Chronographia Scaligeriana
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The ''Excerpta Latina Barbari'', also called the ''Chronographia Scaligeriana'', is a
late antique Late antiquity marks the period that comes after the end of classical antiquity and stretches into the onset of the Early Middle Ages. Late antiquity as a period was popularized by Peter Brown in 1971, and this periodization has since been wide ...
historical compilation, originally composed in
Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
in AD 527–539 but surviving only in a
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
translation from the late 8th century. The identities of the author/compiler of the original and of the translator unknown.


Naming and genre

The name ''Excerpta Latina Barbari'', by which the work is now conventionally known, is derived from the description of its first editor,
Joseph Justus Scaliger Joseph Justus Scaliger (; 5 August 1540 – 21 January 1609) was a Franco-Italian Calvinist religious leader and scholar, known for expanding the notion of classical history from Greek and Ancient Roman history to include Persian, Babylonian, Je ...
(1540–1609). He described it as "quite useful excerpts from the first chronological volume of
Eusebius Eusebius of Caesarea (30 May AD 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilius, was a historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist from the Roman province of Syria Palaestina. In about AD 314 he became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima. ...
, Africanus, and others, translated into Latin by a senseless ignoramus who had no skill at Greek or Latin." The unflattering epithet ''Barbarus Scaligeri'' ('Scaliger's barbarian') may be given to the unidentified author or translator, but is also used as a name of the chronicle. The conventional name is misleading in that the work does not consist of excerpts. In 1579, the earliest reference to it in print referred to it as an "
Alexandrine Alexandrine is a name used for several distinct types of verse line with related metrical structures, most of which are ultimately derived from the classical French alexandrine. The line's name derives from its use in the Medieval French '' Ro ...
chronicle A chronicle (, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events ...
". Benjamin Garstad still identifies it as a
world chronicle ''World Chronicle'' was a half-hour news and documentary television program broadcast internationally by the United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter o ...
. Richard Burgess, however, argues that it is not a true chronicle but rather a
chronograph A chronograph is a specific type of watch that is used as a stopwatch combined with a display watch. A basic chronograph has hour and minute hands on the main dial to tell the time, a small seconds hand to tell that the watch is running, and ...
, which he defines as "a collection of genealogies and regnal lists, usually in the form of a chronological outline of human history, to which or into which can be added any other sorts of texts that relate to chronology, such as lists of important historical events,
episcopal Episcopal may refer to: *Of or relating to a bishop, an overseer in the Christian church *Episcopate, the see of a bishop – a diocese *Episcopal Church (disambiguation), any church with "Episcopal" in its name ** Episcopal Church (United States ...
lists, calendars, and
consular A consul is an official representative of a government who resides in a foreign country to assist and protect citizens of the consul's country, and to promote and facilitate commercial and diplomatic relations between the two countries. A consu ...
lists, as well as analyses and discussions of that chronology."


Date and place


Greek original

There are many internal indications that the surviving Latin text is a translation of a Greek original. These include its broadly
Egyptian ''Egyptian'' describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of year ...
and more narrowly
Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...
n focus, its use of Greek sources and Greek holdovers in its
grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...
and
lexicon A lexicon (plural: lexicons, rarely lexica) is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Greek word () ...
. This fact was immediately recognized by the early humanists who examined the text. The scholarly consensus is that the earliest stage in the composition of the ''Excerpta'' took place in Alexandria and that it attained its final form during the reign of
Justinian I Justinian I (, ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was Roman emperor from 527 to 565. His reign was marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovatio imperii'', or "restoration of the Empire". This ambition was ...
(). Burgess dates it to between 527 and 539, the date of the last entry in the related '' Consularia Vindobonensia posteriora''. There is some disagreement, however, about the date of the first stage and about the location of the final stage. Garstad places the original composition in the early 5th century. Burgess allows that it may have been completed in the late 5th century, but argues that the work which was expanded into its final form under Justinian must have been updated already during the reign of
Justin I Justin I (; ; 450 – 1 August 527), also called Justin the Thracian (; ), was Roman emperor from 518 to 527. Born to a peasant family, he rose through the ranks of the army to become commander of the imperial guard and when Emperor Anastasi ...
(). Garstad believes that the expansion of the original work under Justinian may have taken place in
Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...
.


