The 'Alexandrian World Chronicle'

The Alexandrian World Chronicle, its Consularia and the
Date of the Destruction of the Serapeum (with an Appendix

on the List of Praefecti Augustales)
R.W. Burgess and Jitse H.F. Dijkstra
Introduction
On 21 October 1901, the Russian collector and Egyptologist Vladimir S.
Golenischev (1856 1947) was in Vienna to deliver a valuable package. Just over
a month earlier, the recipient of the package, the controversial Austrian art
historian Josef Strzygowski (1862 1941),1 had learned from correspondence
with his Russian colleague J.I. Smirnov about a fragmentary illustrated papyrus
codex in the collection of Golenischev, which the latter had acquired some time
before from the antiquities dealer Sheikh Ali in Giza.2 Smirnov kindly
arranged to put the fragments at Strzygowskis disposal for publication. A
month later, Golenischev came by in person to hand over his treasure: eleven
folders containing 49 papyrus fragments, which had already been reassembled
from an original 72. Strzygowski then asked his colleague at the University of
Graz, the ancient historian Adolf Bauer (1855 1919), to edit the Greek text,
while he worked on the images. Once in possession of the fragments, Bauer was
able to reassemble many more of them, reducing their number to 29. In
addition, he reconstructed (parts of) six leaves of the codex, which he mounted
between glass plates, and collected the remaining miscellaneous fragments
under two further plates, thus forming the basis for the edition. Upon
publication of what was called an Alexandrian world chronicle in 1905, the
editors returned the glass plates to their rightful owner.3
1
2
3
1901 was the year in which both Strzygowskis Orient oder Rom and Riegls Die Sptrmische Kunstindustrie appeared, the latter generally credited with popularizing the
term Late Antiquity and both seminal works for the study of Late Antique art. See J.
Elsner, The Birth of Late Antiquity: Riegl and Strzygowski in 1901, Art History 25
(2002) 358 79.
The papyrus is first mentioned by S. de Ricci, Bulletin papyrologique, REG 14 (1901)
163 205 at 202, who refers to it as a fragment hagiographique avec miniatures.
A. Bauer, J. Strzygowski, Eine alexandrinische Weltchronik. Text und Miniaturen eines
griechischen Papyrus der Sammlung W. Goleniscev (= Denkschriften der kaiserlichen
Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-historische Klasse 51.2; Vienna, 1905)
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40
The edition is a formidable example of collaborative scholarly work. In the

first part (pp. 7 118), Bauer goes to great length to describe how he
reconstructed the fragments and their order in the manuscript. After a
description of the hand, which he dates to the first half of the fifth century,
and some observations on the format of the codex, he discusses his readings
passage by passage and provides a lavish commentary, usually ending the
discussion of each leaf with the text that arises from the discussion. In the
concluding chapter, Bauer argues that fol. VI was the last leaf of the codex and,
since the years of Bishop Theophilus episcopate (385 412) are mentioned in
fol. VI ro 22,4 he dates the text to shortly after 412. His contribution ends with
three appendices on specific aspects of the text. In the second part (pp. 119
203), Strzygowski provides a detailed description of the images and adduces
numerous parallels in order to place them in an art historical context.5 The
volume is crowned by eight magnificent double plates in colour, one for the
recto and verso of each of the eight glass plates.6
In 1992, a tiny fragment (3.9 x 4.0 cm) of the same manuscript surfaced in
the papyrus collection of Vienna.7 The recto of the fragment shows the head of a
female figure, which joins to the top of fragment A of fol. I ro, where
personifications of the Roman months are depicted, in this case, of the month
July. The text above the head and on the verso confirms Bauers reconstructed
text.8 Unfortunately, the editor does not discuss the provenance of the fragment.
Now we may wonder whether it is a coincidence that a fragment from the same
manuscript that was delivered to Vienna in 1901 turned up in the papyrus
collection of precisely that city. One could therefore suspect that this small
fragment was brought from Russia with the others, but was then somehow lost
5
6
7
8
1 3. The collection was sold by Golenischev to the Russian government in 1909 and
thereupon entered (what later became) the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. See A.I.
Elanskaya, The Literary Coptic Manuscripts in the A.S. Pushkin State Fine Arts Museum
in Moscow (Leiden, 1994) 1; W.R. Dawson, E.P. Uphill, M.L. Bierbrier, Who Was Who
in Egyptology (London, 19953) 170; O. Etinhof, The Coptic Art Collection of Vladimir
Semjonovich Golenischev in Moscow, in S. Emmel et al. (eds), gypten und Nubien in
sptantiker und christlicher Zeit, 2 vols (Wiesbaden, 1999) 1.127 34 at 127 (our text is
mentioned on p. 131). The papyrus was accessed in 1911 and received the inventory
number 310.
Throughout their edition, Bauer and Strzygowski refer to the text according to the
plates on which they appear (Pls I VIII). As the first six plates contain the fragments of
six leaves of the manuscript, however, we shall refer to them as fols I VI, while we shall
refer to the miscellaneous fragments as Pls VII VIII.
The interpretation of the illustrations is clearly influenced by the principles set out in his
Orient oder Rom, which is cited several times.
Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), Pls I VIII.
P.Vindob. K 11630, edited by U. Horak, Illuminierte Papyri, Pergamente und Papiere I
(Vienna, 1992) 97 102 (no. 19).
Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 17 8.

The Alexandrian World Chronicle
41
during the initial unpacking and accidentally left behind in Vienna after the
remainder of the manuscript had been returned.9 However, no records relating
to this papyrus fragment are known to exist and so this must remain an
hypothesis.10 Otherwise we have to assume that the fragment entered the
antiquities market separately from the fragments purchased by Golenischev and
was then acquired for the Vienna collection.11
From the moment of its publication in 1905, the Alexandrian world
chronicle has generated much scholarly interest. The bibliography on various
aspects of what is sometimes unofficially called the Golenischev papyrus
(P.Golenischev or P.Gol.) is vast,12 and the papyrus has been included in all
major databases and catalogues,13 and even some encyclopediac works.14 Among
the many aspects of the papyrus that have been studied, two main lines of
scholarship can be discerned: 1. its art historical value, in particular for the study
9 From the detailed descriptions of fol. I ro, fr. A in Bauer and Strzygowski,
Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 7 8, 17 8, 119, it appears that they are
unaware of this fragment.
10 We would like to thank Bernhard Palme, Director of the Papyrussammlung der
sterreichischen Nationalbibliothek, for kindly checking whether any additional
information could be found about this papyrus fragment.
11 Cf. Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 11 2 where Bauer
comments upon the fragmentary character of the manuscript and states that he would
not be surprised if more fragments turned up on the antiquities market, but that a
consultation with several prominent papyrologists had yielded no further known pieces
of the manuscript, either among the better-known dealers or the major papyrus
collections.
12 O. Kurz, The Date of the Alexandrian World Chronicle, in A. Rosenauer, G. Weber
(eds), Kunsthistorische Forschungen Otto Pcht zu seinem 70. Geburtstag (Salzburg,
1972) 17 22 provides a solid overview of the scholarship as far as the early 1970s,
including a useful list of the major reviews of Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische
Weltchronik (see fn. 3) on p. 17 (n. 3); K. Aland, H.-U. Rosenbaum, Repertorium der
griechischen christlichen Papyri. Band II: Kirchenvter Papyri, Teil 1: Beschreibungen
(Berlin, 1995) 1 10 (no. KV 1) provides an extensive bibliography with important
studies up to 1995, which is, however, just the tip of the iceberg, as the many additional
references throughout this article make clear.
13 J. van Haelst, Catalogue des papyrus littraires juifs et chrtiens (Paris, 1976) 632
(no. 631); E.G. Turner, The Typology of the Early Codex (Philadelphia, 1977) 119
(no. 370); Verzeichnis illuminierter edierter Papyri (ViP) nos 78 106, to be found in
Horak, Illuminierte Papyri (see fn. 7), 235 7; Aland and Rosenbaum, Repertorium II 1
(see fn. 12), 1 10 (no. KV 1); Mertens-Pack3 no. 2244, available online at http://
promethee.philo.ulg.ac.be/cedopal/indexsimple.asp; Leuven Database of Ancient Books
(LDAB) no. 6345 (= Trismegistos no. 65104), available online at http://www.trismegis
tos.org/ldab/text.php?tm=65104.
14 E.g. H. Leclercq, Chronique alexandrine, in DACL 3.1 (1911) 1546 53. Cf. A.S. Atiya
(ed.), The Coptic Encyclopedia (New York, 1991), in which our text is mentioned in the
entry by D.P. Spanel, Theophilus, in vol. 7, pp. 2247 53 at 2248.

