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William Adler

of the same period. But stories in Malalas’ chronicle about Cainan, Serug, Terah, and
Abraham now serve mainly as historical documentation of his views about the discov-
ery and transmission of the celestial sciences and his demythologizing explanation of
the origins of polytheism and idolatry In this way, traditions deriving, however circu-
itously, from a Jewish source composed in Hebrew almost 800 years earlier have been
reconstituted to address concerns more relevant to a late antique chronicler steeped in
the norms of Hellenistic historiography

4. Malalas and the Beginnings of Monarchy
Nowhere is the influence of Euhemerism and allied concepts more apparent than in
Malalas’ exposition of the beginnings and diffusion of monarchy From a brief notice
in Genesis identifying Nimrod as the first king of “Ba’bel, Erech, and Accad” (Genesis
10,10), Byzantine chroniclers tended to trace the origins of kinship to events occurring
sometime after the universal flood. Following a convention widely accepted by Hel-
lenistic universal historians, Assyria was generally understood to be the oldest world
kingdom on record.60 In Eusebius’ Canons, for example, the succession of world king-
doms commences with the reign of the Assyrian king Ninus, the 43rd year of whose
reign coincided with the date of Abraham’s birth.61
For his part, Malalas set the foundation of the kingdom of Assyria much earlier,
sometime shortly after the tower of Babel, and the division of the earth among the
descendants of the three sons of Noah. At that time, he writes, the Titan Cronus, a
descendant of Noah’s son Shem, acquired the art of ruling others, installed himself as
the first king of Assyria, and then expanded his rule into Persia. From his wife and
co-regent Semiramis (also known as Rhea), Cronus fathered two sons and a daughter:
Ninus, Picus Zeus, and Hera. After the birth of Belus from the marriage of Zeus and
Hera, Cronus left for Italy, where he was succeeded to rule by his son Picus Zeus, with
his other son Ninus continuing to rule in Assyria. Zeus died and was buried in Crete,
after ruling Italy for several years. Subsequently, Zeus’ son Hermes Faunus settled in
Egypt, instituting a dynastic succession there, and succeeded to rule by Hephaestus,
also a wise lawgiver and manufacturer of armaments.62
In this story of the beginnings of monarchy, all the characteristic ingredients of
euhemeristic historiography converge. Recast as philosopher kings and sages of old,
Cronus, Rhea, Zeus, and Hera are now actors on the world scene, either identified
with or contemporaries of Assyria’s earliest and most celebrated rulers: Belus, Ninus,
and Semiramis. While vestiges of Hesiod’s grim saga of Cronus’ abdication of power
to Zeus are still faintly visible, Malalas’ sanitized retelling of his Theogony has all but
washed out any trace of the savage wars said by Hesiod to have erupted before Cronus
60 See Drews (1965).
61 Eusebius, Hieronymi Chronicon 20a, 1—6 Helm.
62 Malalas, Chronographia I 8-15 (pp. 9,47-16,10 Thurn).