 15, 27; [QF] in ro 30 on the basis of that sequence and the following entry, QG. in vo

6.







high (384 = 100). This proves that even though the Diocletian years do notappear in the manuscript, they must have existed in the Greek original: thecorruption of the consular list is so great that there is simply no other way in

which the (almost exactly) correct number of years could have been accountedfor in any other way. The Cons. Gol. must have had a similarly corrupt consularlist, but one that had either an extra consular year or an error in counting thatcaused the compiler to skip a Diocletian year – on top of the one alreadyskipped – while counting, the opposite of the counting error we can see in v o 9(391): in vo 6, year 108 (QG. ) is assigned to 390 and in vo 17, year 109 (QH) to 392,which reduces the overall error to one year and thus puts it back in sync with theCons. Scal.129 The evidence of these two errors suggests that the originalcompiler did not undertake any calculations to work out the era of any givenyear or work backwards from a known era in the present, but simply started withthe first year of Diocletian and went through the text assigning one number toeach consular year, once the final version had been copied out.

[Uiwol ¶dou]: despite referring to the Cons. Scal. for the names of theconsuls, Bauer restores the first consul as [Uiwol ¶qou], the consul’s correctname, rather than [Uiwol ¶dou], which reflects the combined testimony of theCons. Vind. post. 504 and Cons. Scal. 323 (Richimede/Richomedo) and thatshould therefore be restored here.130

10 (384). [1p· to O a qto O ) mtym mou a qcousta]k¸ou : the restoration is basedupon the readings of the Cons. Scal. , sub eodem Antonino < Augustalio> (324)

in this year and sub Antonino Augustalio (320) in the previous year.131 Bauerdoes not think that the Cons. Scal. is a good model for the augustales, however,and fills in the lacuna with 1p· ) mtym mou (which should be 1pû ) mtym mou), butonly ‘beispielsweise’, hence his question mark.132 If we look at the number of letters, ro 9–15 have no picture in the right margin and cover the whole length of the papyrus. Of these lines, ro 9 has the larger letters of ro 1–8 and it also stopsearlier than ro 11–5, which has smaller and more compact letters, especially

129 Bagnall and Worp, Chronological Systems (see fn. 17), 70, list these numbers underyears 101–9; however, year 101 is probably just a typo for 102. See also pp. 138–9 for atable of equivalents for these years where the three Egyptian dates listed start in theJulian year listed. Cf. Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3),55–6. In his review of Bauer and Strzygowski, S. de Ricci, ‘Une chronique alexandrinesur papyrus’, RA (4ème série) 11 (1908) 108–16 at 112 (n. 1) states that Bauer thinksthat the numbers are two too high because he fails to see that the Era of Diocletian doesnot start with a year 0, but with year 1, but Bauer is correct: if 285 is year 1 then 385 isyear 101, 384 is 100 and the difference between that and 102 is two years.

130 Cf. Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 54.131 See commentary at ro 1–8 above.

132 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 54.







towards the end of the line. As a result, ro 9 – if the restoration is correct – onlyhas 26 letters, whereas ro 11– 5 have between 30 and 34 letters. It is impossible tosay whether ro 10 would have had the larger letters of the previous line or the

smaller ones of the following lines. In the latter case, our restoration, whichrelies upon the parallel of the Cons. Scal. , our only guide in such matters, is to bepreferred.

11 (385). [QC]: Bauer reads [Q]C ; Bilabel, followed by Vandersleyen, places adot below the C. If there was the lower part of the vertical stroke of this letter, itis not clear enough from the photographs to warrant a reading.

12 (385). Ba ¼dymor : only four texts spell the name of the consul posterior with a d/d instead of the correct t /t : the Cons. Scal. , the Cons. Gol. , Socrates133

and the Fasti Heracliani.134 All four are Egyptian: the consuls in Socrates areused to date the death of Timothy and the ordination of Theophilus,135 and thelatter is Egyptian fasti that extend from 222 to 630 and include indictions, yearsof Diocletian and years from the accession of Philip III as king of Macedonia(323), which is the beginning of what we now refer to as Ptolemaic Egypt. Thereis no indication that such a spelling ever appeared in the papyri, though.136

E qs]e.b. .

o. u. : only the bottom of the last five letters of the name of theaugustalis have been preserved. Nonetheless, there is no doubt about Bauer’srestoration of the name. In particular, the second letter, which contains the clearrounded lower part of the b, is diagnostic. Bauer even sees a trace of the s, andrestores E q]seb¸ou, but if it is there it only shows a small dot on the edge of thepapyrus, an insufficient trace to read the letter.137 Bilabel also places the s in thelacuna, and has the same reading as the one proposed here. Vandersleyen takesover Bauer’s reading, but places dots on the letters outside of the lacuna,E q]s. e.b

. .o. u. .

We encounter here the first major difference between the texts of the Cons.Gol. and the Cons. Scal. : the former reports the augustalis as Eusebius, while thelatter records Florentius. Florentius is known from independent sources to havebeen augustalis on 20 December 384, on 17 February and 16 June 386, andtherefore throughout 385, so the Cons. Scal. is correct here.138 Eusebius is not

otherwise known to have been an augustalis (see the appendix). It hardly seemspossible to confuse E qseb¸ou and Vkyqemt¸ou, but we have already seen above(commentary at ro 3–4 (383)) how in vo 22–3 Septelb(q_ym) was corrupted to

133 Socr. h.e. 5.12.5 (GCS Neue Folge 1, p. 286.22–3).134 Ed. Mommsen, Chronica minora 3 (see fn. 26), 401.135 See commentary at ro 17–22 (387) below.136 Bagnall and Worp, Chronological Systems (see fn. 17), 191.137 Cf. Bauer’s preliminary study ‘Zur Liste der praefecti Augustales’, WS 24 (1902) 347–51

at 349, in which he reads E qs]eb¸ou.

138 PLRE I s.v. Florentius 7 (p. 364).







Yamouaq(_ym), so almost anything is possible. On the other hand, it could be adeliberate change by a reader or scribe who thought he had better informationthan his text.

a. qcou[st]a.k(¸ou): only the oblique line of the first a is preserved. The letterssta appear in a triangular lacuna. The preceding ou is ligatured and the u

connects high up to the s, but it is unclear where the s begins, so it cannot beread. Immediately to the right of the lacuna is an oblique line of what must bethe second a. The trace at the end of this line may be the end of the horizontal of the t, but since it could also be the end of the oblique of the a, it cannot be readeither.

13 (386). 1p[ivamest²tou : Bauer sees a small coloration on the edge of thepapyrus as part of the i, and reads 1pi[vamest²tou, to which Bilabel andVandersleyen add a dot, 1pi.[vamest²tou. Again (cf. the commentary at ro 12(385)), however, the trace is insufficient to print the letter outside the bracket.9pivam´stator is the Greek equivalent of nobilissimus puer (and as suchincluded in our translation, though here the compiler simply treats it as anadjective modifying ja_saqor). This rank is found for the first time in consulardates for Gratian in 366 and Valentinian Galates in 369. It is missing in 386 fromthe Cons. Vind. post. (506) but appears in Cons. Vind. pr. (506).139 It also appearsin 386 in the Alexandrian Fasti Heracliani.140 This entire consular date has beenlost from the Cons. Scal.

14 (386). a qcoustak(¸ou): to save space at the end of this line, the t is writtenwith the horizontal stretching out over the preceding s and following a.141

15 (387). Bakemtim. i.a. [ mo O : the reading of the last three letters is complicatedby an ink blot. Bauer reads the shorter form Bakemtiam[o O, probably because inthis case ro 15 has the same number of letters (30) as ro 16, which both end at thesame point. However, ro 15 starts further to the left and because of the changingletter sizes the exact amount of missing text is hard to predict, so the readingwith Bakemtim. i.a. [ mo O, yielding 32 letters, is equally possible. Moreover, when welook closer at the doubtful letters, the oblique line of the letter after Bakemti- istoo skewed for an a, which should be straighter up, hence a m is more likely. The

following traces seem to fit well with the letters i and a. An added advantage of this restoration is that it leaves four letters in the lacuna ([ mo O a]), rather thanthe three in Bauer’s text ([o O a]), which conforms neatly with the four letters/signs of the previous line immediately above ([kal ú]). Thus the reading Bakem-

139 Bagnall, Cameron, Schwartz and Worp, Consuls (see fn. 17), 266 – 7, 272 – 3, 306 – 7, andBagnall and Worp, Chronological Systems (see fn. 17), 188, 191.

140 Mommsen, Chronica minora 3 (see fn. 26), 401. For the Fasti Heracliani, seecommentary at ro 12 above.

141 Also remarked by Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 13.







tim. i.a. [ mo O is preferable, and also what we would expect in comparison with theCons. Scal. (329), which has Valentiniano.

16 (387). a qcoustak¸ou : Bauer sees a colon written after this word.

However, what he sees as the dot above, seems rather to be the small hookgoing down from the u, as in the u in the line above it. The dot below may be justa small ink blot, such as the one found to the right of Picture 2 (right of the headof the mummy).

Picture 2. The dead Bishop Timothy of Alexandria is represented as amummy, thus underscoring the Egyptian milieu of this text. The mummy iscoloured blue, is wrapped in linen denoted with criss-crossing lines and boundwith three yellow-green bands. Above, to the left of the mummy is the caption:Til ºjheor.142

17 (387). To ¼t\ t`: it seems that the scribe first wrote toutye and then,realizing he should have written ty twice, corrected the e to a t , which is largerand extends further down than usual, and has a small hook to the left at thebottom of the vertical. Perhaps this correction is connected to the addition of asmall stroke on the first y to mark the division between To ¼t\ and t`:touty- ty.143

17–22 (387). To ¼t\ t` 5 [tei…5 tg jg]: Timothy was the brother of Peter,Timothy’s predecessor as bishop of Alexandria, and died on 20 July 385.144

Theophilus was ordained bishop of Alexandria the following Sunday (26 July385) and died on 15 October 412.145 For this year, besides the Egyptian date (ro

20), the indiction year is given (ro 21), another common chronological system inLate Antique Egypt and the fourth chronological system used in this text,though this is the only place where it appears.146 Theophilus was ordained ineither the thirteenth or the fourteenth indiction (which depends on when theindiction is deemed to have started, the beginning of May, July or September).147

This entry, however, places it during a second indiction, which normally runsfrom 388 to 389. On the other hand, the second indiction is also equivalent toyear 105 of Diocletian,148 which this year just happens to be (ro 15: PE) as aresult of the earlier errors (see commentary at ro 9 (384) above), so it seems

142 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 121.143 Cf. Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 12.144 The consular year is given by Socr. h.e. 5.12.5 (GCS Neue Folge 1, p. 286.22–3), who

also says that it was the year after Honorius’ birth in 384.145 Russell, Theophilus (see fn. 18), 4 (with n. 9), 35.146 Bagnall and Worp, Chronological Systems (see fn. 17), 22–35.147 Bagnall and Worp, Chronological Systems (see fn. 17), 127–8 and 138.148 The equivalence can be seen in the Fasti Heracliani (Mommsen, Chronica minora 3 (see

fn. 26), 401), and Bagnall and Worp, Chronological Sytems (see fn. 17), 138.







likely that the indiction was a later addition to the text – it is not mentioned byTheophanes or the Cons. Scal. – from a table that equated years of Diocletianand indictions. Theophilus was bishop for 27, not 28 years.149

18 (387). ). [kenamd]q.e¸ar : to the left of the lacuna, the belly of the a is clearlyvisible, and to the right of the lacuna part of the round upper part and thecharacteristic small hook at the bottom of the vertical of the q are discernible.Bauer, followed by Bilabel, places no dots beneath the doubtful letters;Vandersleyen does not see the traces of the q, and proposes )[kenamdq]e¸ar.

