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Elizabeth Jeffreys

Then there is the thought present in both the Latin and the Greek historiograph-
ical tradition that a chronicle - or a world history or, perhaps, an annal - needs to
be revivified for each new generation, or at each recopying. I draw your attention to
the penultimate sentence in the prologue to Malalas’ enkyklion (in the 1986 English
translation) where after listing the authorities that had been consulted and the time-
span proposed for the work, the conclusion is: “My successors must complete the story
relying on their own ability”.17 In the thirteenth century similar sentiments, to whose
precise formulation we will return in a moment, appear in the prologue to the text
known as the Synopsis Sathas. I put it to you that this is a situation that is ripe for con-
fused repetition, cut-and-pasted texts and at the very least a situation in which each
copying is likely to present a different ending.
It has always seemed strange to me that a text like that of Malalas’ chronicle, which
demonstrated so much evidence of continued use, should have physically vanished
except for the abbreviated Oxford manuscript. However, once it had been filleted and
utilised, what need was there to keep the original? This had plainly also been the case,
for example, with Trajanos’ Epitome. But it is not true for every filleted text, where
Manasses’ Synopsis Chronike is again a good example, for the production of several
prose abbreviations did not prevent the continued circulation of the original verse
version.18 19 The latest glimpse of a complete Byzantine manuscript of Malalas, which of
course is no longer extant today, comes from the knowledge of it demonstrated by the
thirteenth-century Synopsis Sathas E* So perhaps the transmission of the Malalas text
simply provides an extreme case of wide diffusion with the ultimate obliteration of
virtually every independent witness.
I now move in another direction, and pick up a different point. Can the transmis-
sion of Malalas’text tell us anything about the manuscript culture of the sixth century?
What I have in mind is the evidence from witnesses to the text that indicates, to judge
by what we know of the end points of the chronicle, that more than one version was
in circulation throughout the sixth century and in the early years of the seventh. It
has become the accepted wisdom that the first edition of Malalas’ text would have
been completed in Antioch at some point in the early 530s, with a second edition
completed at some point after 565 in Constantinople.20 However, the end-points of
versions known in the 590s to Evagrius in Antioch (suggesting 526)21 and the Chron-
icon Paschale in the 630s in Constantinople (suggesting 53a)22 do not correspond neatly
17 Malalas, ed. Thurn, Prologue: δει δε καί τούς μετά ταύτα συγγράψασθαι τα Λοιπά αρετής
χάριν. The phrase translated as “relying on their own ability” (αρετής χάριν) should almost certainly
be translated as “an example of good conduct”, as pointed out by Christian Gastgeber in his contribu-
tion to the workshop’s proceedings. This, however, does not vitiate the point being made in this argu-
ment.
18 As discussed in Lampsides, “Στίχοι”.
19 As is apparent in the textual apparatuses in Malalas, Chronographia, ed. Thurn and Jeffreys/Jeffreys/
Scott, Malalas', see also Hunger, Profane Literatur, vol. 1, p. 477-78.
20 Croke, “Malalas’life”, p. 19, arguing for the Endless Peace of 532 as the hinge between the two editions.
21 Jeffreys, “Malalas in Greek”, p. 250.
22 Jeffreys, “Malalas in Greek”, p. 253.