John Malalas: from computation to narration

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Aristotle. So Ochus’reign briefly serves as narrative and chronological thread. Malalas
directly goes through five Olympiads of spatium historicum, up to Ochus’ conquest of
Egypt, which allows him to evoke Nechtabö, last king of Egypt, and introduce the
story (that he attributes to Irenaeus) of Nechtabö’s escape to Pella, of his adultery with
Olympias, and of Alexander’s birth. Of course, this episode is not present, nor even al-
luded to, in Eusebius who, as for him, only mentions Nechtabö’s escape to Ethiopia. A
leap across a few Olympiads in the spatium historicum of Eusebius’ Canones leads to the
floruit ofJaddus, the High Priest of the Jews, contemporary with the reign of Phillip of
Macedonia. Malalas adds the evocation of an earthquake in Rhodes to the first notice,
and of the foundation of Thessaloniki to the second one. These two events are not to
be found in Eusebius, but they may have been added to the version of the Chronicle
available to Malalas. It remains that he is then able to close Book VII with the simul-
taneous change of ruler in Persia and Macedonia, without reporting Roman history,
overlooked since the taking of the Capitol, and summed up in a single sentence.11
1.3 Adjusting chronology to narrative purposes:
the example of the reign of Trajan
With the Roman Empire, the columns gradually fade out, thus allowing a more
simple presentation of the Canones. From the 213th Olympiad, at the beginning of
Vespasian’s reign, only the column devoted to the Roman emperors’ reigns remain
beside the continuous numbering of the Olympiads and of the years since Abraham
in the Armenian version, or since Jesus Christ in Jerome’s version. On the other hand,
the notices of the spatium historicum are richer. But reading the historical notices then
seems easier as the narration follows the chronology of Eusebius’ notices, though the
Armenian version still makes use of the left- and right-hand margins, alternating with
a layout stretched across the whole page, which cuts the different columns.
However, we’ll see that the Chronicle of Malalas goes on adjusting the chronologi-
cal presentation in favor of narrative choices.
Let us take the example of Trajan’s reign, which stretches across the first twelve
chapters of Book XI, which bears its name,12 even though the Book also includes
Hadrian’s and Antoninus Verus’reigns.
The first chapter of Book XI coincides with the change of ruler in Eusebius. Ma-
lalas agrees with the latter about the length of the reign (19 years and 6 months),13
but does not specify any date, be it through any dating system14 or through the esta-
11 Malalas VII19: Οί δε Ρωμαίοι επί τής αυτού βασιλείας περιγενόμενοι προσελάβοντο τήν
περιοχήν τής αύτών γής· καί προβαλλόμενοι δυνατούς ύπατους χώρας απέσπων. (“Du-
ring his reign (Dareios), the Romans became dominant and expanded the boundaries of their territory;
since they appointed powerful consuls, they kept seizing more lands” (English translations of Malalas’
Chronography are from Jeffreys and alii, The Chronicle of John Malalas).
12 “The Time of the emperor Trajan and the Third Calamity at Antioch”.
13 For the chronology of Trajan’s reign in Eusebius’ Canones, see Burgess, Studies, pp. 29-30.
14 Malalas generally uses consular dates in notices about imperial accessions (Jeffreys, “Chronological