Latin translation

It is generally agreed that the Latin translation was made in
Francia The Kingdom of the Franks (), also known as the Frankish Kingdom, or just Francia, was the largest History of the Roman Empire, post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Franks, Frankish Merovingian dynasty, Merovingi ...
. Traditionally, it was dated to the late 7th or early 8th century, the later
Merovingian The Merovingian dynasty () was the ruling family of the Franks from around the middle of the 5th century until Pepin the Short in 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the ...
period. This date was based on the addition, in the translation, of the Trojan legend of Frankish origins. The historian Carl Frick also argued that Latin contained characteristics typical of Merovingian Francia. The traditional dating went hand-in-hand with the dating of the surviving Latin manuscript.
Richard Schöne Richard Schöne (5 February 1840, in Dresden – 5 March 1922, in Grunewald (locality), Berlin-Grunewald) was a German archaeologist and classical philologist. He studied classical philology and archaeology at the University of Leipzig, recei ...
dated the manuscript to the late 7th or early 8th century. E. A. Lowe in the 1950s and in 1967 revised this dating on
paleographic Palaeography ( UK) or paleography ( US) (ultimately from , , 'old', and , , 'to write') is the study and academic discipline of historical writing systems. It encompasses the historicity of manuscripts and texts, subsuming deciphering and dati ...
and artistic grounds, narrowing its location to the
abbey of Corbie Corbie Abbey is a former Benedictine monastery in Corbie, Picardy, France, dedicated to Saint Peter. It was founded by Balthild, the widow of Clovis II, who had monks sent from Luxeuil. The Abbey of Corbie became celebrated both for its library a ...
and pushing forward its time period to the late 8th century. The most likely decade for the translation and the manuscript is the 780s, the early
Carolingian The Carolingian dynasty ( ; known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charles Martel and his grandson Charlemagne, descendants of the Arnulfing and Pippinid c ...
period. The quality of the Latin translation is universally regarded as poor. Comparing it with
classical Latin Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a Literary language, literary standard language, standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It formed parallel to Vulgar Latin around 75 BC out of Old Latin ...
led Scaliger to attack the translator's competence. While the translation is poor even by 8th-century standards, it is much closer to the standard
vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Colloquial, Popular, Spoken or Vernacular Latin, is the range of non-formal Register (sociolinguistics), registers of Latin spoken from the Crisis of the Roman Republic, Late Roman Republic onward. ''Vulgar Latin'' a ...
of the day than Scaliger realized. Earlier scholarship was uncertain whether the translator's first language was Latin or Greek, but it was probably neither. The translator's first language was either a very early form of
Old French Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th -4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ...
or a Corbie Corbie (; ; Picard:''Corbin'') is a commune of the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. Geography The small town is situated up river from Amiens, in the département of Somme and is the main town of the canton of Corbie. ...
without complete mastery of proper Latin and Greek. It has been suggested that he may have had an association with the monastery of Cimiez.


Content and sources

The ''Excerpta'' is composed of three sections. *The first part is a recension">Abbey of Saint-Pons de Nice">monastery of Cimiez.


Content and sources

The ''Excerpta'' is composed of three sections. *The first part is a recension of the ''Liber generationis'' from AD 235. It covers the period from Adam and Eve, Adam to the death of Cleopatra VII. The version used by the compiler was heavily interpolated and has been called the ''Chronicon mundi Alexandrinum'' ('Alexandrian world chronicle') or ''Chronographia Alexandrina'' ('Alexandrian chronograph'). *The second part is a collection of
regnal list A regnal list or king list is, at its simplest, a list of successive monarchs. Some regnal lists may give the relationship between successive monarchs (e.g., son, brother), the length of reign of each monarch or annotations on important reigns. T ...
s mainly derived from the ''Chronographiae'' of
Sextus Julius Africanus Sextus Julius Africanus ( 160 – c. 240; ) was a Christian traveler and historian of the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries. He influenced fellow historian Eusebius, later writers of Church history among the Church Fathers, and the Greek sch ...
from AD 211. These include lists of
Egyptian ''Egyptian'' describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of year ...
, Assyrian,
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
and
Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
rulers. Not from Africanus are the list of High Priests of Israel and the
list of Roman emperors The Roman emperors were the rulers of the Roman Empire from the granting of the name and title ''Augustus'' to Octavian by the Roman Senate in 27 BC onward. Augustus maintained a facade of Republican rule, rejecting monarchical titles but ...
. Attached to the Egyptian and high priestly lists are a series of literary notices, including the only surviving mention of the "Jewish Homer", Sosates. *The third part is a
consularia In ancient Rome, the ''fasti'' (Latin plural) were chronological or calendar-based lists, or other diachronic records or plans of official and religiously sanctioned events. After Rome's decline, the word ''fasti'' continued to be used for simil ...
, that is, "a chronicle that has been created from a consular list". It has been called the ''Consularia Scaligeriana''. It is a version of the ''Consularia Vindobonensia posteriora'' that was augmented with other material at Alexandria. In its surviving form, it is therefore "a Latin translation of a Greek translation of a Latin original". It begins with
Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in Caesar's civil wa ...
's victory in the civil war of 46 BC and ends with the year AD 387. This is not the original scope, however, since the manuscript is defective and the very end is missing.