20 (387). 9p]e.·v : the lower, rounded part of the e, as well as the horizontalstroke, are clearly preserved. Bauer places the e in the lacuna (9pe]·v), whileBilabel notes the e without a dot (9p]e·v).

Picture 3. A standing figure with a grey beard holding a book in both hands,on which is shown a T-shaped pattern. He has a grey scarf around his neck, andwears a yellow tunic and brown cloak.150 Springing up at his right foot is a greenline, probably a plant (cf. Pictures 4, 5 and 7). Even though the image is frontal,the figure is glancing towards his left. To the right of his head is the caption, bûcio. [r] Heºv

..[i]ko. [r] ‘Saint Theophilus’, the new bishop of Alexandria.151

22–6 (387). ja· a qt` t` 5 [tei…Sept]elbq(_ym): For Maximus’ proclamationin 383, see the commentary to ro 1–4 (383) above. It is peculiar that Maximus’accession is noted here, just before his death, when he has already beendescribed as a usurper (b t ¼qammor) in ro 3 (383). However, Maximus survived asemperor long enough to celebrate his quinquennalia in 388, the year of his

defeat,152 so perhaps a record of these celebrations was preserved in some wayand was misunderstood as indicating Maximus’ accession, rather than hisanniversary. This would explain the presence of this entry in 388. The date givenfor Maximus’ dies imperii, 14 to 28 February, is otherwise unknown, but does

149 Cf. the discussion of this passage by Bauer and Strzygowski, AlexandrinischeWeltchronik (see fn. 3), 56–8.

150 Wilpert, ‘Beiträge’ (see fn. 15), 3 – 4, 14– 5, Martin, Athanase (see fn. 99), 327 (n. 20) andDavis, Early Coptic Papacy (see fn. 18), 64, think that the scarf is the episcopal pallium

but Theophilus is more probably dressed in civilian clothes, see K.C. Innemée,Ecclesiastical Dress in the Medieval Near East (Leiden, 1992) 53 (Pl. 57), with the moregeneral comments in his ‘Christian Secular, Monastic, and Liturgical Dress in theEastern Mediterranean’, in G. Vogelsang-Eastwood (ed.), Encyclopedia of World Dressand Fashion, Volume 5: Central and Southwest Asia (Oxford, 2010) 165–70 at 165. Wewould like to thank Karel Innemée for discussion on this topic.

151 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 58, 121.152 For his qunquennalia in 388, see R.W. Burgess, ‘Quinquennial Vota and the Imperial

Consulship in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries, 337 – 511’, NC 148 (1988) 77–96 at 84–5,92 (with illustration), repr. in Chronicles, Consuls, and Coins: Historiography andHistory in the Later Roman Empire (Farnham, 2011) Ch. XIV. For the vota coinage

marking his quinquennalis, see J.W.E. Pearce, The Roman Imperial Coinage, Vol IX:







influenced the source that lay behind the Cons. Vind. pr. and the Cons. Gol. butnot the older version behind the Chronicle of Theophanes.159 We cannot knowthe origin of the variant or the vector of its dissemination, but it is nevertheless

useful here because it demonstrates once again the closeness of the Cons. Gol.and the Cons. Vind. pr. and distances the tradition of the Cons. Gol. from theAlexandrian source used by Theophanes.160

24 (387). jaka] md(_ m): the same word is found abbreviated several times inthe Cons. Ber. , but there it is rendered with a different abbreviation mark asjak’.161

25–6 (387). 1 m J ]o.qt_ mi : as we have seen above (commentary at ro 22–6),Maximus was killed three miles outside Aquileia. The Cons. Gol. says it was in aplace named -oqt¾ m or perhaps in Latin -ortona. Bauer notes a Cortona just northof Aquileia and indeed there are still two small villages or localities ( frazioni)named Cortona and Cortona Alta, the first about three and the other about fourRoman miles north-east of Aquileia, due south of the modern Ruda (on the ViaLocalità Cortona Alta, which becomes the Via Cortona), which no doubt stillretain the name of the old site.162 It would have been situated on the east side of the major Roman road that entered Italy from Emona through Pons Sontii andheaded south to Aquileia, which was Theodosius’ route against Maximus.163 Therecan be no doubt, therefore, that this is authentic and accurate information gleanedfrom an otherwise unknown source. It was probably this same post-527 sourcethat provided Maximus’ dies imperii (see commentary at ro 22– 6 above). Like the

date, this information has been ignored by modern scholars.28 (388). to O. : enough of the upper left end of the u is preserved for it to be

read, as it was by Bilabel. Bauer has to[ O].k.al (pqot\tou): of the initial k the entire oblique stroke can be read as it was

by Bilabel whose reading we follow. Again, Bauer puts it in the lacuna(k]al (pqot\tou)).

31 (389). E qa]c..q. .

o. [ u : the last line of the recto is almost entirelyreconstructed and rests mainly on the reading of the name of the augustalis.Of the traces of the four letters, the reading of the q is practically certain

159 This might seem unusual but there are a number of cases in the fourth and fifth centuriesof widely disseminated dates that differ from one another in ways that cannot beexplained by a simple confusion of figures (e.g. III for VI ) or words (e.g. kl. for id. or Iun. for Ian.), such as the death of Valentinian II (see commentary at vo 11– 3 below),the accession of Theodosius II and the death of Honorius.

160 Cf. Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 60–1.161 P. Berol. inv. 13296 i 12, ii 8, 39, 44, 48.162 See Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 59–60, where

Bauer discusses several options and settles for Cortona. Both sites can be found onGoogle Maps and Italian tourist and local government web sites.

163 See Talbert, Barrington Atlas (see fn. 119), 19 (F4) and 20 (A4–B3).







1 – 5 (389). The second-most problematic entry in the Chron. Gol. is the oneat the start of the verso. Almost nothing of it survives but the apparent referenceto Honorius (vo 2), the general parallels to the Cons. Vind. and the date prove

that it must relate to Theodosius’ visit to Rome in 389 with his son, Honorius.Bauer offers two reconstructions,168 both of which do damage to the word orderthat is preserved in the five other texts that report the entry and derive from thesame ultimate common source, the public proclamation of this event. In thefollowing comparison, the texts that are related through the Cons. Ital. aremarked with an asterisk.

Introiuit Theudosius augustus in urbem Romam cum Honorio filio suo die iduum Iuniarum et dedit congiarium Romanis (Descriptio consulum s.a. 389).

eQs/khem Heodºsior b basike »r 1 m U¾l , let± to O uRo O a qto O j myq¸ou, ja· 5 stexem

a qt¹ m 1je ? eQr basik´a. (Chron. Pasch. s.a. 389, p. 564.8–10 Dindorf).

Theodosius Romam introiuit cum Honorio idus Iunias et exiuit inde III kl Septemb.(Cons. Vind. pr. 512).*

Theodosius imperator cum Honorio filio suo Romam mense Iunio introiuit,congiarium Romano populo tribuit urbeque egressus est kal. Septembris (Marcelli-nus comes s.a. 389.1).*169

Gkhe Heodºsior 1 m U¾l , let± i myq¸ou to O uRo O a qto O ja· 1j ²hisem a qt¹ m basik´a

1 m a qt0 pq¹ ef Qd_ m Youm¸ou, ja· ! m/khem 1p· Jymstamtimo ¼pokim (Theophanes AM5881, p. 70.31–3 de Boor).*

These can be compared to Bauer’s two proposed reconstructions, which weplace side by side here for easier comparison:

[To ¼t\ t` 5 tei let± to O uRo O] [To ¼t\ t` 5 tei eQs/khe let±]

j m[yq¸ou Heodºsior eQs/khe] j m[yq¸ou to O uRo O a qto O]

1 m [U¾l , ja· a qt¹ m eQr basi-] 1 m [U¾l , Heodºsior b basi-]

k´[a 5 stexem eQd(o ? r) Youm(¸air) ja·] ke[ »r eQdo ? r Youm¸air ja·]

5 d[yje jocci²qiom Uyla¸oir.] 5 d[yje jocci²qiom Uyla¸oir.]

As can be seen Bauer has used the Chron. Pasch. to reconstruct the text. TheChron. Pasch.’s entry is, however, for the most part a translation of the entry inthe Descriptio (see below) and is therefore independent of the Cons. Ital.traditions and so cannot be used as a template for this entry. The reference toHonorius’ proclamation, at least, also appears in Theophanes, which, as we haveseen above (pp. 53–4), would make its appearance in the Cons. Gol. more likely.

168 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 61 – 3.

169 Ed. Mommsen, Chronica minora 2 (see fn. 26), 62.







The inclusion of this part of the entry would also seem to be confirmed by theillustration, which clearly shows a junior emperor. Any entry that makes nomention of Honorius’ proclamation would have to look more like Cons. Vind.

pr. or Marcellinus, but there does not seem to be any reconstruction based onthese texts that will fit the traces. Bauer’s decision to opt for the reconstructionon the left is thus plausible, but far from conclusive, since so much must bereconstructed and any word order that contradicts all other parallels by puttingHonorius before his father is suspicious. We have not found a suitablealternative for this problematic reconstruction, however, and as a result havekept Bauer’s reconstruction.

