272 Umberto Roberto
Therefore, I wish to dedicate the second part of my paper to examining the relation-
ship between John of Antioch and John Malalas, which in my opinion is very impor-
tant to understanding the structure of the Historic/. Chronike.
2. Tiberianus, governor of Palaestina Prima
(loannes Antiochenus, fr. 193 Roberto = fr. 136 Mariev)
Before discussing this topic, I would like to make an introductory observation. The
attempt to distinguish the “real John of Antioch” only on the basis of the style and
language of a single section of the Excerpta Constantiniana is overly bold and me-
thodologically dubious. Such an approach seems to me to oversimplify the problem
and to narrow the horizon of research unnecessarily. Instead, it is important to take
into consideration, naturally with due caution, some historiographical criteria as well.
For instance, we have to ask ourselves who was the audience of John’s work. Further-
more, we need to ask what if any criterion informed the selection of excerpta from the
Historic/ Chronike'. The excerptor Constantinianus transcribed many fragments for the
Excerpta de insidiis and a good quantity for the Excerpta de virtutibus, but, conversely,
only one for the volume de legationibus and nothing for the volume de sententiis. Unless
I am seriously mistaken, the choices of the excerptor tell us that the Historia Chronike
contained a strong political focus, with an emphasis on good government as can be
seen from the examples assembled in the Excerpta de virtutibus. But there was also an
emphasis on its negative counterpart, tyranny, which explains the greater number of
fragments in the Excerpta de insidiis. There can be little doubt that John wrote for an
audience interested in the subject.
According to Sotiroudis, John of Antioch should be dated to 520-530 and thus
lived before John Malalas. Therefore, Sotiroudis removed from the Excerpta Constan-
tiniana of the “real John of Antioch” all the fragments which show a clear relationship
with John Malalas. His choice also stresses the strong difference in language and style
between John Malalas and John of Antioch. However, a significant oversight reveals
the methodological weakness of using only stylistic and linguistic criteria to identify
the “real” John of Antioch. Among the fragments that are still listed by Sotiroudis as
belonging to John of Antioch, we can find the excerptum de virtutibus 34, which corre-
sponds to fr. 193 Roberto and fr. 136 Mariev. This excerpt reads as follows:
Ότι Τραϊανός τοϊς Χριστιανοϊς ανακωχήν τινα τής τιμωρίας παρέσχεν.
οί γάρ κατά καιρόν ύπό των Ρωμαίων τάς άρχάς ώνούμενοι προς
θεραπείαν των τότε βασιλέων διαφόρους έπήγον τοϊς Χριστιανοϊς
κολάσεις, όθεν καί Τιβεριανός ήγεμονεύων του πρώτου Παλαιστινών
έθνους άνήγαγεν αύτω λέγων, ώς ούκ έπαρκεϊλοιπόν τούς Χριστιανούς
φονεύειν, εκείνων αύτομάτως έπεισαγόντων εαυτούς τή κολάσει.

9 On the historiographical value of this last section of the Historia Chronike see Roberto, “The Circus
Factions”. On the general context see also Meier, “Kaiser Phocas”.