42
of ancient book illumination,15 and 2. its palaeographical date, for which various
dates have been proposed between the early fifth century, following the first
edition, and the eighth century.16
Of the individual leaves, most attention by far has been given to the best
preserved leaf, fol. VI. The text, which extends from 383 to 392, consists of a list
of consuls, along with the associated year in the Era of Diocletian and governor
of Egypt (praefectus augustalis) two Egyptian chronological systems to which
have been added the occasional striking event or events that happened in that
year. As such, this leaf has been incorporated into studies of Late Antique
consular lists and chronicle traditions, the chronological systems of Late
Antique Egypt and the praefecti augustales of the fourth century.17 Most eyecatching and widely reproduced is the picture of a triumphant Theophilus on top
of the Serapeum at Alexandria (fol. VI vo), which has been seen especially in a
series of recent studies as an iconic image of the episcopate of Theophilus and
one of the defining moments in the history of Late Antique Alexandria.18 This
15 E.g. J. Wilpert, Beitrge zur christlichen Archologie XIII. Das Bild des Patriarchen
Theophilos in einer alexandrinischen Weltchronik, RQA 24 (1910) 3 29, with the
response by J. Strzygowski, Wilperts Kritik meiner alexandrinischen Weltchronik,
RQA 24 (1910) 172 5; H. Gerstinger, Buchmalerei, in RAC II (1954) 733 56 at 748
(no. 17); K. Weitzmann, Studies in Classical and Byzantine Manuscript Illumination
(Chicago, 1971) 106 (Fig. 80), 108 (Fig. 84), 121 (Fig. 101); Horak, Illuminierte Papyri
(see fn. 7), 97 102 (no. 19). The illustrations also frequently appear in exhibition
catalogues, e. g. Koptische Kunst. Christentum am Nil (3. Mai bis 15. August 1963 in Villa
Hgel, Essen) (Essen, 1963) 450 1 (no. 623) and, most recently, S. Hodjash in B. Alaoui
(ed.), Lart copte en gypte. 2000 ans de christianisme (Paris, 2000) 42 (no. 10).
16 Kurz, Date (see fn. 12), 17 8 provides an overview, with references, of the different
dates proposed, which is updated by Aland and Rosenbaum, Repertorium II 1 (see
fn. 12), 1 2; for more recent literature on this topic, see the discussion on the
palaeography below.
17 Late Antique chronicle traditions and consular lists: R.S. Bagnall, A. Cameron, S.R.
Schwartz, K.A. Worp, Consuls of the Later Roman Empire (Atlanta, 1987) 53; B. Croke,
City Chronicles in Late Antiquity, in G. Clarke, B. Croke, A.E. Nobbs, R. Mortley
(eds), Reading the Past in Late Antiquity (Rushcutters Bay, NSW, 1990) 165 203 at 186;
S. Muhlberger, The Fifth-Century Chroniclers: Prosper, Hydatius, and the Gallic
Chronicler of 452 (Leeds, 1990) 14 5, 38, 41 (n. 109); B. Croke, Chronicles, Annals and
Consular Annals in Late Antiquity, Chiron 31 (2001) 291 331 at 294, 305 6, 308 9,
312, 316 7, 323 6, 331. Chronological systems of Late Antique Egypt: R.S. Bagnall,
K.A. Worp, Chronological Systems of Byzantine Egypt (Leiden, 20042) 70. Fourthcentury praefecti augustales: see references cited in the appendix.
18 E.g. C. Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity. Topography and Social Conflict (Baltimore,
1997) 169, 179 (Fig. 17); B. Legras, Lire en gypte dAlexandre lIslam (Paris, 2002)
131 (Pl. XIV); J.S. McKenzie, S. Gibson, A.T. Reyes, Reconstructing the Serapeum in
Alexandria from the Archaeological Evidence, JRS 94 (2004) 73 121 at 107; S.J. Davis,
The Early Coptic Papacy. The Egyptian Church and Its Leadership in Late Antiquity
(Cairo, 2004) 64 (Fig. 5a b); J. Hahn, Gewalt und religiser Konflikt. Studien zu den