In spite of modern theories to the contrary,170 the belief that Honorius wasproclaimed emperor in Rome during Theodosius’ visit in 389 is a concoction of Byzantine historiography, appearing for the first time in the ca. 470 Alexandrianchronicle that was used by Theophanes in ca. 814, as cited above. Besides itsappearance here in the Cons. Gol. , it can also be found in a confused passage inZosimus (early sixth century) that refers to 394171 and in the Chron. Pasch.(ca. 630).172 No other source mentions it. Honorius was proclaimed augustus atthe Hebdomon, seven miles outside Constantinople, on 23 January 393.173

2 – 3 (389). eQs/khe] 1 m [U¾l ,: cf. the Cons. Ber. , which has a similarconstruction at P.Berol. i i 42–3: eQs/kham (read eQs/khem) 1 m Jyst(amti-

mou)pº(kei) t± k¸lxama (read ke¸xama) t_ m "c¸ym !postºkym ) mdq´a ja· Kouj ÷‘the relics of the holy apostles Andrew and Luke entered Constantinople’.174

Both are in imitation of the underlying Latin construction of in + accusative.4 (389). [Qd(o ? r)]: for the restoration, which differs from Bauer’s ([eQd(o ? r)]),

see above, commentary at ro 7.

170 E.g. A. Cameron, ‘Theodosius the Great and the Regency of Stilico’, HSPh 73 (1969)247– 80 at 260– 1, repeated in Barbarians and Politics at the Court of Arcadius (Berkeley,1993) 3 (n. 7), who hypothesized that Honorius was proclaimed caesar in 389. The keypiece of evidence for this idea is a comment by Claudian, de IV cons. Hon. 169 (on whichsee M. Dewar, Claudian. Panegyricus de sexto consulatu Honorii Augusti (Oxford, 1996)107–8), but as Cameron now states, ‘it would be in keeping with [Theodosius’] policy of

making it clear that one of his sons rather than poor Valentinian II was to be emperor of the West one day at least to make a public announcement in Rome’ (personalcommunication).

171 Zos. 4.59.1, p. 328.19– 21 Paschoud, with his comments countering Cameron’s article,Zosime. Histoire nouvelle, 3 vols (Paris, 1979–2000) 2.2.468–70.

172 Theophanes does not appear to have used the Chron. Pasch. See Mango and Scott,Chronicle of Theophanes (see fn. 42), lxxx.

173 PLRE I s.v. (Fl.) Honorius 3 (p. 442, citing the ‘Cons. Const.’ (= Descriptio) for the date,but it does not even mention Honorius’ accession; it should read Cons. Vind. pr . 521);Kienast, Kaisertabelle (see fn. 113), 340.

174 See the commentary ad loc. by Burgess and Dijkstra, ‘Berlin “Chronicle”’ (see fn. 22),

299.







5 (389). [jocci²qiom]: the word is not attested in the papyri. It is the normalLatin word to denote an imperial gift to the people, as opposed to a donative(donatiuum), which was given to the soldiers. As a technical term (that was no

doubt unfamiliar to the translator anyway) it was left in Latin.6 (390). QG. : the right part of the G has faded, but the vertical stroke is

certain and no other letter makes sense here.Ba[kemtimiamo O : rather than Bauer’s Ba[kemtiamo O, see above, commentary at ro

15. The two extra letters do not make a difference, since all sentences in this column(except those that stop sooner as a result of their being the end of a chronologicalor historical entry) have 20–3 letters, and this line now has 23 letters.

Beneath the letters Ba is a wavy line, which looks like the one below vo 20(see commentary ad loc.) and may be used there to set off the chronological partof the entry. If the same is the case here, however, it should have been writtentwo lines down.

7 – 8 (390). [1p· ]au[ ]: Bauer consid-ers two options for restoration: either one in which Evagrius features asaugustalis for the second time, 1p· to O] a q[to O a qcoustak¸ou] or 1p· to O] a q[to OE qacq¸ou a qc(oustak¸ou),175 or one in which an unknown augustalis ismentioned, starting either at the end of ro 7 or beginning with A q- in ro 8. Hehas a preference for the second option, since the first one would result in theunlikely circumstance that Evagrius was augustalis four times in a row.176 Indeed,the first option can be rejected. The reading of vo 18–9 (392) is 1.p. ·. t.o O a. q.to OE qa. [cq¸ou, so that the augustalis for 391 should be restored to E qacq¸ou in vo 10.There is no room for to O a qto O here, since the line already has 23 letters, whichmeans that Evagrius cannot have been the augustalis for 390. We know from theCod. Theod. 13.5.18 that Alexander was augustalis on 18 February 390, andprobably 1 March as well (CJ 10.40.8),177 but we cannot restore 1pû)ken]j² m.[dqou a qcoustak¸ou], unless it is assumed that the scribe, who isclearly well-educated, incorrectly divided the name at the line break (whichwould be )kejn² mdqou).178 Besides, the reading of the first two letters of vo 8 is

175 While the first proposal is highly unlikely, the second proposal only has 17 letters, not21–2; given that the scribe would have wanted to fill up the space of r o 8 as much aspossible, he would rather have written a qcoust(ak¸ou), which yields 21 letters, ora qcoustak(¸ou), which gives 23. Besides, a qcoustak¸ou would not be abbreviated aucú,which is used for a qc(o ¼stou) in our text, e.g. at ro 15.

176 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 63, restated at p. 117.Cf. Bauer, ‘Liste’ (see fn. 137), 349 in which he still regards the reading 1p· to O] a q[to OE qacq¸ou a qc(oustak¸ou) ‘als sicher’.

177 PLRE I s.v. Alexander 12 (p. 42).178 See, conveniently, H.W. Smyth, Greek Grammar (rev. ed. by G.M. Messing; Cambridge,

MA, 1956) 35 (§ 140).







clearly au and am. would be difficult to defend.179 It is also impossible to readthese letters as ak. , which would allow the restoration 1pû]j )k. [en² mdqou a qcou-stak¸ou.180 Thus, the restoration of these lines must remain open.

9–10

(391). Ta. [tiamo O…kal (pqot\tym): the restoration proposed by Baueris likely, but requires a mistake by the copyist, who for some reason forgot towrite the T to the left of the column and to insert the Diocletian year, so that inthe other two entries the number goes from QG. (vo 6) to QH (vo 17).181

Picture 5. A large figure standing, his right arm raised,182 his left, coveredhand holding a book with a cross-shaped pattern on it. He wears a long red-purple cloak, with yellow tunic and grey scarf around his neck. The figure can beidentified from the caption, crammed above his head just below Picture 4, as [b]ûcior H. [e]ºv

.i.[kor], Saint Theophilus, who is also depicted in Picture 3. There the

bishop is dressed in the same way, except that he is now cloaked in purple

instead of brown. The book, too, is similar, though it also is purple and it has across-shaped, not T-shaped pattern on the cover, as in Picture 3. When wecompare the faces, in both cases Theophilus is glancing slightly towards his leftand has a grey beard, but in Picture 5 he seems to be older: his beard is less fulland he suffers from male pattern baldness. At both his feet branches spring upthat reach his waist.183

Theophilus is standing on top of a façade with columns and a triangularentrance, painted in blue and yellow, in which is shown the bust of a beardlessman with curly hair wearing the modius, the characteristic headdress of the god

Serapis.184

Strzygowski interprets the piece of architecture as a pedestal, an

179 Cf. the writing of au in ro 21 (last two letters), with am (in the word before it): the m isbroader and has a long oblique in between the two verticals.

180 Cf. Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 63 (n. 3). Thereconstruction would be unsatisfactory anyway, since then there would only be 19letters/signs in vo 7. For the letters ak at the beginning of a sentence, cf. vo 20: theligature with the a would require an up going and forward facing line, not one bendingover backwards, as is the case here.

181 For the reconstruction, see the considerations by Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrini-

sche Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 64. For the Diocletian years, see commentary at r o 9 above.182 The papyrus is abraded here, so it is difficult to see whether he has something in his hand

and, if so, what it is.183 Cf. Davis, Early Coptic Papacy (see fn. 18), 64, followed by Watts, Riot (see fn. 18),

206–7 who sees a close resemblance between Theophilus as depicted here and the OldTestament prophets shown elsewhere in the manuscript (fol. III, Pl. VII ro, fr. C;described by Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 149–51)and links this to Theophilus’ own identification with these prophets. Such commentsassume a close chronological relationship between the illustration and Theophilushimself, which we now know to be untrue. Besides, the only resemblance among theseimages is that the figures hold a book and, as noted above, the pictures are all quite

stereotypical.







architectural framing for the bust of Serapis, on which the triumphantTheophilus is standing. In his critical review of Strzygowski’s interpretation of the images, in particular of Picture 5, however, J. Wilpert rightly remarks that

temples are often depicted in shortened form consisting of a façade withcolumns, in which the deity is shown in the entrance.185 This architectural formthus represents the Serapeum in stereotypical form, just as it is found onAlexandrian coins.186 The combination of Theophilus and the Serapeum cannotbe connected to any of the extant historical entries, except for the second one of 392 (vo 23– 9, see ceommentary below) and since Theophilus is often connectedwith the destruction of the Serapeum, it is highly likely that the entry describedthis event.

11 in marg. (caption to Picture 5). [b] ûcior H. [e]ºv.

i.[kor]: this is apparentlythe only caption written in the black ink used for the images. The reading ismade difficult by the abrasion of a narrow band on the papyrus, which causesthe obliteration of most of the first and the second letters of Theophilus’ name,as it does of the left foot of Theodosius and part of the vegetation in the imageabove (Picture 4). .cior is certain. Before that is a trace that could well be of b.It is unclear whether the other traces here and down towards Theophilus’ righthand represent more text or belong to the picture. To the right of ûcior is a tracethat could only be the beginning of the h. The next letters we see are the o andthe clear upper part with vertical stroke of the v. The top of the next letter is alsovisible, which is probably the i, after which the remainder disappears in thelacuna. Bauer reads the name as H[eº]vik[or], Bilabel as H[eº]vikor.187

11–3 (391). [To ¼t\ t` 5 tei…Youm(¸ym)]: Valentinian II committed suicide inVienna (modern Vienne in France) on 15 May 392.188 The date restored here forthe death of Valentinian II is what is found in the Cons. Vind. pr. (516), but isincorrect. There is no easy way to account for this error: IIII id. Iun. hassomehow been substituted for id. Mai. , which is found in Epiphanius’ Demensuris et ponderibus, written soon after the event in 392.189 It also appears in

184 For the iconography of Serapis, see in general G. Clerc, J. Leclant, ‘Sarapis’, in LIMC 7.1

(1994) 666–92, with the accompanying figures.185 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 72 (n. 1), 122, 169. Cf.

Wilpert, ‘Beiträge’ (see fn. 15), in particular pp. 6 – 9 on the interpretation of thebuilding.

