Malalas’ Antioch

69

The task to determine, for each topographic reference, its value as a source for
the objective history of urban space will be done step by step and must be a collec-
tive work.52 In order to complete this task it is necessary not only to use an analyti-
cal approach, studying each place with the help of other sources relating to it, as for
Hadrian’s Baths or the Kerataion, but also to use a more synthetic, contextual and in
fact literary approach. It is necessary to take into account the existence of narrative
cycles, sometimes interconnected, which organise most of the Antiochean matter of
the parts I—II. The most important of these cycles can be titled the “Wall cycle” or the
“Founders cycle”.
The “Wall cycle”53 includes several passages of Books II, VIII, X, and XIII.
In Book II, the narrative of the creation of lopolis (II 6) on the mountain named
Silpion begins with the announcement of the foundation of Antioch by Seleucus:
II6. “[Io] fled to Mount Silpion in Syria. There some years later Seleucus Nikator
the Macedonian built a city, which he called Antioch the Great, after his son
(Antiochos).”54
The inhabitants of lopolis appear in the text either as lopolitai or as lonitai. The names
lonitai or lopolitai and the name Silpion for the mountain appear also in Perseus’ tale
(II12) and in Orestes’tale (V 37). In these two tales occurs another recurrent feature of
the Founders cycle: the announcement of the change of the original name of the river
(Drakon55 or Typhon56) to its modern name Orontes.
The tale of the final foundation of Antioch by Seleucus includes the mention of the
name Silpion for the mountain (VIII11, ed. Thurn, p. 151,1. 53; VIII12, ed.Thurn, p. 151,
I. 64,1. 70); the mention of the changing name of the river (VIII 12, ed. Thurn, p. 151,
II. 71-72), and some explicit references to lopolis.57 As new elements in the cycle, the
tale contains the construction of a first city wall and a first human sacrifice (VIII 14:
“they marked out the foundations for the wall. Through the agency of Amphion, the
chief priest and wonder worker, he sacrificed a virgin girl named Aimathe”),58 and, as
52 All the researchers on ancient Antioch are indebted to !Av^.&r,AntiquitatesAntiochenae. Commentationes
duae and Downey, History of Antioch in Syria. Recently, excellent work has been done by Sandrine
Agusta-Boularot (“Les livres I ä XII de la Chronique de Jean Malalas et leur apport ä la connaissance
du paysage urbain d’Antioche”), and, regarding to the churches, Wendy Mayer and Pauline Allen {The
Churches of Syrian Antioch).
53 For some preliminary thoughts and a sketchy presentation of the Wall cycle, cf. Saliou, “La forme
mouvante dune ville. Antioche au hl de 1’Oronte”,pp. 286-287.
54 II 6 [Io] (...), φεύγει έκεΐθεν επί τήν Συρίαν εις τό Σίλπιον όρος· εις όπερ
Σέλευκος ό Νικάτωρ ό Μακεδών έκτισε πόλιν μετά χρόνους καί έκάλεσεν εις τό
όνομα τού ίδιου αύτού υιού Αντιόχειαν τήν μεγάλην. Transl. Jeffreys/Jeffreys/Scott, Chronicle,
p. ΐ4·
55 II ΐ2, ed. Thurn p. 27,1. 95, cf. VIII 9; VIII12; X10.
56 V 37, ed. Thurn p. no, 11. 64-65, cf. VIII 9.
57 VIII11, ed. Thurn, p. 151,1. 53 ; VIII12, p. 151,1. 73 ; VIII14, pp. 152-153,11. 7-8.
58 (...) εκεί διεχάραξαν τα θεμέλια τού τείχους, θυσιάσας δι’ Αμφίονος άρχιερέως
καί τελεστού κόρην παρθένον όνόματι Αίμάθην. Transl. Jeffreys/Jeffreys/Scott, Chronicle,
p. ιο6.