The Influence of Julius Africanus’ Chronographiae eg]
jan War. In Malalas’ Chronographia, the Trojan War is instrumental in introducing
a strongly Romano-centric view that characterises the whole work. In focusing on
the Trojan War and the subsequent nostoi, Malalas abandons Africanus’ model and
chooses a new narrative structure, spurred on perhaps by his original historiographic
choice, or perhaps under the influence of some other source. It may even be suggested
that Malalas took as his model the organisation of the Chronological Epitome of Eu-
stathius of Epiphania. Although our knowledge of this chronicle is extremely limited,
we do know that Eustathius divided his work into two parts: from the beginning (the
creation?) to the Trojan War; and from the Trojan War up to the siege and conquest
of Amida, that is to events contemporary to the life of the author, who presumably
died in 502/503. The centrality of the War of Troy as the watershed in world history is
a historiographic fact, apparently fully shared by both Malalas and Eustathius.20
At all events, in the subsequent parts of his work Malalas is not interested in the
history of the Hebrews and, consequently, not even in the origins of Christianity. In
the Chronographia, there is no attempt to follow the events of the Kirchengeschichte.
Here too, Malalas’ structure is the same as the one chosen by Africanus. Indeed, the
Chronographiae carefully follows the links between Hebrew history and the history of
the other peoples of the Mediterranean area up to the ultimate and fundamental event
in the history of mankind: the death and Resurrection of Christ. What comes after-
wards does not interest Africanus, notwithstanding the fact that almost two hundred
years elapsed between the events of the Passion and the time when the Chronographiae
was published (221 AD). Africanus had no intention of writing a Kirchengeschichte
either. As a result, all the more singular is this passage from Africanus, transmitted by
John Malalas, on the life of the Apostle John. It is one of the few traces concerning
Christian events after the Resurrection from the last part of the fifth Book of the
Chronographiae, a book which, ranging as it did from Alexander to the Resurrection,
must have left little space for subsequent events.21
3. Malalas and Africanus: undeclared quotes
Besides directly quoting from the text, there is another level on which Malalas matches
the tradition of the Chronographiae. Indeed, Africanus’ tradition is evident in several
passages of Malalas’ Chronographia, particularly when considering similar texts attri-
20 See on the relationship between Malalas and Eustathius Jeffreys (1990b), p. 180; Jeffreys (1996), p. 56;
Roberto (2016), pp. 275-277; see also Dariusz Brodka’s contribution in this volume. According to Mala-
las and Eustathius, Aeneas’ escape from Troy represented the very beginning of Roman history, at least
in an introductory sense: see Scott (1990), pp. 148-149 and 159-160, who remarks “how Malalas and
others Byzantine world chroniclers have dehellenised the past in their versions both of rationalised
myth and of real events” (p. 148). See also Mango (1981), pp. 53—54-
21 On the history of the Jewish people in Malalas see Beaucamp (2006a). In general, see Fishman-Duker
(1977), pp. 139-143. On the other hand, as regards its chronological and historiographical structure,
Malalas’ Chronographia is divided in two main parts by the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. See Scott (1990),
pp. 159-160.