43
text has even been deemed of the highest historical importance in an article
published in 2006, in which J. Hahn uses the historical entry for 392
accompanying the picture as the main argument for dating the so-called
destruction of the Serapeum at Alexandria to 392,19 a date that has since found
growing general acceptance.20
The current article emanates from the wide-ranging project directed by the
first-named author of this article (RWB) and Michael Kulikowski (Pennsylvania
State University) to study the Latin chronicle traditions from the late Republic
to the early Middle Ages.21 In the context of this project, the first-named author
(RWB) invited the second-named author (JHFD) in 2011 to collaborate on two
Auseinandersetzungen zwischen Heiden, Christen und Juden im Osten des Rmischen
Reiches (von Konstantin bis Theodosius II.) (Berlin, 2004) 90; Z. Kiss, Alexandria in the
Fourth to Seventh Centuries, in R.S. Bagnall (ed.), Egypt in the Byzantine World, 300
700 (Cambridge, 2007) 187 206 at 193 (Fig. 9.3); J.S. McKenzie, The Architecture of
Alexandria and Egypt, c. 300 BC to AD 700 (New Haven, 2007) 246 (Fig. 411); N.
Russell, Theophilus of Alexandria (Abingdon/New York, 2007) 7 (cover); J. Hahn, The
Conversion of the Cult Statues. The Destruction of the Serapeum 392 A.D. and the
Transformation of Alexandria into the Christ-Loving City, in J. Hahn, S. Emmel and
U. Gotter (eds), From Temple to Church. Destruction and Renewal of Local Cultic
Topography in Late Antiquity (Leiden, 2008) 335 65 at 350 (Figs 1 2); M. Sabottka,
Das Serapeum in Alexandria. Untersuchungen zur Architektur und Baugeschichte des
Heiligtums von der frhen ptolemischen Zeit bis zur Zerstrung 391 n. Chr. (Cairo,
2008) 331 (Pl. 185); T. Myrup Kristensen, Religious Conflict in Late Antique
Alexandria: Christian Responses to Pagan Statues in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries
CE, in G. Hinge, J.A. Krasilnikoff (eds), Alexandria. A Cultural and Religious Melting
Pot (Aarhus, 2009) 158 75 at 165; E.J. Watts, Riot in Alexandria. Tradition and Group
Dynamics in Late Antique Pagan and Christian Communities (Berkeley, 2010) 205 7
(Fig. 5); A. Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome (Oxford, 2011) 63.
19 J. Hahn, Vetustus error extinctus est. Wann wurde das Sarapeion von Alexandria
zerstrt?, Historia 55 (2006) 368 83, announced in his Gewalt und religiser Konflikt
(see fn. 18), 85 (n. 338), and referred to in Conversion of the Cult Statues (see fn. 18),
344 (n. 27) and Gesetze als Waffe? Die kaiserliche Religionspolitik und die Zerstrung
der Tempel, in J. Hahn (ed.), Sptantiker Staat und religiser Konflikt. Imperiale und
lokale Verwaltung und die Gewalt gegen Heiligtmer (Berlin, 2011) 201 20 at 215 (n.
40).
20 E.g. J.H.F. Dijkstra, Philae and the End of Ancient Egyptian Religion. A Regional Study
of Religious Transformation (298 642 CE) (Leuven, 2008) 88 (n. 10); J.S. McKenzie,
The Serapeum of Alexandria: Its Destruction and Reconstruction (review of Sabottka,
Serapeum (see fn. 18)), JRA 22 (2009) 772 82 at 779; Myrup Kristensen, Religious
Conflict (see fn. 18), 163 (n. 22); G. Bonamente, Einziehung und Nutzung von
Tempelgut durch Staat und Stadt in der Sptantike, in Hahn, Sptantiker Staat (see
fn. 19), 55 92 at 77, with n. 105; J.H.F. Dijkstra, The Fate of the Temples in Late
Antique Egypt, in L. Lavan, M. Mulryan (eds), The Archaeology of Late Antique
Paganism (Leiden, 2011) 389 436 at 394 (n. 22). But cf. e. g. Cameron, Last Pagans
(see fn. 18), 672, who stays with the traditionally accepted 391 date.
21 R.W. Burgess, M. Kulikowski, Mosaics of Time. The Latin Chronicle Traditions from the
First Century BC to the Sixth Century AD, 4 vols (Turnhout, 2013 ).

44
important papyrological texts for the study of the Late Antique chronicle
traditions, both written in Greek, illustrated and from Late Antique Egypt: the
parchment P.Berol. inv. 13296, better known as the Berlin Chronicle, and fol.
VI of the papyrus referred to as the Alexandrian World Chronicle. Our
collaboration has already resulted in a first article, in which we place the former
text in the context of the Late Antique chronicle traditions and provide a reedition and extensive commentary.22 The present article completes our diptych
by presenting a study of the latter text.
Although the focus of this article will be on fol. VI, the portion of the text
that has received the most attention, in the first section we shall start by looking
at the Alexandrian World Chronicle as a whole by discussing its nature and
place within the Late Antique chronicle traditions. We continue with a
description of the papyrus, in particular surveying the literature on its
palaeographic date, which as we shall see is now generally considered
among the specialists to be in the sixth century. We then offer a new text of fol.
VI, including some improvements based on a much fuller knowledge of the
chronicle traditions than was available to previous scholars working on this text
and a complete re-evaluation of the readings in the first edition and the later
corrections. The text is followed by a critical apparatus and, for the first time, a
translation and detailed commentary. In the light of the present study, we argue
in the last section that this text cannot be used as evidence for dating the
destruction of the Serapeum to 392, which as a result throws open again its date
to 391/392. Finally, in an appendix, we shall reconsider the list of praefecti
augustales.23
The Nature of the Text and its Place in the Late Antique Consularia
Traditions
The Golenischev papyrus, as we have seen, is usually referred to as an
Alexandrian world chronicle, and the same holds true for the late eighthcentury Latin translation of a similar Greek work that was first published in
1606 by the great French scholar of historical chronology, Joseph Scaliger, and
has since come to be known as the Excerpta latina barbari or Barbarus
22 R.W. Burgess, J.H.F. Dijkstra, The Berlin Chronicle (P. Berol. inv. 13296): A New
Edition of the Earliest Extant Late Antique Consularia, APF 58 (2012) 273 301.
23 We would like to thank Olaf Kaper, Gertrud van Loon and Klaas Worp for
bibliographical advice, and Peter van Minnen for discussion of the text as well as
useful comments on a first draft of this article.

