The manuscript transmissionof Malalas’ chronicle reconsidered

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to each other and so to a first edition, nor does the end-point of the eleventh-century
Slavonic translation;23 John of Ephesus (writing in Constantinople in the 580s but in
Syriac) knew the version of Malalas which included Book 18,24 though how much of it
is not clear, while the emperor list in the Latin seventh-century Laterculus Malalianus,
probably produced in Canterbury in England, offers tantalising but ultimately uncon-
vincing hints that the Malalas text on which it was based extended into the reign of
Justin II.25
Was it likely that the knowledge of Malalas acquired by each of these witnesses
was due to a separate manuscript? The difference in end-point suggests as much, as
well as the difference in the writers’locations. Here theTusculan Fragments are telling.
Of debatable date, they may be very close in time to the moment when the last words
of Malalas’ text were penned, or they may be a hundred years later,26 but they - like
the passages in Evagrius and John of Ephesus that derive from Malalas - show forms
of wording and extensive passages that do not accord with those of later witnesses.
There are also tantalising blank areas hinting at intended decoration: which raises
the question of an illustrated Malalas.27 My rough calculations suggest the possibility
that at least six copies of this text had been put into circulation by the mid-seventh
century. However, my rather limited understanding of the economics of late antique
book production has left me feeling that books were always expensive to produce.28 In
the case of the Malalas material, this is not a short text - especially when presented
in uncials - and we should not forget the possibility of illustrations taking up even
more space. Despite evidence for a book trade, as suggested by Agathias’ comments
on the book sellers he frequented in the stoas of Constantinople,29 private ownership
of codices was surely not for the many. This touches on our views of the readership
at which Malalas’ text was aimed: elite and affluent, or non-elite and so less affluent?
Or is that too simplistic a division? We should remember that there is no indication,
unlike the situation with many of his contemporaries such as Agathias or John Lydus
or Procopius, that there was a discernible patron in the background to Malalas’ literary
production. It is thus an interesting question as to how the costs of producing the
book and making it available, that is, publishing it, were met. These remarks are, of
course, predicated on the medium supporting the text being parchment, as is the case
with the Tusculan Fragments. However, we should not overlook the other supporting
medium of late antiquity - papyrus. Though in damp Constantinople it would have
23 Franklin, “Malalas in Slavonic”, pp. 286-87.
24 Jeffreys, “Malalas in Greek”, p. 249; Debie, “La tradition chronographique”, p. 150.
25 Stevenson, “Malalas in Latin”, p. 298.
26 Italia, Grottaferrata, Biblioteca della Badia greca, Z.a.XXIV, fols., 62r-69v; mid vii-century: Cavallo/
Maehler, Greek Bookhands, plate 49a.
27 As argued long ago on other grounds by Weitzmann, “Illustration”, without reference to the spaces in
the Tusculan palimpsest.
28 The economics, as well as the processes, of fabricating a book are discussed in Lowden, “Book produc-
tion”.
29 Agathias, Historiae, ed. Keydell, pp. 78.11,84.16.