186 Sabottka, Serapeum (see fn. 18), 299–310, with examples.187 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 66, cf. the notation by

Strzygowski on p. 122, [He]ºvi[kor]. Bilabel probably leaves out the square bracketsbetween -or by mistake, as they are clearly in the lacuna.

188 PLRE I s.v. (Flavius) Valentinianus 8 (pp. 934–5); B. Croke, ‘Arbogast and the Death of Valentinian II’, Historia 25 (1976) 235–44; Kienast, Kaisertabelle (see fn. 113), 335. Forthe location of Vienna, see Talbert, Barrington Atlas (see fn. 119), 17 (D2).

189 Epiph. mens. 20 (PG 43, col. 272).







the Chronicle of Marcellinus comes ( s.a. 391.2),190 though through a typicalscribal error Mai. ‘May’ has become Mar. ‘March’, so the correct date must haveoriginally stood in the Cons. Ital. as well, since Marcellinus is also a witness to

that tradition. We have seen this problem above in 387 (commentary at ro

22–6)and will see it again below in 392 (vo 22–3). Here the reading Qdo ? r Laý air wouldbe impossible as more letters are needed to fit the space in the lacuna, whichhelps to confirm the restoration [pq¹ d

-Qd_ m Youm(¸ym)].191

11–2 (391). [Bakemtimiam¹r]: instead of Bauer’s [Bakemtiam¹r], see above,commentary at ro 15.

13 (391). [Qd_ m]: rather than Bauer’s [eQd_ m], see above, commentary at ro 7.Picture 6. Only the bottom part of this image has been preserved. It shows

the lower part of a figure clad in a purple cloak and to its right a piece of yellowclothing. The figure can be identified on the basis of the caption, which is foundhere exceptionally below the image and not above it, as the EmperorValentinian. The image must therefore have depicted the death of Valentinianas described in the historical entry to its left (see commentary at vo 11–3above).192

15. in marg. (caption to Picture 6). Bakem.t.[imiamºr]: we restore here the fullname, not the shortened one, Bakem[tiamºr], as Bauer has it, or Bakemti[amºr] asis read by Bilabel.193 See above, commentary at ro 15. The reading after Bake- ismade with difficulty, but the broad, forward-leaning m and t that one finds in thecaptions can be made out. It cannot be decided whether there are any traces of the i still on the papyrus, or whether they fall in the lacuna, as does the rest of the name.

13–5 (391). j ]a. ·. 1.p.¶.

q[hg… H. [½h] jc : Eugenius was proclaimed emperor inLugdunum (Lyon) by Arbogast on 22 August 392.194 The Cons. Vind. pr. (517)and the Cons Gol. (as confirmed by the Egyptian date) are the only sources topreserve this date.195

13–4 (391). j ]a. ·. 1.p.¶.

qj[hg : little remains of the letters on vo 13, but Bauer’srestoration of this entry is likely and what there is fits the traces, especially g

.q at

the end of the line, of which the q is certain.

190 Mommsen, Chronica minora 2 (see fn. 26), 62.191 As already remarked by Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see

fn. 3), 65– 6 (n. 1).192 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 122.193 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 64. Cf. Strzygowski,

who in his discussion of the image at p. 122 notes the caption as Bake[ mtiamºr].194 PLRE I s.v. Arbogastes (p. 96), Eugenius 96 (p. 293); Kienast, Kaisertabelle (see

fn. 113), 343 (erroneously citing ‘Cons. Const.’ = Descriptio consulum).

195 So Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 65.







14 (391). E] q.c..

mior : only the letters em can be read with certainty from theplate in the first edition (Pl. 2). In this case, however, the recent photographsfrom the Pushkin are useful, as they confirm Bauer’s reading of the last five

letters (emior). The u is partly in the lacuna; of the c only traces survive. Bilabelhas E] q.c mior.15 (391). Sept.e.l

.b(q_ym): sep can be read, as well as the b and abbreviation

mark at the end. The letters in between are much faded but fit the traces. 196

16 (391). [f] 1.s. t.i. m H. [½h]: of the first four letters of 1.s. t.i. m, only the bottom ispreserved, though the proposed letters fit the traces; m is completely there. Therounded curve of the following h is also visible.

17 (392). )qjad¸o. [ u : after the clear reading of )qjad¸- there is a trace of thefollowing o ; Bauer has )qjad¸[ou.

Picture 7. A figure in a long-sleeved white tunic and purple cloak that iswrapped around his lower body kneels, leaning backwards and stretching out hisright hand, upon a thick base of vegetation, from which emerges a plant. Thesleeve of his tunic has a yellow border similar to the yellow border and patcheson the tunic worn by Theodosius in Picture 4, and he appears to be wearing adiadem. There is a blue stain across his tunic like the stain in Picture 1. Besidehis head is the caption that identifies him as the usurper Eugenius, whose deathis mentioned in the historical entry to the left (see commentary at r o 21–3below).197

17. in marg. E qc m[ior]: Bauer reads two more letters behind E qc m-.198

There are what may be traces of black ink behind the m and on the other side of the head, but these traces are insufficient to allow any reading. Bilabel also hasE qc m[ior].

18 (392). [to O : Bauer sees a trace of the horizontal of the t on the edge of thepapyrus and notes t[o O, but if so there is too little left to read the letter.

18–9 (392). kal (pqot\tou)] 1.p. ·. t.o O a. q. jto O : the abbreviation mark does notseem to be preserved, then we have the traces of 1.p. ·., followed by the securereading t.o O, in which only the left part of the horizontal of the t has faded. Thetrace of the oblique stroke of the a can be seen, but the u is almost completely

erased. Cf. Bauer’s reading kal ](pqot\tou) [1]p· to O a qto O and Bilabel’s kal -(pqot\tou) 1]p· to O a qto O.

19 (392). a qco] u.s. t.a.k.(¸ou): the reading of this word is problematic andfurther obscured by cracks in the papyrus. However, the final abbreviation mark

196 Cf. Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 64– 5: ‘Z. 15 istSeptelbú so deutlich, als dies auf dieser Seite überhaupt erwartet werden kann’.

197 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 68–9, 122. Cf. Wilpert,‘Beiträge’ (see fn. 15), 12 – 4.

198 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 66. Cf. Strzygowski,

who notes the caption as E qc m[ior] later on in the work (p. 122).







is fairly clear, which, together with the expected number of letters within therestoration results in the reading a qco] u.s. t.a.k.(¸ou).

20 (392). )ken.[amdqe¸ar]: the first three letters are certain and the fourth is

likely, so that the restoration is probable, even though the name of the city hasnot been added to any of the other augustales, either here or in the Cons. Scal.There are traces of ink to the right of the lacuna, but according to Bauer theseare traces of letters from the recto that show through because of abrasion to thepapyrus.199 We are inclined to follow this estimation, also because – if thereading is )ken

.[amdqe¸ar], nothing more is to be expected.

Beneath the )k is a wavy line that may be an indication of the end of thechronological part of the entry, although it has not been preserved at v o 8(though there is a similar wavy line at vo 6, see commentary ad loc.) and on therecto the strokes are thicker and there they have been put in front of, not before,the last line of the entry.

21–3 (392). To ¼[t\ t` 5 tei…H½h] g-. : Eugenius was defeated and killed at

the River Frigidus in north-eastern Italy by the army of Theodosius on 6September 394.200 The correct date is preserved in the Cons. Vind. pr. (522a) andSocrates.201 As we saw above in the commentary on ro 3–4, the Cons. Gol.supports this date.202

21–2 (392). 1 m] ….ir : Bauer believes that this was the name of the town orcity where Eugenius was murdered. The word probably ends with -air or -oir,but remains unidentified.203 There is no evidence for a location of Eugenius’

death in the Cons. Ital. or Cons. Vind. , so if that is what indeed appears here, itmust have been added independently, as its unusual location at the head of theentry would suggest. As we saw above (commentary at ro 25–6 (387)) thelocation of Maximus’ death was added independently by a scribe or reader andis accurate, and thus there is good reason for believing this location may havebeen correct as well.

22–3 (392). pq¹] g-. Q.d._ m…H½h] g-

. : As noted above (commentary at ro 3–4)

although the Greek now reads Yamou. [aq(_ym), it was originally Septelb(q_ym), asis confirmed by the Egyptian equivalent. There is no way to determine how such

199 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 66: ‘Z. 20 hat nach demWorte )ken

.amdqe¸ar nichts mehr gestanden; was wie Buchstabenreste aussieht, sind die

durchscheinenden Schriftzüge des Rekto’.200 PLRE I s.v. Eugenius (p. 293); Kienast, Kaisertabelle (see fn. 113), 343. For a detailed

analysis of the literary accounts on the Frigidus, see now Cameron, Last Pagans (seefn. 18), 93–131.

201 Socr. h.e. 5.25.16 (GCS Neue Folge 1, p. 309.8–10).202 Cf. the observations by Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3),

67–8.203 Cf. Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 68, with some

proposals.







a copying error could have occurred and it may have been a deliberate change.For the restoration [H½h] instead of Bauer’s [Va_vi], see the same entry of thecommentary at ro 3 – 4 above.

23 (392). [1stim]: Bauer restores 1sti, and the same form is found in Bilabel’sand Vandersleyen’s text, but in ro 4 and vo 16 1stim is found (the former partlyrestored), in spite of the lack of a following vowel, while in ro 8 this form isrestored, so it should be restored here as well.

23–9 (392). ja· a qt` t` [5 tei… ]: the last lines of the verso contain a secondhistorical entry for the year 392. The entry is longer than usual, as it extendsover seven lines, compared with four to six lines for the other ones. Yet it is alsothe most badly damaged part of the papyrus, and almost nothing of it can beread. Here are the readings proposed by Bauer, along with the extensivereconstruction by Bilabel that is followed by Vandersleyen:

ed. princ.: Bilabel/Vandersleyen:

ja· a qt` ja· a qt`

t` [5 tei oR mao· t_] m :[k]k¶[ m]y( m) t`204 [5 tei B vhaqtµ t_] m :[k]k¶ my( m)

1.kg[………]e.s. t. [t_] m. Wqi- v.kg [jatek ¼hg. Pq]]sb.[ey] m Wqi-

stia[ m_ m………..]ou 1pi- stia. [ m_ m rp¹ Heov_kou t]o O 1pi-

swi[f…………… t]± sj .º. [pou pelvh]mtym e W ]t[a]

cq²[llata ……….] Uyla- cq²[llata basik]yr rp¹] Uyla-

mo O[ ] mo O[ ]

If we start with Bauer’s readings, even though he admits that the text here is‘very hard to read’, his readings are tentative at best.205 In vo 24 nothing can beread after the lacuna except for y( m) and the preceding letter seems to be rathera q, which makes the reading :[k]k¶[ m]y( m) doubtful. Vo 25 indeed starts withe.k, but the next letter is unclear, as is everything after the lacuna until qi. Theletters on the next line cannot be read either, so that Wqistia[ m_ m cannot berestored. At the end of vo 26 five readable letters (ouepi) can be found, but thesedo not help us in the reconstruction. At the beginning of vo 27, swi is certainly

incorrect and after the lacuna there are either traces or no letters at all. Nothingof vo 28 can be read, and even though at the beginning of vo 29 the letters mou. arelegible, the preceding letters at the end of vo 28 do not match the letters Uyla-.

