Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 4 (1897).djvu/536

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APPENDIX

history of Priscus, covering the years A.D. 474 to 480. (So Photius. Bibl. Cod. 78; but Suidas gives the work a wider extent — from Constantine I. to Anastasius). He was indifferent to religion, like Priscus and Procopius, but did not attack Christianity, so that Photius charitably regarded him as within the pale of Christendom. He censured the vices of Zeno with great severity. [Fragments (preserved in the Excerpta de legationibus of Constantino Porph., and in Suidas) in Müller's F. H. G. iv. p. 111 sqq. Also in Dindorf's Hist. Græc. minores.]

Eustathius of Epiphania wrote, under Anastasius, a history from the earliest times to the 12th year of Anastasius; he died in that year (A.D. 502). He is known through Evagrius, who used him largely, and through Malalas (p. 398-9, ed. Bonn). For the fifth century he used the work of Priscus. [Müller, F. H. G. iv. p. 138 sqq.]

A Panegyric on the Emperor Anastasius by the rhetor Procopius of Gaza is printed in the same vol. of the Bonn. Script. Byzant., as Dexippus, Eunapius, Malchus, &c. Here will also be found a poetical encomium in Latin on the same Emperor by Priscian. Both these panegyrics laud the financial relief which the government of Anastasius gave to the Empire.

Hesychius illustris, of Miletus, wrote under Justinian: (1) a universal history coming down to the death of Anastasius (A.D. 518), of which almost nothing has been preserved but a long fragment relating to the early history of Byzantium (πάτρια Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, in Codinus, ed. Bonn, p. 16 sqq.); (2) a history of the reign of Justin and the first years of Justinian; nothing of this survives, a loss deeply to be regretted; (3) a lexicon of famous literary people; some fragments of this are preserved in Photius and Suidas. The short biographical dictionary ascribed to Hesychius is not genuine, but a much later compilation. This pseudo-Hesychius was edited by J. Flach, 1880, and is included in Müller's ed. of the Fragments (F. H. G. iv. 143 sqq.).

Theodoros Anagnostes (Lector) wrote, under Justin and in the early years of Justinian, (1) a Historia tripartita, founded on Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret, coming down to A.D. 439; and (2) a continuation of this, Historia ecclesiastica, to the beginning of Justinian's reign. Neither work is extant. Some fragments from (1) are contained in a Paris Ms., and have been published by Cramer, Anecd. Paris, ii. p. 87 sqq.; but these fragments were derived not from the original work, but from a Collection of excerpts which was used by the chronographer Theophanes. Other fragments have been found in an Oxford Ms. (Barocc. 142) and were used by de Boor for his edition of Theophanes. Of (2), fragments have been edited by Valois (at end of his ed. of Theodoret, Evagrius, and Philostorgius, p. 551 sqq., 1673), Cramer (ib.), Müller (Revue Archeologique, nouv. serie, 1873, t. 26, 396 sqq.), and some others have been found in Codinus and the Anonymous Banduri by V. Sarrazin, whose monograph, De Theodoro Lectore (in the Commentationes Philol. Jenenses, 1881, vol. 1), is the most important study of Theodorus, especially as a source of Theophanes. Sarrazin has shown (p. 193 sqq.) that some of the fragments of Valois and Cramer are not from Theodore but from John Diacrinomenos, who was one of the sources of Theodore. He has also given reasons for holding that Theophanes used a Collection of Excerpts in the case of this work too; that the Müller fragments are remains of that Collection; and that the Cramer and Valois fragments represent Excerpts from that Collection, not from the original work.

A treatise on the civil service (περί ἀρχῶν, De magistratibus), written by an official, John of Philadelphia, generally described as "the Lydian" (Lydus), was first published in 1812 by Hase (reprinted in Bonn ed.). His work, which gives a history of the Prætorian Prefecture under Anastasius, Justin, and Justinian, is of immense importance for the study of the administration in the sixth century. He bitterly complains of the decline of the service and the reduction of its emoluments. Of Justinian he always speaks in terms of the highest praise; but his account of the career of John of Cappadocia, on whom he throws most of the blame for the degradation of the civil service, bears out the representations of Procopius. But Lydus carefully and repeatedly warns his readers that Justinian