45
Scaligeri.24 However, in spite of the common appellation neither is a chronicle.

Each text contains a number of chronological summaries and regnal lists, which
mark them out as a kind of chronological compendium that should now be
referred to as a chronograph to distinguish the genre from the annalistic
accounts that are chronicles. One of the documents in each of these chronographs (represented by fol. VI of the Golenischev papyrus), however, does look
more like an annalistic chronicle than the rest of the content and in each case we
are dealing with a sub-genre of the chronicle called consularia.25
These are chronicles that in the original Latin versions in Late Antiquity
were marked by the use of consuls as the sole system for dating, short entries
that describe for the most part imperial and local events (usually portents) and
an avoidance of ecclesiastical history, all in a distinctively clipped style. Such
texts existed from the very beginning of the Empire the Fasti Ostienses is just
one of a number of surviving epigraphic consularia from this period and other
surviving Late Antique examples of this sort of chronicle are the Descriptio
consulum, the Consularia Berolinensia (henceforth Cons. Ber., that is, the work
known as the Berlin Chronicle mentioned above), the Paschale Campanum,
Consularia Vindobonensia priora (Cons. Vind. pr.) and the closely related
Excerpta Sangallensia (Exc. Sang.), Consularia Vindobonensia posteriora (Cons.
Vind. post.), the Consularia Scaligeriana (Cons. Scal., that is, the third and last
section of the above-mentioned Excerpta latina barbari, which can more
appropriately be called the Chronographia Scaligeriana (Chron. Scal.)), the
Consularia Hafniensia (Cons. Haf.) and the Consularia Marsiburgensia (Cons.
Mars.).26 Accordingly we shall throughout this article refer to fol. VI of this
24 J.J. Scaliger, Thesaurus temporum (Leiden, 1606), second part, pp. 44 70; Thesaurus
temporum (Amsterdam, 16582), second part, pp. 58 85. On Scaliger, see A. Grafton, Joseph
Scaliger. A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship, 2 vols (Oxford, 1983 1993).
25 See Burgess and Kulikowski, Mosaics of Time 1 (see fn. 21), 8 57, 59 61 for the
definitions of chronicle, chronograph and consularia.
26 The consularia of the Descriptio consulum, written in Latin without illustrations, whose
fasti (consular list) cover the years from 509 BCE to 468 CE, survive in an early ninthcentury manuscript (Berlin, Philipps 1829, fols 173 vo 183 ro, ed. R.W. Burgess, The
Chronicle of Hydatius and the Consularia Constantinopolitana. Two Contemporary
Accounts of the Final Years of the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1993) 175 245). The Cons.
Ber. is a single leaf of a Greek parchment containing illustrations and copied in the late
fifth or early sixth century (see now the re-edition by Burgess and Dijkstra, Berlin
Chronicle (see fn. 22)). The Paschale Campanum is an Easter table into which have
been added historical notes down to 512 (Vatican Library, Reginae 2077; ed. T.
Mommsen, Chronica minora, 3 vols (= MGH AA 9, 11, 13; Berlin, 1892 1898) 1.745
50). The Cons. Vind. pr. and Cons. Vind. post. (collectively referred to as the Cons. Vind.)
are different recensions of the same Latin text that was completed in 527 CE, the former
originally extending to ca. 575 (the manuscript of the Cons. Vind. pr. concludes in 493,
but the closely related Exc. Sang. continues to 572) and the latter to 539 (Vienna,
sterreichische Nationalbibliothek 3416, fols 15 ro 24 vo (post.) and 47 ro 53 ro (pr.),

46
papyrus as the Consularia Golenischevensia (Cons. Gol.) and to the work as a

whole as the Chronographia Golenischevensis (Chron. Gol.).
As can be seen from the following table (Table 1) both the Chron. Gol. and
the Chron. Scal. are based upon a common source made up of the same
collection of three independent texts: a Greek compilation of early 235 called
the Sumacyc wqmym ja 1t_m !p jtseyr jslou 6yr t/r 1mestsgr Blqar
(A Collection of Chronologies from the Creation of the World to the Present
Day) better known through the Latin translations that are collectively called
the Liber generationis which originated as a simple guide to the genealogies
and chronology of the Old Testament;27 a compilation of regnal lists that derives
for the most part from the Chronographiae of Julius Africanus, written in 221;
and an augmented Greek translation of a witness to the Cons. Ital. that is closely
related to the Cons. Vind. post.28 At the same time, it will be noted from the
and St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek 878, pp. 303 5 (excerpts of Cons. Vind. pr.), ed.
Mommsen, Chronica minora 1, 263 4, 274 312, 316 20, 330 6, where they are called
the Fasti Vindobonenses). The Chron. Scal. is a late eighth-century Latin translation of a
sixth-century Greek Alexandrian compilation (see the study by R.W. Burgess, The Date,
Purpose, and Historical Context of the Original Greek and the Latin Translation of the
So-Called Excerpta Latina Barbari, Traditio 68 (2013) 27 82, and below). The Greek
exemplar from which the Chron. Scal. was made was illustrated, but the Chron. Scal. only
preserves the spaces occupied by the original illustrations. The Cons. Scal. is an
augmented Greek translation of a recension of the Cons. Vind. post. that forms the third
and final section of the Chron. Scal. (Paris, Bibliothque nationale lat. 4884, complete
edition: ed. C. Frick, Chronica minora (Leipzig, 1892) 184 370, and partial edition: ed.
Mommsen, Chronica minora 1, 91 129 (first section), 272, 274 85, 290 8 (Cons. Scal.)).
The Cons. Haf. survives as additions to and a continuation of Prosper down to 523 with an
epitome conclusion that takes it down to 619 with two later additions in 626 and 640/641
(Copenhagen, Royal Library 454; ed. Mommsen, Chronica minora 1, 298 313, 317 21,
331 3, 337 9, where they are called the Additamenta Havniensia and Auctuarium
Havnisense). The Cons. Mar. is the bottom half of a worn Latin parchment leaf of the
eleventh century with interlinear illustrations (Merseburg Cathedral ms. 202, ed. B.
Bischoff, W. Koehler, Eine illustrierte Ausgabe der sptantiken ravennater Annalen, in
W.R.W. Koehler (ed.), Medieval Studies in Memory of A. Kingsley Porter, 2 vols
(Cambridge, MA, 1939) 1.125 38). All but the first two of the above texts are witnesses to
a common tradition called the Consularia Italica (Cons. Ital.) by Mommsen, Chronica
minora 1, 251 73. They will all appear in Burgess and Kulikowski, Mosaics of Time 2 (see
fn. 21), with new introductions, editions, translations and commentaries.
27 Interestingly, the first edition of the Greek text was produced by Bauer and appeared in
the same year as the Chron. Gol.: A. Bauer, Die Chronik des Hippolytos im Matritensis
graecus 121 (Leipzig, 1905). This is not a coincidence, as Bauer had requested the
manuscript from Madrid for the purposes of his study of the Chron. Gol. in 1903 (Bauer,
Chronik, 1 (n. 1)). It should be mentioned, however, that there is no good evidence that
Hippolytus ever wrote a chronicle or, even if he did, that the Sumacyc wqmym/Liber
generationis is a translation of that work. See Burgess and Kulikowski, Mosaics of Time
1 (see fn. 21), 366 71.
28 For more on these texts, see Burgess, Date (see fn. 26), esp. 33 41, 71 8.

47
table below that the Chron. Gol. was originally a larger compilation with
additional texts, whose place in the collection is unknown: some kind of
calendar commentary, an illustrated list of Old Testament prophets with
quotations and descriptions, and illustrations of New Testament figures, of which
the latter may, in fact, relate to material in the Cons. Scal.29
Table 1
Chron. Gol.
Chron. Scal.30
fol. I ro, depictions of the Roman months (p. 18)31

fol. I vo, synchronistic list of Hebrew, Egyptian
and Athenian months (p. 18)
fol. II ro, islands of the Mediterranean (p. 29)