Under such circumstances, almost any reconstruction is possible and itwould have been better if Bauer had left it with the readings that he wasreasonably sure of. However, he clearly wanted to bring the text into line with

204 Bilabel prints [t` 5 tei, but this is evidently a typo, which is corrected by Vandersleyen,without comment.

205 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 69: ‘sehr schlecht

leserlich’.







the well-known accounts of the Church historians concerning this event. Thus hereconstructs oR mao· t_] m :[k]k¶[ m]y( m) in vo 24 on the analogy of Socrates’ to »r

1 m )kenamdqe¸ô t_ m :kk¶ mym mao}r.206 And he seriously considers vkg for 1.kg[

in vo

24 (though 1.kg[ is maintained), because vkg vhaqt^ ‘corruptible material’is found in the account of Sozomen.207 This method of reading the accounts of the Church historians into the text is carried to the extreme by Bilabel. Despitethe shaky foundation of the first edition and the fact that he did not consult theoriginal, he changes some of Bauer’s readings (e.g. 1.kg[ into v.kg, althoughBauer had preferred the former) and fills in the blanks in order to create acontinuous narrative in the style of the Church historians (e. g. he addsSozomen’s vhaqt^ in ro 24).208 His version translates as ‘In this year thecorruptible material of the pagans was destroyed. Messengers of the Christianswere sent by Theophilus the bishop and then letters of the emperor … byRomanus …’. The result is a continuous narrative, but not one that is based on asolid consideration of the extant text.

Thus we present a more sober text. There is simply too little left to attemptany reconstruction, as we do not have a parallel Latin text as we do for so manyentries above. It could be objected that Bauer had the papyrus in front of himand could have seen more. On the other hand, the reading q

.y( m) at the end of vo

24 casts serious doubts on his readings in this part of the text. The little thatremains of the historical entry does not mean that we think that it is not aboutthe destruction of the Serapeum. The picture to the left (Picture 7), whichconnects Theophilus with the Serapeum, as well as the Serapeum depictedbelow and to the right (Picture 8), clearly relate to the historical entry and thereis no doubt that this entry narrated the destruction of the Serapeum. In the next,and final, section, we shall turn to the question to what extent our text can beused as a source for the dating of this defining moment in the history of LateAntique Alexandria.

Picture 8. A triangular façade of a building painted in blue and yellow andsupported by two white columns to the left, with a roof in blue to the right. In

206 Socr. h.e. 5.16.1 (GCS Neue Folge 1, p. 289.23).207 Soz. h.e. 7.15.6 (GCS Neue Folge 4, p. 880.24).208 Apart from the fact that the traces do not support the reading v.kg, the opening of the

entry with B vhaqtµ… v.kg is highly unlikely in this context. The word vkg is used in thecommon Christian discourse to describe idols as being man-made, not as a synonym of ‘image’ (as Bilabel suggests; cf. also the remark by Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 70 (n. 1)), but to describe the material whichthe image is made of, see G.W.H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford, 1961–1968) s.v. vkg 4. This is precisely the context of the passage in Soz. h.e. 7.15.6 (GCS NeueFolge 4, p. 880), where t± !c\klata ‘the statues’ are made of vkg vhaqt^ ‘corruptiblematerial’. At the beginning of this historical entry one would therefore expect a word

such as %cakla rather than vkg if statues were the subject matter of the sentence.







the entrance of the façade, this time below an arch, a modius appears, the sameheaddress as seen in Picture 5. So even though the papyrus breaks off here, itwould seem that the same bust of Serapis was originally shown here. The

building is identified with a caption to the left as [Sa]q\.p. i.t.o.r.. t¹ [R]e.qº m. ‘thetemple of Serapis’. To the left of the Serapeum are two figures: on the left handside of the lacuna there has been preserved the left side of a figure with a raisedright arm and on the right hand side is a man with both arms raised. The menseem to be similarly dressed in a grey-blue tunic with bare arms. Bauer andStrzygowski interpret these figures as monks hurling stones at the Serapeum butthere is no sign of stones and their identification as monks is doubtful. 209 Even if it is not clear what the relation is between the men and the Serapeum, it seemsalmost certain that we do have here, besides Picture 5, a second illustration of the historical entry for 392, on the destruction of the Serapeum.

27 in marg. to.j .…..: this word, written above the roof of the Serapeum,cannot be read. It probably starts with the article tº, but a satisfactory readingcannot be found for the following noun, though it probably starts with a j . Bauerdiscusses several options, but cannot find a solution either. He notes in his textTajaq¸om, which does not mean anything.210 It is not even clear whether theword is a (second) caption to Picture 7 above or Picture 8 below.

29 in marg. (caption to Picture 8). [Sa]q\.p. i.t.o.r..

t¹ [R]e.qº m. : Bauer has[Sa]qap ? j[o] m (for Saqape ? om) t¹ Reqº m, but when we compare with [R]e.qº m. twolines down, there is room for two to three more letters after -qapi-. Moreover,

one would rather expect either ‘the temple of Serapis’ or ‘the Serapeum’, not‘the Serapeum temple’.211 Even if the reading is made with difficulty, wetherefore propose to read [Sa]q\.p. i.t.o.r

.., the exchange of t and d being a normal

phenomenon in the papyri.212 As a TLG search shows, the phrase t¹ to OSaq\pidor Reqº m (and variants) is commonly attested for describing theSerapeum of Alexandria throughout Antiquity.213 There is no trace of theinitial i of Reqº m that Bauer sees.

209 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 71–2, 122, 192. Cf.

Wilpert, ‘Beiträge’ (see fn. 15), 9–12; Hahn, Gewalt und religiöser Konflikt (see fn. 18),94 (n. 383); D. Brakke, ‘From Temple to Cell, from Gods to Demons: Pagan Temples inthe Monastic Topography of Fourth-Century Egypt’, in Hahn, Emmel and Gotter, FromTemple to Church (see fn. 18), 91–112 at 102 (n. 31).

210 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 72.211 It should be said that Eunap. VS 11.1 (p. 38.12–3 Giangrande) speaks of t¹ Seqape ? om

Reqº m, but still in a caption ‘the temple of Serapis’ is more likely.212 F.T. Gignac, A Grammar of the Greek Papyri of the Roman and Byzantine Periods, 2 vols

(1976–1981) 1.82.213 For a useful collection of many attestations, see also A. Calderini, Dizionario dei nomi

geografici e topografici dell’Egitto greco-romano, vol. 1.1 (Cairo, 1935) 140 – 6 s.v.

)ken² mdqeia (Saqape ? om), with the Supplements published by S. Daris since 1988.







The Date of the Destruction of the Serapeum

In the foregoing we have seen that the Cons. Gol. includes, as the second

historical entry under the year 392, an entry on the destruction of the Serapeum,though this is borne out by the two pictures (Pictures 5 and 8) to the left, bottomand right that illustrate the entry rather than by the text itself (v o 23–29), whichcan no longer be reconstructed. As is the case with the previous entries, it mustnow be determined how the date of 392 assigned to this entry in the Cons. Gol.relates to the actual date of the event. According to Bauer, who refers to thechronological errors of the other entries, the date in the Cons. Gol. is not to betrusted at all. He connects the destruction of the Serapeum – described theclosest in time to the event by Eunapius and the four Church historians Rufinus,Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret214 – with the edict promulgated by Theodo-

sius I on 16 June 391 and addressed to Evagrius, praefectus augustalis, andRomanus, comes Aegypti, in Alexandria that forbade sacrifice and access totemples (Cod. Theod. 16.10.11). He therefore advocates a date in 391.215 This hasbeen the predominant view until quite recently and, following Bauer, the Cons.Gol. has been virtually ignored as a source that can contribute to the date of theevent.216

In 2006, however, J. Hahn brought the Cons. Gol. back into the discussion.In his study ‘Wann wurde das Sarapeion von Alexandria zerstört?’ he takes afresh new look at all the evidence and comes to the conclusion that the event

took place in 392, not 391. Since his main evidence for this date is the Cons.

214 Eunap. VS 6.11.1 – 7 (pp. 38– 9 Giangrande); Rufin. hist. 11.22 – 3 (GSC Neue Folge 6.2,pp. 1025–30); Socr. h.e. 5.16–7 (GCS Neue Folge 1, pp. 289–91); Soz. h.e. 7.15.2–10(GCS Neue Folge 4, pp. 878– 84); Thdt. h.e. 5.22 (GCS Neue Folge 5, pp. 320 – 1).

215 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 72–3: ‘Da in unsererChronik die Ergebnisse häufig um 1 – 3 Jahre verschoben sind, so kommt ihrer Angabe,obschon es sich um ein stadtalexandrinisches Vorkommnis handelt, doch entscheidendeBeweiskraft nicht zu. Immerhin glaube ich, daß die auf 391 führende Überlieferung alsdie bessere dadurch seine Stütze erhält’, and he continues by supporting his view indetail in a footnote (p. 73 (n. 1)).

216 For an overview of the most prominent scholarship on the date of the destruction of theSerapeum, usually placed in 389, 391 or 392, but especially 391, see Hahn, ‘Wann wurdedas Sarapeion’ (see fn. 19), 369–70 (n. 7). As far as we are aware, the only exceptionsare G. Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Ann Arbor, 1990) 59 and P. Brown,Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity. Towards a Christian Empire (Madison, WI,1992) 113 (n. 234), who mention 392 as a date on the basis of the Cons. Gol. , and T.D.Barnes, ‘Ammianus Marcellinus and His World’, CPh 88 (1993) 55–70 at 61–2, whorepudiates Bowersock’s proposal by referring to the errors in the entries for 391 and 392in the Cons. Gol. and sides with Bauer for the date of 391 on the basis of Cod.Theod. 16.10.11. In response to this rebuttal, G. Bowersock, ‘Late Antique Alexandria’,in Alexandria and Alexandrianism (Malibu, 1996) 263–72 at 266 (n. 14) withdrew his

earlier proposal.