Manuscripts

Only the Latin translation of the ''Excerpta'' survives and in a single manuscript. It is not the autograph of the translator, but the original good copy made from his drafts and thus dates to the 770s or 780s and was made at Corbie. Its
shelfmark A shelfmark is a mark in a book or manuscript that denotes the cupboard or bookcase where it is kept as well as the shelf and possibly even its location on the shelf. The closely related term pressmark (from press, meaning cupboard) denotes only t ...
today is Paris,
Bibliothèque nationale de France The (; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites, ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository of all that is published in France. Some of its extensive collections, including bo ...
, Lat. 4884 (or Parisinus latinus 4884). It is a
codex The codex (: codices ) was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term ''codex'' is now r ...
composed of seven
quires Various measures of paper quantity have been and are in use. Although there are no S.I. units such as quires or bales, there are ISO''ISO 4046-3:2002 Paper, board, pulps and related terms – Vocabulary – Part 3: Paper-making terminology'' (20 ...
. It is written in a distinct variety of
Caroline minuscule Carolingian minuscule or Caroline minuscule is a script which developed as a calligraphic standard in the medieval European period so that the Latin alphabet of Jerome's Vulgate Bible could be easily recognized by the literate class from one ...
pioneererd by Abbot Maurdramnus, who governed Corbie in 772–781. It has high clarity and is easy to read. The Greek
exemplar An exemplar is a person, a place, an object, or some other entity that serves as a predominant example of a given concept (e.g. "The heroine became an ''exemplar'' in courage to the children"). It may also refer to: * Exemplar, a well-known scien ...
from which the translation was made was apparently riddled with errors. It was probably a mass-produced copy, one of several written by a group of scribes taking dictation. It was probably produced in the 6th century and written in
uncial script Uncial is a majuscule script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Uncial letters were used to write Greek and Latin, as well as Gothic, and are the current style for ...
. By the 8th century, it had also suffered damage. Originally consisting of nine quires, the eighth quire was lost and when the codex was rebound the back cover was not replaced, allowing the last page to be defaced over time. For this reason, the translation is missing the consuls for the period from around AD 100 to 296. In every way, the Latin copy is an exact replica of the exemplar. It was probably intended as a "crib" for those trying to read the Greek. There are spaces left for marginal and interlinear
illustrations An illustration is a decoration, interpretation, or visual explanation of a text, concept, or process, designed for integration in print and digitally published media, such as posters, flyers, magazines, books, teaching materials, animations, vi ...
, but these were never filled in. In thirteen cases the captions were added, although they correspond to no images. It is possible that the illustrations went unfinished because the illustrator died. The artist can be identified by the
historiated initial In a written or published work, an initial is a letter at the beginning of a word, a chapter, or a paragraph that is larger than the rest of the text. The word is ultimately derived from the Latin ''initiālis'', which means ''of the beginning ...
P at the start of the text and Lat. 4884 is his last known project. It may also be that the illustrations were never finished because the owner of the exemplar took it back. The owner of the Greek exemplar is identified on the first page as Bishop George of Amiens (), who was probably a Greek speaker from Italy and acquired his copy there before he gave, loaned or sold the manuscript to Corbie. At the top of the first page of the Latin copy, there are competing attributions of authorship added by 9th-century scribes, one attributing the "chronicle" to George (now understood as the owner of the exemplar) and the other to
Victor of Tunnuna Victor of Tunnuna (Latin ''Victor Tunnunensis'') (died ) was Bishop of the North African town of Tunnuna and a chronicler from Late antiquity. He was also considered a martyr by Isidore of Seville. Life The only source on Victor's life is his ow ...
. The latter attribution was an educated guess based on a monk's erroneous interpretation of the description of Victor's actual chronicle in
Isidore of Seville Isidore of Seville (; 4 April 636) was a Spania, Hispano-Roman scholar, theologian and Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seville, archbishop of Seville. He is widely regarded, in the words of the 19th-century historian Charles Forbes René de Montal ...
's ''De viris illustribus''. Nevertheless, the attribution was accepted. Two library catalogues from 11th- and 12th-century Corbie list "Victor's chronicle" among its holdings. By 1575, the manuscript had been acquired by Claude Dupuy.