fol. II vo, provinces of Asia Minor (p. 29)
= 125 6
= 123 n. 1
29 The Cons. Scal. includes a large number of sixth-century interpolations from the New
Testament and the apocryphal work called the Proteuangelium Iacobi describing events
between the annunciation of the birth of John to Zachariah and the death of Judas (ed.
Mommsen, Chronica minora 1 (see fn. 26), 276 82 (nos 45, 52, 63, 68, 75, 80 (based on
an existing entry), 86, 91, 100, 106, 110, 112, 114, 117 (based on an existing entry), 118
and 120). These entries would certainly have been illustrated since there are large spaces
for the following events (* = interlinear space of twelve to thirteen lines; others are
marginal): birth of John, the Magi, Massacre of the Innocents*, death of Zachariah,
baptism of Christ, death of John*, Crucifixion* and Resurrection*. As a result the
fragmentary illustrations on Pl. VII ro vo of the Chron. Gol. Anna, Elisabeth,
Zechariah, John (?), Mary and the infant Christ, along with an angel (Bauer and
Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 80 1, 122 4) could well belong
to this third, consularia section of the text. If they do not belong here, then there is no
other place for them on the evidence of the Chron. Scal. The same is true for the
illustrations of the prophets: there is no place for them in a text that looked like the
Chron. Scal. and so Bauers placement of them as fol. III is unlikely to be correct. Like
the calendar commentary they may have been part of an independent work that
preceded or followed the three sections that parallel the Chron. Scal. and the same could
be true of the New Testament fragments (cf. Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische
Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 36 9). Such texts may also have originally been a part of the
Chron. Scal., but have been lost before it was copied into Latin: we know for a fact that
the end of the text was lost before it was copied (see Burgess, Date (see fn. 26), 38 9,
57).
30 In the following references to the Chron. Scal., the numbers refer to the entry numbers
in the edition by Mommsen, as elsewhere in this article, but the page numbers are to
Fricks edition, as they come from the section of the Chron. Scal. that was not included
in Mommsens Chronica minora (see n. 26 above).
31 This includes the new fragment published by Horak (see n. 7 above). The page numbers
refer to Bauers edition.

48
Table 1 (Continued)
fol. III ro vo, list of prophets with quotations
or descriptions (pp. 35 6)
fol. IV ro, list of Roman kings and chronological

summary of Alban and Roman kings (p. 43)
fol. IV vo, Lacedaemonian kings and chronological
summary (p. 43)
= p. 302.23 8
fol. V ro, Macedonian kings and summary (p. 48)

fol. V vo, summary of Lydian kings (p. 48)
= p. 310.16 24
= p. 312.14 7
fol. VI ro vo : consularia from 383 92 (pp. 73 5)
= 321 9
= p. 304.6 23
The similarity between the Chron. Gol. and the Chron. Scal., the more
impressive because it incorporates the same three independent works, strongly
indicates that both derived from a common source, a hypothetical text that we
can call the Chronographia Alexandrina (Chron. Alex.).32 We have abundant
evidence for an even earlier source used by the compiler of the Chron. Alex., a
distinctively augmented recension of the Sumacyc wqmym/Liber generationis
(the first section of the Chron. Gol. and Chron. Scal.) that was used by the
authors of later works, particularly the Chronicon Paschale (henceforth Chron.
Pasch.) and the so-called Annales of Eutychius.33 There is also substantial
independent evidence for a distinctive portion of the Sumacyc wqmym that
probably even predates it (that is, pre-235), the Dialeqislr t/r c/r, the
Division of the World, an expansion of Genesis 10 that recounts the peoples
and features of the world according to the three sons of Noah.34 Thus we can see
how an Urtext can grow and accumulate in different ways as it is read, compiled,
32 Following the lead of Frick, Chronica minora (see fn. 26), lxxxix xc, cxc.
33 The Chron. Pasch. is a Greek chronicle/chronograph written in Constantinople ca. 630
(ed. L. Dindorf, Chronicon Paschale, 2 vols (Bonn, 1832)). The Annales are more
accurately referred to as the Nazm al-jawhar, which is an Arabic chronicle that extended
from Adam down to 935 (ed. M. Breydy, Das Annalenwerk des Eutychios von
Alexandrien. Ausgewhlte Geschichten und Legenden kompiliert von Sad ibn Batrq
um 935 AD (= CSCO 471 2; Leuven, 1985)). For the relationship among the Chron.
Scal., Chron. Pasch. and the Nazm al-jawhar, see Frick, Chronica minora (see fn. 26),
lxxxix xc, cxc cxcv, cxcviii cxcix, cciii.
34 For the many traditions of this work, see A. von Gutschmid, Zur Kritik des Dialeqislr
t/r c/r, RhM 13 (1858) 377 408, repr. in Kleine Schriften, 5 vols (Leipzig, 1889 1894)
5.240 73, and Untersuchungen ber den Dialeqislr t/r c/r und andere Bearbeitungen der Mosaischen Vlkertafel, in Kleine Schriften 5, 585 717; Bauer and
Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 92 105; J.M. Scott, Geography
in Early Judaism and Christianity. The Book of Jubilees (Cambridge, 2002) 135 58, who
argues that the Diamerismos itself had a Hellenistic Jewish source, the Book of Jubilees.

49
and copied, modified, edited and augmented to suit the compiler or copyist, a
phenomenon that is typical of all Byzantine chronography. As a result, one text
was rarely an exact copy of any other single text but an amalgam of different
traditions, texts and personal modifications. This explains why texts like the
Chron. Gol. and the Chron. Scal. that have abundant similarities and rely upon
the same ultimate source can still exhibit differences.35
The close relationship that we have established between the Chron. Gol.
and the Chron. Scal. allows us to use the more substantial remains of the Chron.
Scal. as a guide to the original content of the Chron. Gol. and most especially its
date, since both chronographs are linked by a common source and must be later
than that source. This is particularly important because neither the Cons. Gol.
nor the Cons. Scal. reports anything that must be later than 412, the death of
Theophilus, whose years in office are given in his ordination notice. It is sections
two and three of the Chron. Scal. that provide us with the crucial dating
evidence we need. First of all, the Chron. Scal. contains an emperor list with
regnal years that continues in a complete form down to the deaths of Basiliscus
and Marcus after a reign of twenty months (January 475 to August/September
476) and the names of Zeno and Anastasius without regnal years, which implies
a date after the death of Anastasius (10 July 518).36 The key for dating the
common source, however, is part three of the Chron. Gol., its consularia section,
because it has parallels of content, wording and chronology to the extant Latin
texts that allow us to place it into a historiographical context.37
These parallels are best understood presented year by year. In the following
comparisons single underlining highlights general parallels among the texts, double
underlining highlights parallels only between the Cons. Gol. and Cons. Scal.
383
Cons. Gol.
[Tot\ t` 5tei 1svcg C]q. [atiamr b basiker rp] L
. anlou [toO tuqmmou 1m
Keud]om\ pq [g- jak(amd_m) Septel(bq_ym), f 1sti]m Hh j, [ja aqt` t` 5tei
1ce]mmhg [jmqior 1m Jymstam]timoup[kei pq e- Qd_m Septel]b. qym, f [1stim Hh
ia.]
Cons. Scal.
Eo anno occisus est Gratianus imperator sub Maximo tyranno in Leuduna VIII kl.
Septembris et eodem anno coronatus est in imperio Arcadius in Constantinopolim V
idus Septembris. (321 2)38
35 A good sense of how complicated the results of Quellenforschung can be can be found in
the survey of sources and parallels for the Chron. Scal. in Appendix 1 of Burgess, Date
(see fn. 26), 71 8.
36 See Burgess, Date (see fn. 26), 38, 44, 68, for more details.
37 For these texts, see n. 26 above.
38 For the dating error here, see commentary at ro 1 8 below.

