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Geoffrey Greatrex

descriptions of battles, shorn of topographical or strategic details. One feature that he
singles out as typical of these reports is a focus on the exploits of certain individuals,
which he links to the distribution of rewards to those who had merited them. It is im-
mediately apparent that Malalas’ narrative conforms very well to just such an analysis.
The report on the punitive expedition of 528 (XVIII16) is clearly a self-congratulatory
report by the commanders involved, justifying their failure to apprehend Mundhir;
those on Dorotheus’ successes in the vicinity of Martyropolis in 531 (XVIII 66, 70)
place heavy emphasis on this commander’s good performance.28 The bravery of the
Hunnic commander Sunicas is underlined at both the battles of Dara and Callinicum,
while Belisarius’ incompetence is castigated in the latter case; Hermogenes, who has
been suggested as another source for Malalas, comes off relatively lightly, by contrast.
Defeats, then as now, generated much paperwork and justification; Malalas tells us
himself, at the end of XVIII 60, that the general Constantiolus was appointed to
conduct an enquiry into the battle of Callinicum, and it is likely that the account pre-
sented reflects his findings.29
Each writer thus probably relied both on campaign reports and on other items
of correspondence; in consequence, their accounts complement each other very well.
While Malalas’perspective is closer to that of Hermogenes and, more generally, to the
Antiochene population (in its fear of Mundhir’s raids), Procopius’reflects that of Be-
lisarius and his milieu. Unlike Malalas, of course, Procopius was also able to report on
the basis of autopsy, which lends such force and vividness to his account of the battle
of Dara in particular.30
b. Omissions
At the recent conference on Procopius, Ian Colvin offered trenchant criticism of the
historian for his failure to cover events in the Caucasus region in the run-up to the
28 The mention of his treating his opponents πικρώς (p. 392.42), translated in Jeffreys et al., p. 273, as
cruelly’ and by Thurn and Meier, p. 485 as ‘grausam’ may be less negative than appears: it might instead
be translated ‘bitterly or perhaps ‘punctiliously’, cf. Lampe, Patristic Greek Dictionary, p. 1082.
29 See Colvin, “Reporting battles”, esp. pp. 581-2,588-90, cf. Greatrex, Rome and Persia at War, pp. 63-4 (on
both Mai. and Proc.), pp. 194-5 (on the Callinicum enquiry). On Malalas’ probable association with
Hermogenes and the office of the comes Orientis, Cameron , Procopius, p. 146, Greatrex, Rome and Persia
at War, p. 67, cf. Jeffreys, “Malalas’ sources”, pp. 208-10; it appears to cease once his focus shifts to Con-
stantinople from 532, cf. Jeffreys, “Malalas, Procopius”, pp. 78-9. Puech, “Malalas et la propopographie”,
pp. 215-20 offers a detailed analysis of the prosopographical information transmitted by Malalas; he also
argues, p. 224, that the chronicle was generally hostile to Belisarius. Possible earlier instances of such
reports would be XIV 44, recounting the heroism of Damonicus during the disastrous Vandalic expe-
dition of 468, and XIV 23, on the single combat during the Persian war of 421-2.
30 Colvin (forthcoming) suggests that Malalas’ concentration on Lazic affairs reflects the official line on
the Eternal Peace, preferring to draw a veil over the bungled efforts to defend the Iberian king Gour-
genes, cf. n.n on Mal.’s apparent adherence to government communiques. If the Iberian embassy of the
midges reported by Theophanes (see n.37) is derived from Malalas and correctly placed (as Colvin
believes), it is puzzling that he should report the conclusion of an alliance that manifestly violated the
terms of the Peace just agreed.