240

Pia Carolla

i. The remains of the so-called
Excerpta Constantiniancr. the manuscripts

EV = Excerpta de Virtutibus et Vitiis = On
virtues and vices
El = Exc. de Insidiis = On plots against
the emperor
ES = Exc. de Sententiis = On sententious
passages
ELG = Exc. de Legationibus Gentium = On
embassies of the nations to the Nomans
ELR = Exc. de Legationibus Romanorum -
On embassies of the Romans to the nations

T = Tours, Bibliotheque Muni cipale, C
980
S = El Escorial, Biblioteca del Real Mo-
nastery, Ω.Ειι
(codex of Diego Hurtado de Mendoza)
V = Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica
Vaticana, Vat. gr. 73
[Scorialensis B. I.4, deperditus]
A = Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, N 135
sup.
[Scorialensis B. I.4, deperditus]
C = Cambridge, Trinity College, Ο.3.23
and other five codices1 2

During my research on the Excerpta Constantinianaf I have especially dealt with the
sub-collection On Embassies (De Legationibus), preserved by a dozen manuscripts from
the late 16th century. The only medieval witness, the Scorialensis B.I.4, was lost in the
fire at the Escorial in 1671: we are left with the copies, all made by Andreas Darmarios,
a notorious scribe and forger, and by his collaborators.
The Excerpta De Legationibus consist of two volumes: Embassies of the nations to the
Romans (ELG) and Embassies of the Romans to the nations (ELRf At present, I am pre-
paring the critical edition of the latter, the ELR, which are, in regards to percentage,
the best preserved3 among the remains of EC.
Neither ELR nor ELG bear any trace of John Malalas: in ELR he was not inclu-
ded, as far as we can know from the Index, probably because the same embassies were

1 Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat.gr. 1418; El Escorial, Biblioteca del Real Monasterio,
R.III.14; Bruxelles, Bibliotheque Royale, 11301-16; München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, graecus 267;
Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. gr. 413. See Carolla, Praefatio, pp. XXIII-XXVL
2 The so-called Excerpta historica Constantiniana (EC), an anthology of Greek historical excerpts about
Roman history, were arranged by theme in 53 sections by order of the Byzantine emperor Constantine
VII Porphyrogenitus (mid-ioth century). As they were intended to deal with all the Roman history,
from the beginning to the Byzantine era, passages were extracted from the works of many Greek hi-
storians, from Polybius (2nd BC) to the Byzantine chronicler Georgius Monachus (9th AD).
3 Not even a single volume of EC is preserved in full; the ELR preserve both the Preface and the Index,
collect excerpts from 16 historians, from Polybius to Georgius Monachus, and assemble 162 Greek
passages. There is a lacuna·, only the first excerpt of John of Antioch survives, and the passages from
Dionysios Halicarnassensis start with book XV 5; see Pittia, Fragments d’Historiens, especially pp. 85-
227. The ELR were edited by Carl de Boor in 1903; a new critical edition is needed, because in 1913
Michail Kraseninnikov uncovered the Cambridge manuscript, which forms an independent branch in
the stemma codicum. See Carolla, ÄW deteriores, pp. 132-133.