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Anne-Marie Bernardi, Emmanuele Caire

Canones, which interrupts the column of the Roman reigns and lasts 464 years until
Julius Caesar. Malalas takes over this notice in Chapter 14, to close the sequence of
Roman reigns. Actually, the Antiochian chronicler had anticipated this “time of the
consuls” in Chapters 10 to 13, when mentioning the episode of the Gauls taking over
the Capitol. But this is an excuse to introduce a more extensive narrative account, that
of the origin of Februaria and of the name of the month of February.
From then on, the principle guiding the construction of the Chronicle changes. As
the thread represented by such and such empire is broken, the chronicler adopts a new
way of reading Eusebius’ columns, which I’d gladly call a “staircase” reading.
We first find in Chapter 15 a notice on Plato.7 Yet, in Eusebius’ Canones, the notice
referring to Plato’s floruit directly follows that of the Gauls’ taking over Rome except
for the Capitol, whatever the layout adopted.8 But this provides Malalas the opportu-
nity to introduce a development about Trinity and divine uniqueness in the Timaeus
that he attributes to Cyril of Alexandria. Chapter 16, linked to the previous one by a
vague synchronism (“in the times of Plato”), introduces a list offloruit·, those of the
“other philosophers and educators of the Hellenes”: Xenophon, Aeschines and Aris-
totle. In one sentence Malalas seems to sum up three Eusebian notices distributed bet-
ween the 98th and the 104th Olympiads. The first is the one already mentioned above,
the second one, placed under the 101st Olympiad and partly redundant with the first,
alludes to the floruit of “Plato, Xenophon and other Socratic philosophers”. Finally, the
third one, for the 104th Olympiad, reports that “Aristotle, 18 years old,9 became Plato’s
pupil”. The common feature of the three notices is the reference to Plato, which justi-
fies Malalas’ synchronism. Aeschines’ name does not appear in Eusebius, but Socratic
Aeschines may easily stand for “the other Socratic philosophers” and we could suggest
that this shift originates from the source from which Malalas draws the development
about the metempsychosis which he links to this list offloruit.
Surprisingly, in the beginning of Chapter 17 Malalas suddenly seems to break with
both the thematic (4th century Greek philosophy) and the chronological thread. He
begins by these words: “After Artaxerxes, about whom we’ve talked, reigned Ochus”.
The sentence is surprising (but not unusual) because we have to refer to the end of
Book VI to find a mention of the beginning of Artaxerxes Mnemon’s reign10. Is it yet
an attempt to get back to the Persian reigns by means of a leap backward as seen in
Book VI? Not at all. Malalas doesn’t retain anything of Artaxerxes’ reign. But it hap-
pens that in the Canones, the change of Persian ruler directly follows the mention of
7 This notice establishes a vague synchronism (εν δε τοΐς προειρημένοις χρόνοις μετά Ιωακείμ)
between Plato and Jaddus (Addons for Malalas), a high priest of the Jews. In Eusebius’ Canones laddus’
floruit is placed after Plato’s death (cf. infra, and Helm, p. 122).
8 The layout is not the same in the Armenian version and in Jerome’s one. The notices about the Gauls
and Plato are arranged in two different columns (on two successive rows anyway) in the Armenian
version; they are placed one after the other in the spatium temporum of Jerome’s version (Helm, p. 118),
respectively in synchronism with 97 and 98 Olympiads. See Appendix 2.
9 “17 years old” in the Armenian version.
10 Malalas VI 28.