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Umberto Roberto

nographia (Books I-IV) Malalas follows the scheme of his predecessors: information
from the Bible is combined with Greek mythology and other historiographical tra-
ditions. The following books are dedicated to the Trojan war and the story of Aeneas
(Books V-VI) and provide an introduction to the second part of the Chronographia. In
this part, the historiographical interest is focussed on Rome, from the city’s foundation
(Book VII) through to the age of Justinian (Book XVIII). In these books, Malalas
shows no interest for the Jewish history. Therefore, his departure from Africanus and
Eusebius is evident.
According to our sources, this structure was already to be found in the chronicle
of Eustathius of Epiphania. As is widely known, Evagrius of Epiphania describes the
structure of Eustathius and says that his Chronike Epitome was divided in two parts:
the first reaching as far as the Sack of Troy and the second extending from the Sack
of Troy up to the twelfth year of the reign of Anastasius. The Suda Lexicon indicates
more precisely that this second part started with Aeneas (άπό Αίνείου)· Therefore,
for Eustathius Aeneas’ escape from Troy represented the very beginning of Roman
history, at least in an introductory sense. A passage from Evagrius of Epiphania III
29 (= Eustathius Epiphaniensis, Fr. 5 Müller) also furnishes extremely important evi-
dence. Evagrius shows us the different dates for the main events in Roman history up
to Anastasius as they were recorded by Eustathius. The earliest date is the Sack of Troy.
It is time to return to Malalas. Malalas interweaves Jewish history with that of the
Greeks, leaving off with the one as begins that of the other with the story of the Trojan
War. In an evocative blending of cultures, the Judaeo-Christian with the Graeco-Ro-
man, Malalas treats the Trojan War as the ideal transition from the archaiologia (where
the events of the Bible are synchronised with the history of other peoples, following
the model of Africanus-Eusebius) to the section on Roman history. In John Malalas
the history of the Jewish people becomes completely marginal after the Trojan War.
The flow of his narration shifts to focus first on the Hellenistic period and then on
Roman history, with the city of Antioch as the centre.15
The narrative sequence of Jewish monarchy I Trojan War I archaic Roman history
that is documented in the Excerpta Constantiniana from the Historia Chronike demons-
trates that John of Antioch followed the model used by Malalas. Since the same model
was probably in Eustathius of Epiphania, this could be an element that connects John
of Antioch to the entourage of Syriac historiography. Anyhow, John Malalas is a source
for John of Antioch not only for information and dates, but also as one of the models
on which John of Antioch builds his vision of universal history. However, we should
stress that Malalas is just one of these models. In fact, for John of Antioch, too, the
Trojan War is a device used to shift the sequence of exposition from the archaiologia
(from Adam to the kings of Israel) to Rome and the city’s history. Thereafter, John
of Antioch changes his historiographical paradigm. First, he focusses his interest on
15 See Beaucamp, “Le passe”; in general, Fishman-Duker, “The Second Temple Period”, pp. 139-43. On
Antioch as the centre ofMalalas’s historiographical reconstruction, see for instance Liebeschuetz, “Ma-
lalas on Antioch”.