The chronicle of John Malalas (review)

Reviews 141 internal economic and socid influences in laying the foundation for a harmonious blend of self-interest and some sort of inherent commund regard for the public good, dl of which, in the author's view, came to an end with the tighterregulationand control experienced in the foUowing century. John Wdmsley Department of History Macquarie Umversity Malalas, J. The chronicle of John Malalas, trans. E. Jeffreys, M . Jeffreys, R. Scott, et d. (Byzantina Australiensia 4), Melbourne, Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 1986; pp.xU, 371; R.RP. A U S $27.00. The chronicle of the sixth century Byzantine author John Malalas covers the history of the world from the creation of Adam to the reign of Justinian. It has not been preserved well. A n eleventh century manuscript contdns most of the text but a number of foUos are missing and, beyond this, it is clear that it abbreviates a good ded of the origind. To an extent its deficiencies can be repaired by consulting earlier materid that M d d a s may be presumed to have used and later Greek authors, not dl of them published, who excerpted or paraphrased Mdalas. More distantly, Armenian and Syriac materid which stands in some relation to the origind text can determine what M d d a s may have written, as can the Ethiopian translation of an Arabic translation of a Greek (and Coptic?) chronicle by John of Nikiu, generally cited in a translation into EngUsh. If this were not enough, there is dso a fairly full medievd translation of the text into Slavomc. The task confronting thoseresponsiblefor this new translation of Maldas into EngUsh was therefore immense. They decided to provide a translation of the eleventh century manuscript which Dindorf took as the base for his edition in the Bonn corpus (1831) and to provide a subtext introducing materid from other sources. They promise a forthcoming volume which wUl provide a rationde for some of the decisions they have taken. For the time being it can be sdd that they have performed their labours on the text with amazing thoroughness and that, quite apart from its value as a translation, this book is by far the best cunently available guide to what Malalas may have written. But most readers of the volume will simply use it as a translation of a difficult text As it happens there is dready a translation of the Slavonic original of books VIII-XVIII (the last book incomplete), that by Matthew Spinka in collaboration with Glanville Downey (Chicago 1940), and the comparison of two passages will enable theirrespectivemerits to be assessed. 142 Reviews Firstly, from p.372 of Dindorfs text: 'During his reign, Czar Leo fought a terrible naval battle with Zinzirich the Vandal, the Czar of Africa' (Spinka/Downey); 'Leo in the time of his reign began a campdgn agdnst Geiseric the Vandd, king of the Africans, fighting a tremendous sea-battle' (Jeffreys/Jeffreys/Scott). Not only is the latter version closer to the origind in its verbd precision, but intitulatureas well. To take another example, from p.383 of Dindorfs text: 'During [Zeno's] reign, Theuderich (Pheodorit), the son of Vdemar, the Stratelates in praesenti, who had been deposed from the consdship, seeing what befell Armanis, feared the Czar' (Spinka/Downey). This is a woefd guide to the meaning of the passage. It is translated more conectly as 'During his reign the ex-consul Theoderic, the son of Vdamer, who had been brought up and educated in Constantinople, was magister mihtum praesentalis. But dter seeing what had happened to Armatus he became draid of the emperor Zeno' (Jeffreys/Jeffreys/Scott). Students approaching Theoderic via the index will be misled by a mistaken conflation of him with Theoderic the Visigoth. They may have found it usefd beingtoldthat Theoderic was certdnly not Vdamer's son, dthough a footnote reference to PLRE 2 which is suppUed would dlow them to clear this up, and could have been interested in the fact that M d d a s spelt Theoderic's name SeuSepixoc,. Here, as elsewhere, the translators amend his spelling of proper names to bring it into conformity with received usage. But there can...