i3°

Anne-Marie Bernardi, Emmanuele Caire

addressed to Herod by Veronica, who tells, in the first person, the story of her mi-
raculous cure and asks permission for erecting a statue to Christ in Paneas. Eusebius
had already mentioned the statue of Jesus Christ given by the bleeding woman,34 but
Malalas is the first to provide the name of the miraculously cured woman35 and the
only chronicler to include the account of the miracle in the text of a petition.
The text of this demand, reported at length in Chapter 12, uses the terminology
and structure of the petitions that have been preserved in the documentary papyri.
Besides, the evocation of Bassus, “a Jew who had become Christian”, at whose home
(in Paneas) the chronicler himself would have found this document, is rather credible
and the “I” used there could well be genuine, as suggested by E. Jeffreys.36
Whatever the source of the document, it is obvious that the account here unfolds
in a singular fashion, through the inclusion in the narration of a testimony claiming
authenticity.
Let’s move to Apollonius ofTyana’s talismans mentioned in Chapter 51 of Book X.
The long notice about Apollonius is integrated very loosely to the chapters devoted
to Domitians reign through the recurring phrase: “There lived and flourished in the
time of the reign of Domitian the most learned Apollonios of Tyana (...)”. The im-
portance Malalas grants him is not surprising, given the interest of the first books for
mythical heroes endowed with uncommon powers.
It is easier here to hypothesize on the type of sources used by the chronicler since
we find similar accounts in the Patria of Constantinople, which explicitly mention
Apollonius. Indeed, the talismans Apollonius is said to have made in the capital city,
according to Malalas, tally with those mentioned in the Patria.37 The description of the
talismans made at the request of the citizens of Antioch, as a protection against the
North wind or the scorpions, does pertain to this literary genre. We also find striking
similarities with the Patria in the depiction of the odd talisman made to ward off
mosquitoes, which prompts a detailed description of the preparation of the inaugural
ceremony, during the mysterious celebration of Graste, on 7th June. Malalas is our ma-
jor source of information about this festival and its chariot races.
On the other hand, the evocation of the failure of the wonder-worker Debborios,
which seems to preempt Apollonius’ failure in attempting to protect Antioch against
earthquakes, suggests that the Antiochian patriographic literature, such as we can
imagine it in Malalas, had not real confidence about the future of Antioch.

34 Eusebius, Historia ecdesiastica, VII18,1-4. Cf. also Sozomenus, Historia ecdesiastica, V, 21,1, 4 and Phi-
lostorgius, Historia ecdesiastica, V 3.
35 This name is later mentioned by John of Damascus, Orationes de imaginibus, III 68 and also in Parastas-
eis, Cameron-Herrin, ch. 48, p. 125.
36 Cf. Jeffreys, “Malalas’ sources”, p. 174.
37 Preger, Patria, II, 52.