Gol., in the following we shall discuss his arguments in detail, focusing inparticular on his use of the Cons. Gol. , before we return to the question of whether, in the light of the present study, the Cons. Gol. can indeed be used to

determine the date of the destruction of the Serapeum.The point of departure of Hahn’s study is the close connection that is oftenassumed between the law of 16 June 391 and the destruction of the Serapeum.As Hahn points out, Cod. Theod. 16.10.11 cannot be taken as an imperial orderto destroy the temples at Alexandria – despite the impression given by theChurch historians that such an order was given.217 The law has to be seen in thecontext of a series of three laws in the period of 391–392, the other being asimilar law forbidding sacrifice and access to temples in Rome on 24 February391 (Cod. Theod. 16.10.10) and the more general law against sacrifice of 8November 392 (Cod. Theod. 16.10.12), which were aimed at forbidding public

worship, not at taking away the material basis of traditional cults. Hahn’s mostfundamental contribution to the debate on the date of the destruction of theSerapeum is to disconnect the law of 16 June 391 and the destruction of theSerapeum. In other words, 16 June 391 is to be considered only as a terminus

post quem for the date of the event.218

In the remainder of the article Hahn attempts to further pinpoint the date of the event by including three sources that have thus far not, or rarely, been takeninto consideration, as well as prosopographical considerations. Two of thesesources are Jerome’s De viris illustribus, of 392, in which he remarks that one of

his students, Sophronius, has nuper (‘recently’) written a book on the destructionof the Serapeum, and Epiphanius of Salamis’ De mensuris et ponderibus, also of 392, in which he mentions the ‘daughter library’ at the Serapeum without

217 Most explicit is Socr. h.e. 5.16.1 (GCS Neue Folge 1, p. 289: basik]yr (…) pqºstacla),who takes an imperial order, obtained by Theophilus, as a starting point for his accountof the destruction of the Serapeum; Rufin. hist. 11.22 (GSC Neue Folge 6.2, p. 1026:rescribit (…) Haec scripta (…) prima epistulae pagina) only mentions an imperialresponse in the form of a letter when the situation escalates; Soz. h.e. 7.15.7– 8 (GCSNeue Folge 4, pp. 880 – 2: t_ m (…) cqav]mtym paq± basik]yr), which is largely based on

Rufinus’ account, describes the same order of events but is, like Socrates, more explicitand states that in his letter Theodosius ordered jahaiqeh/ mai (…) to}r 1 m )kenamdqe¸ô

mao}r ‘that the temples in Alexandria were to be destroyed’. The historicity of animperial order, at least one that ordered the destruction of temples, is doubtful. See,apart from the detailed arguments set out by Hahn, the important article by R.M.Errington, ‘Christian Accounts of the Religious Legislation of Theodosius I’, Klio 79(1997) 398–443 at 401, 404–5, 423–8, with the more general remarks in his Roman Imperial Policy from Julian to Theodosius (Chapel Hill, 2006) 249–51, and Cameron,Last Pagans (see fn. 18), 62–3, 72, 799.

218 Hahn, ‘Wann wurde das Sarapeion’ (see fn. 19), 371– 4, which derives from his Gewalt und religiöser Konflikt (see fn. 18), 81 – 4, and is found again (in English) as ‘Conversion

of the Cult Statues’ (see fn. 18), 340– 4.







referring to its destruction.219 Hahn takes the second work in particular as proof for a date of the Serapeum incident in 392, but Epiphanius only mentions theSerapeum in the context of the first Ptolemies as a later addition to the main

library in the Broucheion, and the passage therefore does not refer to acontemporary situation, which makes the absence of any reference to thedestruction nothing but an argumentum e silentio.220 A study of the prosopog-raphy does result in a narrowing of the time frame. As in the law of June 391,both Evagrius and Romanus are mentioned in two of the accounts of thedestruction of the Serapeum, which means that the incident must have occurredwhen both were still in office.221 On Romanus nothing further can be said, butwith respect to Evagrius we know that Hypatius had succeeded him as

praefectus augustalis by 9 April 392.222 This date thus provides a terminus antequem for the Serapeum incident, which must have taken place after 16 June 391

and no later than 8 April 392.223

219 Hier. Vir. ill. 134 (p. 55.11 Richardson), dating the composition of his work to thefourteenth year of Theodosius I (prol. and 135, pp. 1.4–5 and 55.19–20 Richardson);Epiph. mens. 11 (PG 43, col. 256), dating the composition of his work to the consuls of 392. For the date of the Vir. ill. , Hahn, ‘Wann wurde das Sarapeion’ (see fn. 19), 374 (n.24) refers to the standard study by J.N.D. Kelly, Jerome. His Life, Writings, andControversies (London, 1975) 174, who dates the work ‘somewhere between 19 January392 and 18 January 393, probably towards the close of the span’, though if Jerome iscounting regnal years the way he does in the Chronici canones, the fourteenth year

would be 1 January to 31 December 392. Epiphanius mentions the death of ValentinianII, which occurred in Vienne on 15 May 392 (see commentary at vo 11– 3 above), and itsdate so he must be writing in the second half of the year, certainly no earlier than July.

220 Hahn, ‘Wann wurde das Sarapeion’ (see fn. 19), 374– 5, 380– 2.221 Eunap. VC 6.11.2 (p. 38.20 Giangrande, accepting the emendation of E qet_ou to E qa-

cq_ou); Soz. h.e. 7.15.5 (GCS Neue Folge 4, p. 880.15 – 7). In fact, as Hahn, ‘Wann wurdedas Sarapeion’ (see fn. 19), 375 notes, this correspondence has led many scholars toassume a close connection between the law and the Serapeum destruction.

222 PLRE I s.v. Evagrius 7 (p. 286), Hypatius 3 (p. 448) and Romanus 5 (p. 769). The date of 9 April 392 is based on Cod. Theod. 11.36.1 = Cod. Iust. 1.4.6; Hypatius is mentionedagain as praefectus augustalis in Cod. Theod. 13.5.20 of 12 April 392. A Potamius ismentioned as praefectus augustalis in Cod. Theod. 1.29.7 = Cod. Iust. 1.55.5 of 5 March

392, but this date has been corrected to 5 May 392, as he held the same office between22 June and 30 July 392 (Cod. Theod. 12.1.126, 16.4.3, 8.5.51). See PLRE I s.v. Potamius(p. 720).

223 Hahn, ‘Wann wurde das Sarapeion’ (see fn. 19), 375– 6. This chronology for thedestruction, no matter how close to Hypatius’ taking office, definitively discounts fromconsideration the evidence of Epiphanius, who cannot have been writing any earlierthan 15 May 392 (see n. 189 above) and hence it is certain that he wrote after the event.At pp. 378–80, Hahn argues against the interpretation of the prosopographical data byBarnes, ‘Ammianus’ (see fn. 216), 61–2 that the circumstance that Hypatius was inoffice in early April 392 ‘surely establishes the date as 391’ by countering that he couldhave been in office for only a short while before Theodosius’ edict of 9 April was issued

to him.







At the heart of Hahn’s argument for narrowing the date even further lies theCons. Gol. Hahn follows Bauer in placing the Cons. Gol. in the first half of thefifth century and points out that, even if fragmentary, one of its historical entries,

more elaborate than the others and illustrated in the margins, describes thedestruction of the Serapeum under the year 392 and mentions Romanus, whileEvagrius is listed as the praefectus augustalis of that year.224 Hahn continues byarguing against Bauer’s point that the Cons. Gol. contains many chronologicalerrors and therefore cannot be used to date the event. He bases himself on someof Bauer’s own assumptions, in particular that fol. VI is the last leaf of the codexand that the text was written not long after 412, in order to argue that the shift of the execution of Theodosius’ rival Eugenius from 394 to the same year as thedestruction of the Serapeum, along with the associated images, was a deliberatecompositional choice, a grand finale with the Serapeum destruction illustrating

the triumph of the Alexandrian church. Quite the opposite from Bauer, then,Hahn believes that it is unlikely that the local compiler could have made amistake with the date and he considers the Cons. Gol. a powerful argument forplacing the event in 392.225 Since Evagrius was out of office in April, heconcludes that the destruction of the Serapeum is to be dated between Januaryand early April 392.226

The present study has shed a completely different light on the Cons. Gol.and disproves many of Bauer’s assumptions, which also underlie Hahn’sarguments. For instance, the work has to be dated to the second half of the sixth

century and fol. VI was not the last leaf of the manuscript, which would havecontinued into the sixth century with its consular list and historical entries.These facts considerably weaken Hahn’s argument, since it now seems thatthere was a significant lapse of well over a century between the event itself (whether 391 or 392) and the compilation of the text. We have also seen that in

224 Hahn, ‘Wann wurde das Sarapeion’ (see fn. 19), 375 – 7. At p. 376 (n. 36) he remarks thateven if he refrains from discussing the text in detail, he finds Bauer’s reconstruction of vo

23–9 problematic: ‘allerdings sind im Einzelnen wie im Grundsätzlichen Zweifel an

Bauers Lesungen wie auch an seiner Vorgehensweise angebracht’. Despite thiscautionary remark, however, at vo 28–9 he takes over Bauer’s reading of Uylamo O as‘unzweifelhaft’.

225 Hahn, ‘Wann wurde das Sarapeion’ (see fn. 19), 377– 8: ‘Jenes Ereignis, das denschließlichen Triumph der alexandrinischen Kirche unter ihrem Bischof Theophilosüber das Heidentum repräsentiert, stellte offensichtlich auch den chronologischenSchlußpunkt oder doch zumindestens den historischen Höhepunkt der Chronik dar. Einchronologischer Irrtum des Verfassers ist unter diesen Umständen auszuschließen’.

226 Hahn, ‘Wann wurde das Sarapeion’ (see fn. 19), 378: ‘Im Verein mit der obenerschlossenen, nicht über Anfang April 392 hinausreichenden Amtsführung desEvagrios als praefectus Augustalis ist die Zerstörung des Sarapeions in die ersten

Monate des Jahres 392 zu datieren’.







vo 28– 29 the reading of the name Romanus, which Hahn accepts as certain, canno longer be supported by the traces on the papyrus.