Related texts

Garstad sees the ''Excerpta'' as a transitional work between the bare '' Chronici canones'' of
Eusebius Eusebius of Caesarea (30 May AD 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilius, was a historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist from the Roman province of Syria Palaestina. In about AD 314 he became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima. ...
and the fuller ''Chronographia'' of
John Malalas John Malalas (; ;  – 578) was a Byzantine chronicler from Antioch in Asia Minor. Life Of Syrian descent, Malalas was a native speaker of Syriac who learned how to write in Greek later in his life. The name ''Malalas'' probably derive ...
. The works most similar to the ''Excerpta'' are the '' Chronographia Golenischevensis'' and the '' Consularia Berolinensia''. While the ''Excerpta'' survives basically complete (if only in translation), the ''Chronographia'' and ''Consularia'' are fragmentary. Their illustrations, however, were completed. Structurally, the ''Chronographia'' contains the same three parts (based on the same sources) as the ''Excerpta'', but it also includes additional texts. Both compilations probably drew on the same earlier compilation. The ''Chronicon mundi Alexandrinum'', the expanded version of the ''Liber generationis'' used by the compiler of the ''Excerpta'', was also used by the authors of the 7th-century ''
Chronicon Paschale ''Chronicon Paschale'' (the ''Paschal'' or ''Easter Chronicle''), also called ''Chronicum Alexandrinum'', ''Constantinopolitanum'' or ''Fasti Siculi'', is the conventional name of a 7th-century Greek Christian chronicle of the world. Its name com ...
'', the 9th-century '' Anonymus Matritensis'' and the 10th-century ''Annales'' of
Eutychius of Alexandria Eutychius of Alexandria (Arabic: ''Sa'id ibn Batriq'' or ''Bitriq''; 10 September 877 – 12 May 940) was the Melkite Patriarch of Alexandria. He is known for being one of the first Christian Egyptian writers to use the Arabic language. His writi ...
.
Walter Goffart Walter André Goffart (February 22, 1934 – February 14, 2025) was a German-born American historian who specialized in Late Antiquity and the European Middle Ages. He taught for many years in the history department and Centre for Medieval Studie ...
, discussing the flow of Greek works to Italy or Merovingian Francia, where many were translated in the 6th or 7th century, includes the ''Excerpta'' alongside the
Frankish Table of Nations Frankish may refer to: * Franks, a Germanic tribe and their culture ** Frankish language or its modern descendants, Franconian languages, a group of Low Germanic languages also commonly referred to as "Frankish" varieties * Francia, a post-Roman ...
, the '' Book of Synods'', the
Codex Encyclius Collections of ancient canons contain collected bodies of canon law (Catholic Church), canon law that originated in various documents, such as papal and synodal decisions, and that can be designated by the generic term of canons. Canon law was n ...
, the ruler lists used in the ''
Chronicle of Fredegar The ''Chronicle of Fredegar'' is the conventional title used for a 7th-century Frankish chronicle that was probably written in Burgundy. The author is unknown and the attribution to Fredegar dates only from the 16th century. The chronicle begi ...
'' and the original model for the '' ioca monachorum'' collections. The appearance of a Greek text from the east and its translation into Latin in the west in what is traditionally considered the " Dark Ages" is not unprecedented.


Notes


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{refend 6th-century Christian texts 6th-century illuminated manuscripts 8th-century manuscripts Translations into Latin History of Alexandria Illuminated histories