50
(see 385: natus est Honorius in Constantinopolim V idus Sep.)

Cons. Vind. pr.
His consulibus Gratianus occisus est a Maximo Leuduno [ms. V: Leudimo] VIII kl.
Sept. Eo anno natus est Honorius Constantinopoli V idus Sept. et leuatus est
Arcadius <imperator>. (502 3)
384
Cons. Gol.
[Uiwoldou ja Jkeqw]o. u t_m kal(pqot\tym) [1p toO aqtoO )mtymmou
aqcousta]kou.
Cons. Scal.
Richomedo et Chlearco clarissimorum, sub eodem Antonino <augustalio>. (323 4)
Eo anno Timotheus episcopus Alexandrinus obiit Epifi XXVI et sedit pro eo
Theofilus archidiaconus annos XXVIII et illos sacrilegos exterminauit. (325)
Cons. Vind. post.
Recimede et Clearco (504)
Cons. Vind. pr.
Richomere et Clearco (504)
385
Cons. Gol.
)qjadou a[qc(ostou) uRoO Heodosou t] a- ja Badymor t[oO kal(pqot\tou)
1p Eqs]e. b. .o. u. a. qcou[st]a. k(ou).
Cons. Scal.
Arcadio augusto filio Theodosii et Baudone clarissimo, sub Frorentio augustalio.
(326 7)
Eo anno natus est Honorius in Constantinopolim V idus Sep.

Cons. Vind. post.
Archadio augusto et Bautone (505)
Cons. Vind. pr.
Arcadio et Bautone (505)
(328)
386
Cons. Gol.
jmyqou 1p[ivamesttou ja]saqor t a- ja Eqodou to. O. [kal(pqot\tou)] 1p
Paukmou aqcoustak(ou).
Cons. Scal.
Theophanes, Chronographia39
Tot\ t` 5tei Heodsior Aucoustor jmqiom, uRm aqtoO, 1pivamstatom ja
vpatom !mdeinem. (AM 5877 = 385; p. 70.3 5 de Boor)
39 Ed. C. de Boor, Theophanis Chronographia, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1883 1885). The relevance
of Theophanes for these comparions will be explained below.

Cons. Vind. post.

Honorio et Ebodio (506)
Cons. Vind. pr.
Monorio nobilissimo puero et Euuodio
51
(506)
387
Cons. Gol.
Bakemtim. i.a. [moO a]q. c(ostou) t e- ja Eqtqopou toO kal(pqot\tou) 1. p. [9quh]q. ou
aqcoustakou.
Tot\ t` 5[tei Til]heor b 1psjopor ). [kenamd]q. ear, b !dekvr P[tqou toO
1]pisjpou, 1teke. [tgsem 9p]e. v jr Qmdij(t_omor) b j[a 1jhise]m !mt aqtoO
Hev[ikor 5tg jg] ja aqt` t` 5[tei Lnilor] 1pqhg eQr basik[a pq 1 2
jaka]md(_m) Laqtym ja[ 1svcg 1m J]o. qt_mi pq e- jakam[d(_m) Sept]elbq(_ym).
Cons. Scal.
Valentiniano augusto III et Eutropio clarissimo (329) [text ends]
(see 384: Eo anno Timotheus episcopus Alexandrinus obiit Epifi XXVI et sedit pro
eo Theofilus archidiaconus annos XXVIII et illos sacrilegos exterminauit.)
Theophanes, Chronographia
Tot\ t` 5tei Tilohou tekeutsamtor toO 1pisjpou )kenamdqear lgm 9piv
eQjdi 6jt, weiqotome?tai !mt aqtoO Hevikor 5tg jgf. (AM 5879 = 387; p. 70.23 5 de Boor)
Tot\ t` 5tei Heodsior Lnilom tm tqammom !me?ke pq ibf jakamd_m
Aqcostou. (AM 5880 = 388; p. 70.27 8 de Boor)
Cons. Vind. post.
Valentiniano IIII et Eutropio (507) [text ends]
Cons. Vind. pr.
Valentiniano III et Eutropio (507)
(see 510 (s.a. 388): occisus est Maximus V kal. Septembris.)
388
Cons. Gol.
Heodoso. u aqc[(ostou) t b ja] Jumg[cou] toO. k. al(pqot\tou) 1[p )ken]m. dqou
[aqc]o. us[t]a. kou.
Cons. Vind. pr.
Theodosio II et Cynegio (509)
His consulibus occisus est Maximus V kal. Septembris. (510)
389
Cons. Gol.
[Tilasou j]a P[qoltou t_]m. [kal(pqot\tym) 1p Eqa]c. q. .o. [u aqcousta]k. .[ou].
[Tot\ t` 5tei let toO uRoO] jm[yqou Heodsior eQs/khe] 1m [Ul, ja aqtm eQr
basi]k[a 5stexem Qd(o?r) Youm(_air) ja] 5d[yje jocciqiom Uylaoir.]
Insufficient text survives for comparison. See the commentary for the parallels
used for reconstruction.

52
390
Cons. Gol.
Ba[kemtimiamoO aqc(ostou) t d ja] M[eyteqou toO kal(pqot\tou) 1p
]
au[
]
Cons. Vind. pr./Exc. Sang.
Valentiniano IIII et Neoterio (513)
His consulibus signum apparuit in caelo quasi columna pendens per dies XXX. (514)
391
Cons. Gol.
Ta. [tiamoO ja Sullwou t_m kal(pqot\tym) 1p Eqacqou aqcoust(akou).]
[Tot\ t` 5tei Bakemtimiamr 1teketgsem 1m Bimm, pq d Qd_m Youm(ym) j]a. .
1. p. . q[hg eQr basika E]q. c. mior [pq ia jakamd(_m)] Sept. e. l. b(q_ym), [f] 1. s. t. i.m H. [h] jc.
Cons. Vind. pr.
Taciano et Symmaco (515)
His consulibus defunctus est Valentinianus Viennae IIII idus Iun. Eo die [scr. anno]
leuatus <est> Eugenius imperator XI kl. Sept. (516 7)
392
Cons. Gol.
)qjado. [u aqc(ostou)] t b ja Uouvmou [toO kal(pqot\tou)] 1. p. . t. oO a. q. toO
Eqa. [cqou aqco]u. s. t. a. k. (ou) )ken. [amdqear.]
To[t\ t` 5tei 1m] .ir 1s. vcg Eq. [cmior pq] g-. Q.d. _m Yamou. [aq(_ym), f 1stim Hh] g-.
Cons. Vind. pr.
Arcadio VII et Rufino (518)
(cf. 522a (s.a. 394): His consulibus occisus est Eugenius VIII idus Septembris.)
The parallels among the Cons. Gol., Cons. Vind., Cons. Scal. and Theophanes
are obvious from the above comparisons and hardly need to be elaborated. The
overall parallel selection of historical events (which involves what is included as
well as what is omitted) and wording, and in particular the shared common
errors of dating Honorius birth in 384 to 38340 and Valentinian IIs death/
40 Note that although Honorius birth has slipped from 383 to 385 in the Cons. Scal., the
day of the month remains associated with Arcadius accession in 383. This shows that
originally the two entries must have stood side by side. See commentary at ro 5 8 below.

