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ring the narrative and historiographical structure of the His tor la Chronike. Therefore,
the similarities between the two different sets of excerpta allow us to restore the exact
sequence of the entire work.5
In the Excerpta de virtutibus as well as in the Excerpta de insidiis, the narrative
structure shows the following sequence, which is articulated in four sections (the
numbering of the excerpta is according to Büttner Wobst and de Boor editions):
1) Excerpta de virtutibus 1-2 BW about Heracles and the beginning of idolatry. These
excerpta deal with the archaiologia of the Historia Chronike'.6
2) Excerpta de virtutibus 3-74 BW ~ Excerpta de Insidiis 1-103 dB: a homogeneous
sequence of events from the judge Samson to the emperor Anastasius I. The two
editions share a large number of fragments from this section.
3) Excerpta de insidiis 104-105 dB.: two short fragments relating to the age of Justinian
I and Justin II.
4) Excerptum de virtutibus 75 BW. ~ Excerptum de insidiis 106-110 dB.: fragments re-
garding the death of Maurice and the reign of Phocas.
Some considerations regarding this last section are in order, because according to the
structure of the universal chronicles the last fragments are usually fundamental to
establishing the date of a work. This is also the case of John of Antioch’s Historia Chro-
nike. It is very important to stress that for this last section - Maurice to Phocas - we
have excerpta from the Excerpta de virtutibus as well as from the Excerpta de insidiis.
As regards the style and language of these Excerpta Constantiniana, it is evident that
in this last section there is a very strong effort to summarize. There is also an emphasis
that results in alterations to language and style, when this section is compared to the
main section 2 of the Excerpta Constantiniana. Considering this difference between
section 2 and section 4 of the Excerpta Constantiniana, Panagiotis Sotiroudis enun-
ciated three conclusions in an analysis of 1989 that has overall been very important
for the resurgence of studies on John of Antioch. First of all, only the section of the
Excerpta Constantiniana running from Samson to Anastasius (section 2) forms the
“real John of Antioch” because the excerpts of this section are stylistically and lingu-
istically homogeneous. Second, the section of the Excerpta Constantiniana extending
from Maurice to Heraclius (section 4) is instead spurious. It does not belong to the
“real” John of Antioch. Section 3, which includes the two fragments on Justinian and
Justin II, should also be excluded. Third, therefore, the chronological extension of the
5 See Cohen-Skalli, “Les Excerpta”, p. 35. In general, on the reliability of the Excerpta Constantiniana
as far as the knowledge of the excerpted author is concerned, see also Pittia, “Pour un nouveau”,
p. 141; Cohen-Skalli, Diodore de Sidle, pp. XXIV-XLVII, XXXIV-XXXVI. Nevertheless, it should
be stressed that, despite their methodological reliability, the excerptores sometimes worked on corrup-
ted or bad manuscript of the excerpted author. This is, e.g., the case of John of Antioch’s Historia
Chronike.
6 According to a fragment from the Codex Parisinus 1630, there were at least two books of archaiologia in
the Historia Chronike. On the problems raised by these excerpta, which depends heavily from the archa-
iologia of John Malalas, see John of Antioch, ed. Roberto, pp. XLV-LIII. See also note 2 above.