Moreover, the idea of fol. VI as the ‘grand finale’ of the codex is to be

revised. Quite apart from the fact that fol. VI cannot have been the last leaf,Hahn’s argument that the death of Eugenius was added to the entry of 392 oncompositional grounds relies on a mistaken view of how consularia came intoexistence and developed. As we have seen, they were not literary works thatwere deliberately ‘composed’ at one time, but were compiled annually or inblocks of years and therefore grew organically from base texts that wereconstantly recopied, reworked and expanded upon, leading to the increasinglikelihood of errors, which our extant copies are full of. Under these circum-stances it is highly unlikely, if not impossible, that the entry of 394 wasdeliberately placed alongside the one of 392; it must instead be the result of an

error made somewhere in the tradition. It is also absurd to claim that the date of the destruction of the Serapeum is correct and that of the execution of Eugeniusa deliberate relocation, yet still maintain that the other errors in the same textare just errors.227 A case in point is a comparison with the year 387, which alsocontains an entry with a clear Alexandrian element. The first entry of that year,the death of Timothy and ordination of Theophilus as bishop of Alexandria, istwo years late. The second entry, the proclamation and execution of Maximus, isin the first part four years late and in the second part one year early. There isthus no reason to regard the entry of 392 as more trustworthy than the other

entries.Finally, the Cons. Gol. cannot be treated in isolation, as if it were a uniquetext that has nothing in common with the other consularia of Late Antiquity.What we have done in this article is to look precisely at the Cons. Gol. from itsplace within these traditions and discuss its interrelations with other, similartexts. In this respect, by accepting 392 as the date of the destruction of theSerapeum from the Cons. Gol. , but refusing elsewhere in the same article toconsider the dates given in other consularia and related texts because of their‘notorious unreliability’ without submitting them to careful examination, Hahnemploys a double standard.228 It is therefore not irrelevant to look at what theseother texts give as a date for the event. To start with, Marcellinus comes, writing

227 Cf. Hahn, ‘Wann wurde das Sarapeion’ (see fn. 19), 378, where he tries to explain theother errors by the copyist as a result of the latter’s failure to properly combine ‘eineReichschronik aus Italien und eine Lokalchronik aus Alexandria’, which is fundamen-tally true, but such problems apply to the entire work, not all of it except the entry onthe Serapeum.

228 Hahn, ‘Wann wurde das Sarapeion’ (see fn. 19), 370: ‘aufgrund ihrer notorischen

Unzuverläßlichkeit’.







Theodosius (Cod. Theod. 16.10.11),234 and 8 April 392, the last possible date inoffice of Evagrius, the date cannot be further specified and should therefore beopened up again to 391 or 392.235

Appendix: The List of Praefecti Augustales

In addition to the date of the destruction of the Serapeum, the Cons. Gol. is wellknown for its list of praefecti augustales, the governors of Egypt.236 The Cons.Scal. provides a slightly earlier and longer list that was considered afundamental witness to the sequence of augustales and their dates both beforeand after the publication of the Cons. Gol. in 1905.237 Most scholars have treated

234 It should be noted that 16 June is the data date, that is the date at which the law wassigned by the emperor, who was in Milan at the time, not the accepta date, the date atwhich is was received in Alexandria. It would have taken more than a month, if not two,for the edict to have reached Alexandria and been promulgated there. For known timesbetween data and accepta dates in Roman legislation, see A.H.M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284– 602. A Social, Economic, and Administrative Survey, 3 vols(Oxford, 1964) 1.402–3, 3.91–3. So it is unlikely that anything would have happened inEgypt until August at the earliest.

235 This date is also found in Errington, Roman Imperial Policy (see fn. 217), 250 (n. 109).236 The title praefectus augustalis was first introduced for the governors of Egypt ca. 381,

when the diocese of Egypt was created. See e.g. M. Gelzer, Studien zur byzantinischenVerwaltung Ägyptens (Leipzig, 1909) 7–8; Vandersleyen, Chronologie (see fn. 108),246– 7; J. Lallemand, L’administration civile de l’Égypte de l’avènement de Dioclétien àla creation du diocèse (284–382) (Brussels, 1964) 76; B. Verbeeck, ‘Prefect’, in Atiya,Coptic Encyclopedia 6 (see fn. 14), 2007–10 at 2008; R.S. Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity (Princeton, 1993) 64; B. Palme, ‘Praesides und Correctores der Augustamnica’, AntTard 6 (1998) 123–35 at 128–9, 132–3; R.M. Errington, ‘A Note on the AugustalPrefect of Egypt’, Tyche 17 (2002) 69–77 at 69; B. Palme, ‘The Imperial Presence:Government and Army’, in Bagnall, Egypt in the Byzantine World (see fn. 18), 244–70at 247. This date contradicts the list of augustales in the Cons. Scal. , which, as we shallsee below (Table 3), begins in 367. In fact, this list led A.H.M. Jones, ‘The Date of the Apologia contra Arianos of Athanasius’, JThS N.S. 5 (1955) 224–7 to argue that

Tatianus, the first augustalis in the Cons. Scal. list, was the first augustal prefect, andJones’ editorship ensured that his views were reflected in PLRE I s.v. (Fl. Eutolmius)Tatianus 5 (p. 876) and the list of augustales on p. 1085, despite the clear refutation byLallemand, Administration, 56 (n. 3). When in the following we refer to a prefect in thelist of the Cons. Scal. , we are aware of the anachronistic use of the title praefectusaugustalis before ca. 381. However, this appendix is mainly concerned with the names inthe Cons. Scal ., and in particular with their relationship to the names in the Cons. Gol. ,not its evidence for the evolution of the office.

237 For previous studies, see especially Bauer, ‘Liste’ (see fn. 137); Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 114–7; R. Fruin, ‘Die praefecti augustales der J.384–392’, Klio 8 (1908) 526–9; L. Cantarelli, La serie dei prefetti di Egitto II. Da

Diocleziano alla morte di Teodosio I (Rome, 1911) 315–7, 342–57; Vandersleyen,







these two texts as if they were near-contemporary documentary sources, on anequal footing with, say, the Cod. Theod. , and Vandersleyen in particular takesgreat pains to try to fit all their evidence into the list that he assembles from the

extant literary, documentary and legal sources.238

However, as we have shownabove, these texts are nothing more than late compilations of disparate earlierand mostly unknown sources and are subject to all the problems associated withByzantine chronography: corrupt sources, sloppy copying and random ‘emen-dation’ and ‘correction’ by readers and copyists. We must, therefore, re-evaluatethe evidence for the augustales in the light of the results of the above study.

In the table below (Table 3) we have set out the evidence of the Cons. Scal.and Cons. Gol. alongside the extant evidence from all other literary,documentary and legal sources, as provided by PLRE I.

Table 3

LDL Literary, documentary and legal sources derived from PLRE I(starting from p. 1085).

s. ‘the same’ (used to denote ‘the same’ augustalis as the previousyear)

X beginning and end of Cons. Scal. and Cons. Gol.– year missing from text(–) name missing in lacuna(367) continuous count of years from 367 in Cons. Scal. , ignoring

consular datesDate LDL Cons. Scal. Cons. Gol.

367 27 Jan. Tatianus (367)367 10 May Tatianus367 Proclianus/Tatianus

368 Tatianus Tatianus (368)

369 Tatianus –

370 s. Tatianus (369)

Chronologie (see fn. 108), 138 – 81. Cf. H. Hübner, Der Praefectus Aegypti vonDiokletian bis zum Ende der römischen Herrschaft (Munich, 1952), who at pp. 108– 15provides a list of prefects for the period covered by his study but without discussing theproblems in the sources.

238 Vandersleyen, Chronologie (see fn. 108), 19 – 22 is the relevant part of his list.







Table 3 (Continued)

Date LDL Cons. Scal. Cons. Gol.

370 Tatianus/Olympius

Palladius370 6 Oct. Tatianus

371 s. Tatianus (370)371 Olympius Palladius/

Aelius Palladius

372 Publius (371)372 Aelius Palladius

373 s. Publius (372)373 Aelius Palladius

374 Aelius Palladius/? Tatianus (373)

375 –

377 s. Tatianus II (374)

376 s. Tatianus (375)

376/377 Palladius (376)

378 Tatianus (377)

379 Hadrianus (378)

379 Hadrianus (379)

366239 –

367/387 –

382/387 Paulinus (380)

239 This year and the following are additions that were only made to the consular list of the

Cons. Scal. after the augustales had been added (see see n. 44 above).







Table 3 (Continued)


379 Bassianus (381)

380 Hypatius (382)380 17 March Iulianus

381 Antoninus (383)

382 –382 14 May Palladius

383 X

383 29 April – Hypatius –8 May

384 s. Antoninus(384) (–)384 4 Feb. Optatus384 20 Dec. Florentius

385 Florentius (385) Eusebius385 Florentius

386 – (Paulinus)(386) Paulinus386 16 June Florentius386 25 July– Paulinus

30 Nov.

387 X (387) Erythrius

388 Alexander388 30 April Erythrius

388 (Alexander ?)

389 Evagrius389 (Alexander ?)

390 (–)390 18 Feb.– Alexander

1 March







Table 3 (Continued)


391 (–)=(Evagrius)

391 16 June Evagrius

392 s. Evagrius392 9–12

AprilHypatius

392 5 May – Potamius X30 July

First of all, the most obvious and interesting aspect of this table is the fact

that the list of augustales in the Cons. Scal. contains the correct number of names for the years covered in spite of the massive corruption of the underlyingconsular list. We have noted the same situation above at ro 9 of the commentarywith regard to the entire consular list from 296, where we have attributed theaccuracy to the underlying accounting of the Diocletian years. No doubt theDiocletian years and augustales were the major chronological systems employedby the compiler and we have seen at least one instance (the fabricated consuls atCons. Scal . 309–10) where the consular list was manipulated to fit these systems.The Cons. Scal. is in fact full of such examples. It seems best, then, to considerthe chronology of these augustales not in terms of the corrupt consular dates butin terms of the dates in brackets above.

The Chron. Scal. starts off well with the right name, Tatianus, in the rightyear, (367), even including a day of the month that appears to be correct.Tatianus was not augustalis at the beginning of the year,240 so no name appearswith the consuls of 367 and eodem Tatiano only appears with the secondappearance of the name as a dating supplement in (369). This shows that unlikethe references to the praefecti Aegypti in the headings to Athanasius’ Festal Letters, which were intended to provide the names of all the praefecti who heldoffice during the year cited, these notices are only intended to provide the name

of the augustalis at the beginning of the year. Thus only one augustalis eversupplements the consular date. The fact that Tatianus appears the correct

240 But which year, Roman or Egyptian? It looks as though the source used here wassimilar to the one used for the headings to Athanasius’ Festal Letters, which reckoned byconsular years as we can tell from the names in 370 and 371. In 371 Olympius Palladiusis the first prefect listed for that year yet we know from the Cod. Theod. that Tatianuswas still prefect on 6 October 370. If the compiler had been counting from 29 AugustTatianus would have been listed as the first prefect in 371. In each year the prefectmentioned by the Cons. Scal. matches the first prefect listed by these headings. For other

years, we cannot say what years are being employed because there is insufficient







number of times (three) and in the correct years ((367)–(370)) indicates that theconsuls for 369 and any associated entries were missing from the text at the timethe augustales were added and that they were not lost in the translation or

copying of the Chron. Scal. itself. Tatianus is twice followed by a ‘Publius’ thatwould seem to be a corruption of the correct ‘Palladius’ since the years agree,(371) and (372). Publius is a praenomen and could never have stood in anysource list, so it must be a corruption.