53
Eugenius proclamation in 392 to 391 prove a common source behind the

Cons. Vind., Cons. Scal. and Cons. Gol. traditions. Likewise, it is the parallels
of selection and wording, along with the additions of the praefecti augustales
and the episcopal note on the death of Timothy and ordination of Theophilus as
well as the use of clarissimo/toO kalpqottou for non-imperial consuls, sub
eodem/1p toO aqtoO for multi-year augustales after their first year and eo anno/
tot\ t` 5tei instead of his consulibus/tat, t0 rpate41 that confirm the
Alexandrian common source (Chron. Alex.) behind the Cons. Scal. and Cons.
Gol. that we hypothesized above on the basis of the same three works that are
shared in both texts. The parallels with Theophanes, moreover, prove that the
Chron. Alex. was relying on an even older Alexandrian consularia/chronicle
tradition.
Theophanes wrote a chronicle in continuation of the chronograph of
Syncellus in ca. 814 and one of his sources was an Alexandrian chronicle that
was based upon a Greek translation of an early witness to the Cons. Ital. (see n.
26 above), earlier than the one that lies behind the Cons. Gol. and Cons. Scal.
(that is, the Cons. Vind.), as we shall see.42 The Alexandrian material extends
from around the third quarter of the fourth century to 470. The parallels with
the Cons. Ital. tradition extend from 385 (noted above) to 461 (the accession of
Libius Severus), which suggests a date between 461 and 465 (the death of
Severus) for the recension of the Cons. Ital. and a date soon after 470 for the
Alexandrian chronicle/consularia. In addition to the episcopal parallel above
(s.a. 387), the Chron. Scal. also shares with Theophanes two of his distinctly
Alexandrian entries in the years 361 and 371.43 There is also a shared error
between Theophanes and the Cons. Gol. concerning the date of the death of
Timothy/ordination of Theophilus that further confirms the closeness of these
41 Cf. e. g. the consistent use of tat, t0 rp(ate) in the Cons. Ber. (P.Berol. inv. 13296 i 2,
11, ii 1, 4, 6, 14, 25, 27, 32, 38, 42, 47).
42 C. Mango and R. Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor. Byzantine and Near
Eastern History, AD 284 813 (Oxford, 1997) lxxviii lxxx, 101 (n. 8), 107 (n. 1), 168 (n.
2). It is unlikely that the Alexandrian entries after 470 adduced by Mango and Scott
(p. lxxix) were part of this Alexandrian source, first because they appear 40 years after
the previous Alexandrian entry and second because they are too long and involved for
consularia. For Theophanes as a witness to the Cons. Ital., see Burgess and Kulikowski,
Mosaics of Time 2 (see fn. 21).
43 Mommsen, Chronica minora 1 (see fn. 26), 294 (269) = AM 5852 (p. 46.16 7 de Boor;
eleventh Easter cycle and the age of the world) and p. 371 (286) = AM 5870 (p. 66.4 5
de Boor; the martyrdom of Dorotheus in Alexandria). The chronological system
employed in 361 was developed in Alexandria by the chronographer Annianus who
lived during the episcopate of Theophilus; see A.A. Mosshammer, The Easter Computus
and the Origins of the Christian Era (Oxford, 2008) 198 203, 359 71.

54
traditions.44 These are exactly the sorts of entries that would have belonged to
local chronicle traditions and been copied from earlier chronicles into later
ones.45
While confirming the close relationship among these various texts and
traditions, the above comparison also demonstrates that the chronology of the
Cons. Gol. is unfortunately the most corrupt of all these texts: the proclamation
of Arcadius (383) and the portent of 390 have been lost, the death of Timothy
and the ordination of Theophilus have been shifted ahead two years, the
proclamation of Magnus Maximus in 383 has been added to 387, the death of
Maximus has slipped or been moved from 388 to 387 and the death of Eugenius
has slipped or been moved from 394 to 392. The date of the proclamation of
Maximus is not only in the wrong year, four years after he has already been
called a usurper (b tqammor in 383), but this date is otherwise unknown and
given the lack of such a date in the underlying tradition of the Cons. Ital. (or
anywhere else in the extant historical traditions) it must have been added from
44 Timothy died on 20 July 385; the Cons. Scal. dates it to 384 and the Cons. Gol./
Theophanes to 387. In the Cons. Scal. the death of Athanasius is dated three years late
(376 instead of 373) and the stated durations of the next two bishops, Peter and Timothy,
are correct (seven and five years, Cons. Scal. 300 and 313: 373 + 7 = 380, the correct
date of Peters death, and 380 + 5 = 385, the correct date of Timothys death). If we
count twelve augustales (7 + 5 = 12) in the Cons. Scal. from the death of Athanasius and
include the missing consuls and augustalis for 386, which are present in the Cons. Gol.,
we reach 387, the date of Timothys death in the Cons. Gol. and Theophanes.
Athanasiuss death must therefore have been misdated to 376 in the Chron. Alex. as
well. Obviously, the chronology of the Cons. Scal. does not agree with this count, and
that is because we are counting by augustales. There are two extra consular pairs that
were mistakenly added to the Cons. Scal. after the establishment of the Alexandrian
chronology (309 and 310; they have no associated augustales), no doubt to compensate
for the missing consuls of 382 and 383. If a reader or scribe had counted the years by
consuls, he would have found that the ordination of Timothy was nine years later, not
the stated seven. As a result he must have attempted to resynchronize the later
episcopal entries by moving them back two years each. Unfortunately, he must have
miscounted, because Timothys death is only four years after his ordination, not five.
Knowing this, we can conclude that the Cons. Gol. (and Chron. Alex.) was probably
missing the consuls of 382 383 as well, just as the Cons. Scal. is (otherwise Timothys
death would not have appeared in 387, it would have been in 385). See commentary at ro
1 8 below. The two pairs of intrusive consuls may also have existed in the Cons. Gol., as
is suggested by the accuracy of the Diocletian years (see the commentary at ro 9, below),
but a different method may have been employed to ensure the continued accuracy of
this chronological system.
45 Like the entry in the Cons. Gol., Theophanes entry on Theodosius visit to Rome (AM
5881 = 389; p. 70.31 3 de Boor) also notes that Honorius was proclaimed emperor
there, which is untrue. See the commentary at vo 1 5 below, where all the parallels are
quoted.

