Malalas and Procopius 175
another important sixth-century author, John the Lydian.24 25 As Burgess and Kulikow-
ski have pointed out, furthermore, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, in his De thematibus,
refers to the work of Procopius - as to that of Agathias and others - as chronlka.^ The
rapprochement between the two authors has thus far come about largely as a conse-
quence of the rise in Malalas’ reputation, on the one hand, following from the Austra-
lian Malalas project, and a decline in that of his rival, Procopius, who, it is argued, fails
to match up to his illustrious forebears above all in his analysis of causation; often this
is connected with his Christianity, which left him unable or unwilling to analyse the
origins of such disasters as the plague or the capture of Antioch in 540.26
a. Sources
It is possible, however, to link the two authors without sacrificing the reputation of one
at the altar of the other. We propose to do so in two ways. First, building on the work
of Ian Colvin and others, we shall argue that Malalas, like Procopius, has recourse to
official reports in his description of the campaigns on the eastern front under Justi-
nian. We shall then return to a point that we first made twenty years ago, proposing
that the reason for the gaps in Procopius’ account of this phase in the war are to be
attributed to the existence of Malalas’ work.
As has long been recognised, Malalas’work contains some remarkable and valuable
detail on the hostilities between Rome and Persia during the reigns of Justin and Jus-
tinian. Obvious examples are the report on the raid launched in reprisal for Mundhir’s
razzia on Roman territory (XVIII 16); the battles of Dara (XVIII 50) and, above all,
Callinicum (XVIII 60); an otherwise almost unreported siege of an unknown place
called Abgersaton (XVIII 61);27 and details on skilful campaigning in the vicinity of
Martyropolis by the commander Dorotheus (XVIII 66,70). Malalas is also well infor-
med about the course of negotiations during the war, providing the text of one letter
of Kavadh and one of Justinian (XVIII 44,53). One possible source for his information
on both the negotiations and internal Persian affairs, also reported in some detail, may
have been the Persian messenger Timothy, who, according to Malalas (XVIII 30),
received baptism. Furthermore, if, as seems likely, he worked in the scrinium of the
comes Orientis, he may well have had access to correspondence that passed through
this office. In this case, just like Procopius in Constantinople, he will have read the
reports that came in from commanders in the field and imperial responses to them.
Ian Colvin has demonstrated the use of such despatches concerning the war in Lazica
in the 540s and 550s in Procopius’ account, which, in his analysis, leads to rather generic
24 Scott, “Malalas and his contemporaries”, pp. 70-5, idem, “Text and context”, pp. 253-4, cf. Bernardi,
“Regards croises”, pp. 53-4.
25 Burgess/Kulikowski, Mosaics, pp. 281 n.8, 286 n.20, Constantinus Porphyrogenitus De thematibus, 1.2,
p.63, noted also by Croke, “Uncovering Byzantium’s historiographical audience”, p. 40.
26 Cf. Meier, “Prokop, Agathias”, Di Branco, “A Rose in the Desert?”, pp. 195-6, van Nuffelen, “Theology
versus Genre?”, p. 171. See further n.39 below.
27 Cf. Pseudo-Zachariah of Mytilene IX-4a with Greatrex et al., The Chronicle, p. 323 n.65.