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but this is clearly not the original text, but one adapted to later views, including an
incarnation date of AM 5500.28 This leaves us with two possibilities. Either the ‘Eu-
sebius’ Malalas used was his updated and adapted version of Eusebius’ chronicle, to
which material (drawn from, among others, Palaiphatus) had been added, or the ma-
terial from Eusebius was combined with that of Palaiphatus in another intermediary
chronicle. Both are plausible scenarios: most important is that the evidence suggests
we must suppose access to the chronography and not just the canons of Eusebius, and
that we are dealing with an intermediate source.
The picture that emerges from these few soundings is that of a chronographic lit-
erature that is in full movement. Texts are being copied, cut and pasted, and updated
with new material drawn from new sources. Many of the local chronicles will have in-
cluded similar material, drawn from earlier chronicles, but tailored to their own needs.
Malalas’ chronicle is a repository of these traditions and one should not be surprised
that it is hard to pin every reference down with certainty, or, indeed, that some of them
are garbled indeed.
4. Conclusions
For the study of chronography, the present article allows to draw the following conclu-
sions. John Malalas bears witness to the integration of local history and chronography,
a process that started earlier, as the chroniclers Clement and Theophilus demonstrate.
This integration led to an increased interest in mythographic material within chrono-
graphy, as such topics had been prominent in local historiography. This, in turn, spurs
interest in authorities that could provide one with mythographic material, such as
Didymus Chalcenterus, or, to give a last example, Charax of Pergamon, a 2nd cen-
tury author who makes a remarkable come-back in the 6th century as an authority
for myth.29 In addition, chronography was a genre subject to constant updating and
changes, which could take different forms: the writing of one’s own chronicle with
new authorities or the updating of an existing one (as Malalas’ ‘Eusebius’ illustrates).
In these new chronicles, additional authorities could be included for material that
was deemed relevant at the time of writing, as the examples of Didymus, Bruttius and
Palaiphatus illustrate. In Malalas, the reception of this tradition has resulted in many
garbled references, but this should not lead to a general rejection of all his source refer-
ences: they should all be scrutinised on an individual basis and the absence of parallels
28 Jeffreys (1990), p. 180.
29 Charax of Pergamon (FGrHist 103 = BNJ103), the 2nd century AD author of 40 books of Greek and
Italic histories, in the sources variously described as Hellenika (F 1-14), Historian (T i), and Chronika (F
15-26; F 28-30). The work is first attested in John the Lydian, Malalas, Stephen of Byzantium and
Evagrius Scholasticus and is fairly well-represented in the scholia-tradition and the Byzantine erudite
literature (such as Eustathius of Thessalonike). Most fragments relate to mythology; it is clear that
Charax was perceived as being a useful reference book for the beauties and the beasts of Greek myth
and one may surmise that he was rediscovered for that use in the 6th century.