Malalas’ Sources for the Contemporary Books

229

ities and seen in Malalas what he found in Lydus, a writer who could record what he
wanted about his reign, a quality he presumably also found in Procopius for record-
ing his buildings (after Belisarius had exploited him for histories of the wars) and in
Marcellinus Comes, whose chronicle assuredly reproduces Justinian’s propaganda,27 as
well as Peter the patrician, who had links to both Justinian and Theodora, and perhaps
too Jordanes.28 So clearly a case can be made for Justinian’s fondness for exploiting
historians to publicise his achievements. Add to these Romanos and arguably too
ecclesiastical historians,29 and it would become odd if Justinian had not also exerted
some influence on Malalas. Otherwise Malalas would seemingly be the one notable
exception to the rule.
And with Malalas Justinian assuredly would have chosen well. Here we must re-
member that Malalas is our only source to record all four of the most famous deeds of
Justinian’s reign: the codification of the law (almost entirely ignored by his contempo-
raries despite Justinian’s obvious and justifiable pride in his achievement);30 the recov-
ery of the Western empire (recorded but not emphasised by Malalas, in line with Jus-
tinian’s limited use of resources for this);31 the building of Hagia Sophia (the achieve-
ment of Justinian most noted by later chroniclers); and the closing of the Academy
in Athens (for which Malalas is our sole source). In contrast Procopius’ Bella scores
just one out of four. Added to Malalas’ remarkable superiority in recording Justinian’s
achievements, the prominence given to the David and Goliath story may just point
to Justinian giving encouragement to his propaganda writer to move on to writing
a history, perhaps limited to Justin and the initial stages of Justinian’s reign. Malalas
then chose to expand this into a universal history from Creation. Even this may well
have been at Justinian’s instigation. It is clear, as Elizabeth Jeffreys has demonstrat-
ed,32 that a fundamental aim throughout Malalas’ chronicle was that of demonstrating
that the year 6000 had occurred safely long ago with Christ’s life on earth. It was not
something that was about to happen and mark the end of the world as Justinian’s
subjects may well have feared. Only Malalas and his contemporary Hesychius33 offer
this dating which is never revived in later Byzantine history. It is likely enough that it
was the emperor himself who wanted this firmly demonstrated to maintain calm and
order, and so encouraged his authors to chronicle and publish the necessary evidence.
27 Cf. Bury (1897), P- 93- “Marcellinus, in sympathy with the existing regime, gave utterance to that inter-
pretation of the revolt which Justinian and the court wished or feigned to believe”, followed by Cam-
eron (1976), p. 280 n. 1: “Bury rightly regards it as an official version’”.
28 Baldwin (1991), p. 1072: “Jordanes writes with a clear pro-Byz. bias (...) and Justinian I is eulogized as
the conqueror of the Goths”.
29 Cf. Blaudeau (2016), pp. 77-78 with reference to ecclesiastical histories: “Justinian welcomed all narra-
tives in which such passages were duly selected and expertly cut, because they were likely to enrich his
official narrative (as shown by some quotations in the acts of the fifth ecumenical council of 553)”.
30 Scott (1981), pp. 12-13.
31 Scott (2012).
32 Jeffreys (iggod); cf. Jeffreys (1990a), pp. 65-66; Jeffreys (1990b).
33 Ησυχίου έκ του εις τήν Χριστού γέννησεν, pp. lii-liii Dindorf/Hody; see on Hesychius also
Meier (2003), pp. 457-460.