Strangely, the list then repeats itself, three correct Tatiani and a single, thistime correct Palladius, for the years (373) to (376). Tatianus appears a third time,after Palladius in (377), which seems to be a dittography (covering up an originalPalladius). However, in (374) the Cons. Scal. specifically notes that Tatianus wasaugustalis for a second time (but in none of the other three years) and ties thisnotice to an entry about two of Tatianus’ building projects in Alexandria. NowTatianus cannot have been augustalis at this time since he is recorded as beingcomes sacrarum largitionum from 16 February 374 to 17 June 380241 and we havea complete list of augustales down to late 373/early 374 – the headings toAthanasius’ Festal Letters – which does not indicate a second augustalis for theyear 373 and so one must assume that Aelius Palladius continued in office untilat least the beginning of the new consular year, 1 January 374. As a result, thereis no place for a second prefecture for Tatianus.242

So what has happened here? It looks as though we have a simple duplicationof the tenures of Tatianus and Palladius (368–372 = 373–377), which would

seem to be a mistake of the original source list, not of the compiler of the Cons.Scal. The problem may have arisen over the fact that, as we can see from theheadings to the Festal Letters, there would have been at least four years in a rowof Palladii after Tatianus and perhaps that was assumed to be a mistake.Someone later saw Tatianus’ reappearance in this reduplication and so sought toexplain it as a second tenure. The entry on Tatianus, no doubt from anAlexandrian chronicle or consularia source independent of the list of augustales,therefore belongs to the period 367–370. Once again the augustales show thatthe consular list of the Cons. Scal. was already corrupt when they were added.

Unfortunately we have no other external evidence for the names of theaugustales between 374 and March 380, so we have no means of judging whetherHadrian and Bassianus are real names or not, and what their dates would have

evidence and it may have varied from source to source. As a result we shall refer to the‘beginning of the year’ below, but there are no means of determining when any givenyear actually started.

241 PLRE I s.v. (Fl. Eutolmius) Tatianus 5 (p. 877).242 This duplication has been noted before, e. g. Lallemand, Administration (see fn. 236),

247; PLRE I s.v. (Fl. Eutolmius) Tatianus 5 (p. 877); Errington, ‘Note’ (see fn. 236), 74.Cf. Vandersleyen, Chronologie (see fn. 108), 147–50; Palme, ‘Praesides’ (see fn. 236),

132, esp. n. 38.







sources.249 But since the Cons. Scal. lists those who were augustalis at thebeginning of each year, that must be the case here as well. As a result, Paulinus,Erythrius and Alexander must all fit into the list as a block each one year early,

so Paulinus must be the correct name for 387 and Eusebius must be an error or(more likely) substitution for Florentius, who appears in the Cons. Scal. for thisyear and so was probably in the Chron. Alex.250 As a result the entire sequenceof the original Greek source between 383 (at least) and 389 (Hypatius toAlexander) was a year early, as can be seen below.

Table 4 Reconstruction of the Common Source behind the Cons. Scal. and Cons. Gol.to Illustrate the One-Year Shift


382 Palladius Hypatius (382) =

383

383 Hypatius Antoninus (383) =Optatus? = 384

384 (early) Optatus Antoninus (384) =Florentius? = 385

384 (late) Florentius

385 Florentius Florentius (385) = 386 Eusebius = Florentius

(385) = 386

386 (early) Florentius – Paulinus (386) = 387386 (late) Paulinus

387 Erythrius (387) = 388

388 (early) Erythrius Alexander (388) = 389388 (late) (Alexander?)

389 (Alexander?)

248 PLRE I s.v. Florentius 7 (p. 364).249 PLRE I s.v. Eusebius 23 (p. 305).250 This one year error of the augustales was first noted by Vandersleyen, Chronologie (see

fn. 108), 178–9. Cf. the earlier attempt by Fruin, ‘Praefecti augustales’ (see fn. 237) toresolve the anomalies in the list of augustales. If one is worried about the change of Optatus and Florentius to Antoninus, and Florentius to Eusebius, one need onlyremember the change of September to January in v o 22–3 (see also commentary at ro

3–4).







On this evidence, it would therefore seem that PLRE I is correct inidentifying Alexander – known as augustalis in February – March 390 andprobably mentioned in that position in a letter by Libanius of 388 – as the new,

unnamed augustalis referred to in another letter by Libanius also in 388.

251

Consequently, the Cons. Gol.’s Evagrius in (389) = 390 should be Alexander,though the mechanism of the replacement is unknown. Unfortunately, given thecorruption of the list and the missing text in 390 and after 392, we do not knowhow far the one-year shift continued and without that knowledge we cannotdetermine the causes of the proliferation of Evagrius’ name. It can at mostappear twice, once for 391 and once for 392 (but only if he was augustalis at thebeginning of the latter year) and its association with 392 may simply be theresult of his association with the destruction of the Serapeum (learned fromSozomen, for example) not the main source for the list. So something has

seriously gone wrong here, but we lack the evidence to evaluate it properly. 252

It should be noted finally that understanding the one-year shift we can seethat the Bassianus in the Cons. Scal. (381) could still be a legitimate name for382 if Palladius entered office after the beginning of that year or for 381 if thebackward shift of Table 4 had not begun yet.

What can we conclude from the above evidence? Unfortunately, that thereis almost nothing of value in these lists. From the little evidence that survives wecan hypothesize the following: 1. the list is obviously a patchwork and thereforehad not been compiled from a single, official list of praefecti, like the list of the

Praefecti urbi in the Chronograph of 354.253

There is unfortunately no way of determining what these sources were, how old they were, what chronologicalsystem they were based upon, who compiled them or when. There must havebeen at least some private sources, documents like the headings of the Festal Letters of Athanasius, which also provide a parallel for the use of such names aschronological indicators;254 2. whatever sources were used, at least some werealready corrupt, while others contained quite good information, as we can seefrom the day of the month and year associated with the beginning of Tatianus’

251 Lib. Ep. 871.3– 4 (vol. 11, pp. 27.17– 28.3 Foerster), Ep. 882.3 (vol. 11, p. 37.3– 5

Foerster). For the sources, see PLRE I s.v. Alexander 12 (p. 42), which is based on O.Seeck, Die Briefe des Libanius (Leipzig, 1906) 54 (s.v. Alexander IV). To the attestationsmentioned in PLRE I add two inscriptions that commemorate maintenance work to thecanal of Alexandria under the direction of Alexander, I.Metr. 124 = A. Bernand, Ledelta égyptien d’après les textes grecs, 4 vols (Cairo, 1970) 1.335–6 (no. 5); SB V 8295 =

Bernand, Delta égyptien 1, 340– 6.252 For Vandersleyen’s treatment of this problem, see Chronologie (see fn. 108), 178–80.253 Ed. Mommsen, Chronica minora 1 (see fn. 26), 65–9.254 The chronological headings to the Festal Letters are the work of a later editor who

compiled and dated the letters ca. 400: see T.D. Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius.Theology and Politics in the Constantinian Empire (Cambridge, MA, 1993) 185, 187. The

source for the chronological information in these headings is unknown.







office. Later corruption, such as the dittographies involving Tatianus andEvagrius, made the list even more inaccurate; 3. in those sources the augustaleswere not accompanied by consular years, otherwise they could have been used

to correct the rampant corruption that existed in the source consularia and theaugustales would show a greater tendency to follow the proper consuls, whichthey obviously do not; 4. the compilation of this list and at least some of its earlysources cannot have been contemporary, since, as we have seen in n. 236 above,the office of augustalis did not exist until ca. 381 and no one of that generationwould have believed that it had been created in 367. Nevertheless, there is stillgood information hidden here, since, as M. Errington has shown, there wereimportant changes to the office of prefect under Tatianus and those changeswere somehow recorded and are reflected (incorrectly, unfortunately) in thecompilation of this list;255 and 5. these names were probably ‘emended’ or

otherwise tampered with from other sources by later readers or copyists in thefifth and sixth centuries. We can see similar chronological tampering with theadded consular names and the resulting shift of the entries on the deaths of Peter and Timothy in the Cons. Scal. (see commentary at ro 9 above).‘Antoninus’ and ‘Eusebius’ are perhaps the best evidence for such tamperingwith the names of the augustales.

The most important conclusion is really the one noted in the second sectionof this article, that both lists derive from a common source and so are of equalauthority, which we can now say is negligible. PLRE I assigns its exclamation

marks and asterisks to four otherwise unattested names from the Cons. Scal. , of which only one is certainly erroneous, yet accepts without question the similarlyunattested (and only fragmentally preserved) Eusebius from Cons. Gol. andeven goes out of its way to find room for the name by shifting it to 387. Yet thetriple mention of Evagrius, which is explicitly stated to be wrong,256 has no affecton the editors’ estimate of the Cons. Gol.’s authority. Eusebius should berejected, just like Antoninus, since the name was originally Florentius, as we cansee from the Cons. Scal. As discouraging as it may be, from the combinedevidence of the Cons. Scal. and the Cons. Gol. we can probably only accept thedate of the beginning of Tatianus’ prefecture and that Alexander was the new

augustalis of 388. We may also be able to say that Hadrian and Bassianus wereprefects in the late 370s and very early 380s. The rest is simply too uncertain ortainted.

255 Errington, ‘Note’ (see fn. 236), 70 – 6.256 PLRE I s.v. Evagrius 7 (p. 286): ‘it [= the Gons. Gol.] wrongly gives his office from 389

to 392’. This statement is based on Bauer, ‘Liste’ (see fn. 137), 349–50 (‘daraus folgtalso, daß nach dieser Chronik Euagrius seit 389 ununterbrochen Augustalis war’, quoteat p. 350) but discounts Bauer’s later doubt, in Bauer and Strzygowski, AlexandrinischeWeltchronik (see fn. 3), 63, 117, about the restoration of the augustalis’ name in 390. See

commentary at vo 7–8 above.







Pl. 1. Moscow, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, inv. no. 310/8, recto (after Bauer andStrzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik, Pl. VI recto).







Pl. 2. Moscow, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, inv. no. 310/8, verso (after Bauer andStrzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik, Pl. VI verso).





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