M. Bruckner, op. cit.; B. Panchenko, op. cit.; M. Krasheniuuikov, O ruko- pisnom predanii Istorii Prokopiia, in Viz. Vrem. ii. p. 416 sqq.; art. on Proco- pius in Krumbacher's Gesch. der byz. Litteratur (ed. 2, 1896).
Editions. The Bonn ed. by Dindorf (1833-8) is not much better than the Paris ed. by Maltretus, which Gibbon used. These texts are founded on inferior Mss. Isambert's separate ed. of the Anecdota is poor (1856). A new much-needed com- plete ed. is promised by J. Haury, but the first three books of the Gothic War (based on the best Mss., and accompanied by an excellent Italian translation) by D. Comparetti have been issued in the series of Fonti per la storia d'ltalia (1895-6).]
Agathias of Myrina (A.D. 536-582) practised as an advocate (scholastikos) at Constantinople, and combined law with literature. In his earlier years he wrote poems and epigrams; after the death of Justinian he devoted himself to history and continued the work of Procopius. His history "On the Reign of Justinian" embraces in five Books the years A.D. 552-558, and would have been continued if he had lived. Gibbon well characterises his work and contrasts him with Procopius (see above, p. 420), and notes the information on Persian affairs which he derived from his friend Sergius (vol. i., c. 8). He seems in general to have depended on oral sources for his narrative; he names most of the old writers whom he used for his digressions. [Ed. in the Bonn series by Niebuhr; in the Hist. Græc. Minores, vol. ii., by L. Dindorf. H. Eckhardt, Agathias und Prokop als Quellenschriftsteller für den Gothenkrieg, 1864; W. S. Teuffel, in Philo- logus, 184(5, Bd. 1, 495 sqq.]
The history of the advocate Agathias was continued by an imperial guards- man, Menander protector. He had, however, the training of a jurist, as he tells us in his very interesting preface, where he describes the wild and idle life of his youth, which he reformed under the beneficent influence of the Emperor Maurice. His work covers the years A.D. 558-582; we possess very important fragments of it in the Constantinian excerpts de legationibus and de sententiis, and a few in Suidas. Evagrius drew from Menander (probably directly) for his fifth book. He was also used by Theophylactus Simocatta (for an excursus in Bk. iii. on the Persian wars of Justin II. and Tiberius. See below, vol. v., App. 1). [Müller, F. H. G. iv. p. 200 sqq.; L. Dindorf, Hist. Græc. Min. vol. ii.]
Johannes Rhetor, or Malalas (the Syriac equivalent of Rhetor),[1] of Antioch. published between A.D. 528 and 540 a chronicle beginning with the Creation and ending with the first months of A.D. 528 (Bks. 1-17). The work was re-edited and brought down (Bk. 18) to the death of Justinian[2] (A.D. 565). Neither the first edition, which was used by Evagrius (who cites it under the name of Johannes rhetor) nor the second (used by the Paschal Chronist, Theophanes, &c.) has come down to us; but we have materials sufficient for an almost complete restora- tion of the second edition. (1) The chief of these materials is the abridgment of the whole work; which is preserved in an Oxford Ms. of the eleventh century (Barocc. 182). The first pages of the Ms., with the title, are lost; and the work was identified by some passages verbally identical with passages which John of Damascus quotes from "John Malalas". (2) Next best to recovering the original second edition would be the recovery of the Slavonic translation made by the Bulgarian presbyter Gregory (c. A.D. 900).[3] Luckily, large parts of this, in Russian form, are preserved. (3) Numerous excerpts and fragments have been identified, and enable us to supplement the Oxford text. (a) Four Tuscu- lan fragments, published in Mai's Spicil. Rom., vol. ii., part 3, and identified by
23 (
Greek characters), not (Greek characters).
24 Or, some think, to the ninth year of Justin, A.D. 574; because a Latin Laterculus of Emperors, taken from Malalas, comes down to that year. This document (compiled in the eighth century) is edited by Mommsen in Chron. Min. iii., p. 424 sqq. It seems to me more probable that the last entry was added, on his own account, by the author of an earlier Latin epitome which the eighth century compiler used.
25 Krumbacher, on the authority of A. S. Chachanov, states that there is a Ms. of a Gregorian translation of Malalas at Tiflis (p. 329).