55
an unknown source.46 If Bauers reconstruction of this part of the text can be

trusted, and we think it can, we can also add to these problems the fact that
Honorius was not proclaimed emperor in Rome in 389; it happened at the
Hebdomon, seven miles outside Constantinople, in 393.47 This type of confusion
and misdating is very much what we can see in the earlier sections of the Cons.
Scal. and hence it is not surprising to find it here.
Only the death of Gratian and birth of Honorius (383), Theodosius visit to
Rome (389), and the death of Valentinian II and proclamation of Eugenius in
392 are dated correctly (according to the Cons. Ital.). Unfortunately, as noted
above, two of those events were already dated incorrectly in the Cons. Vind. (it
is a characteristic of the entire Cons. Ital. tradition). We can therefore
summarize these observations on the chronology as follows:
Table 2
Event
Death of Gratian
Birth of Honorius
Timothy/Theophilus
Proclamation of Maximus
Death of Maximus
Theodosius visits Rome
Valentinian II/Eugenius
Death of Eugenius
Total
Cons. Gol. Date
Real Date
Difference
383
383
387
387
387
389
391
392
383
384
385
383
388
389
392
394
0
1
+2
+4
1
0
1
2
2 correct / 6 incorrect
The relationship between the texts discussed above can be summarized in

the stemma found below (Fig. 1). As can be seen from this stemma, the Cons.
Scal. and the Cons. Gol. derive from a Greek translation (the Chron. Alex.) of a
Latin text that was part of the Cons. Vind. tradition, so that the Cons. Gol.
cannot be any earlier than the Cons. Vind. The common source of the three
extant Cons. Vind. texts was completed at the end of 527, the date of the last
common entry found in both the Exc. Sang. (= Cons. Vind. pr.; see n. 26) and the
Cons. Vind. post.; the latter recension was completed in 539.48 Since the Cons.
Scal. shares several of the distinctive lacunae and corruptions found in the Cons.
Vind. post., while still retaining in many places the more accurate text found in
the Cons. Vind. pr. that has been lost or corrupted in the Cons. Vind. post. and
avoiding text appearing only in the Cons. Vind. post., we can determine that the
Cons. Scal. derives from an intermediary tradition between the edition of 527,
46 See for more details the commentary at ro 22 6 below.
47 See commentary at vo 1 5 below.
48 Mommsen, Chronica minora 1 (see fn. 26), 332 (678 80) and 334 (695 7).

56
Figure 1
represented to a great extent by the more accurate Cons. Vind. pr./Exc. Sang.
tradition, and the final recension of the less accurate Cons. Vind. post. of 539.
This would put the original Latin text that underlies the Greek text of the Cons.
Scal. shortly after 527 and in any case well before 539, and the Greek translation
of that text (the Chron. Alex.) some time afterwards.49 This close relationship
between the Cons. Scal. and the Cons. Vind. (527) proves that there can be no
close connection between the witnesses to the Cons. Ital. used by Theophanes
Alexandrian source (of ca. 470) and by the Chron. Alex. (of post-527). As a
result, since the Chron. Alex. is also the text underlying the Cons. Gol., this
provides a terminus post quem of 527 for that text as well.
As we have seen in the introduction, Bauer dates the Cons. Gol., and hence
the Chron. Gol. as a whole, to soon after 412, the date of the death of
Theophilus (on the basis of fol. VI ro 22, where the length of his episcopate is
mentioned). One of the main arguments for this date is the close relationship
between the Cons. Gol. and the Cons. Scal., whose text terminates in 387 and
also mentions how long Theophilus was bishop. Yet he dates this text to ca. 412
as well, a date that is definitely too early, as had already been demonstrated by
contemporary scholars.50 Another argument he uses is that he regards fol. VI as
49 This agrees with the incomplete emperor list in the Chron. Scal. that seems to peter out
in the reign of Justin I (518 527) since no regnal years appear for Zeno and Anastasius,
the last two emperors named. See, for more details, Burgess, Date (see fn. 26), 38, 44.
50 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 82 3 (n. 2). Bauer is
swayed here by Mommsen, Chronica minora 1 (see fn. 26), 255 6 into thinking that the
Latin consularia behind the Cons. Scal. ended in 387, which is disproved by the
continuing parallels with the Cons. Ital. in the Cons. Gol. Almost thirty years earlier O.

57
the last folium of the codex. The fact that it is the best preserved of all the leaves
is, according to him, an indication that this is the last leaf, which would have
been protected by the binding. However, there are many ways to account for the
condition of this folium and since we know nothing about the state of the
binding at any point during the codexs existence, an argument centered on the
presence (or absence) of the binding can tell us nothing about the position of fol.
VI in that codex. Besides, as we shall see below, while the recto of the last folium
is indeed well-preserved, the verso is not. In fact, the lower half of the verso is by
far the most poorly preserved of the surviving fragments, which seriously
undermines Bauers claim.51 Moreover, in all the extant examples where we
have the end of consularia preserved, it can be shown that they were continued
down to the time of compilation, which strongly suggests that our consularia did
not end with the year 392, but would have continued until the time of
compilation in the sixth century.52 Bauers conclusion, Aus diesen inneren und
ueren Grnden bin ich der Ansicht, da die Chronik mit dem Verso von Tafel
VI, d. h. mit dem Jahre 392 schlo und bald nach 412 geschrieben wurde, can
therefore be discarded.53 As we shall see in the next section, the palaeography
supports the date that we have observed above from the place of the Chron.
Gol. in the chronicle traditions.
Thus at some date after 527 someone in Alexandria came across an early
recension of the Cons. Vind. post. and decided to incorporate it into a larger
chronographic work. It was translated into Greek and many additions were
made to it, most of them distinctively Alexandrian: the Diocletian years and
augustales for dating, some Egyptian month equivalents,54 deaths and ordina-
51
52
53
54
Holder-Egger, Untersuchungen u ber einige annalistische Quellen zur Geschichte des

fu nften und sechsten Jahrhunderts III. Die Ravennater Annalen, Neues Archiv 1 (1876)
215 368 esp. at 344 5 had already demonstrated that the common source of the Cons.
Vind., which he called the Annales Ravennatenses (Die Ravennater Annalen) and is
now referred to as the Cons. Ital., dated no earlier than 445 and that the major edition of
the text was produced in 493.
Cf. Kurz, Date (see fn. 12), 18.
The obvious examples are the Descriptio consulum, Paschale Campanum, Cons. Vind.
post., Cons. Vind. pr./Exc. Sang. and Cons. Haf., ranging in date from 468 to 626 (see n.
26 above). The Chron. Pasch. should also be considered here, though it is not purely
consularia.
Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 82 3 (quote at p. 83),
summarised in his Alexandrien und die Verbreitung christlicher Weltchroniken,
Zeitschrift des historischen Vereines fr Steiermark 15 (1917) 1 6. Bauer (pp. 83 92)
continues with a detailed expos on the place of the text in the context of the Late
Antique chronicle traditions, but almost all of Bauers information, culminating in the
stemma on p. 92, is now out of date.
As we shall see in the commentary at ro 3 4 below, there are two sets of Egyptian year
equivalents, those preserved in the Cons. Scal., which are for the most part accurately

58
tions of Alexandrian bishops, events of the New Testament (and apocrypha),

early Christian history and the destruction of the Serapeum. We see these
extensive Alexandrian interpolations more clearly in the Chron. Scal., because
so much more of it survives.55 All this Alexandrian material was added from
disparate sources that we can no longer identify, but as we have seen above from
Theophanes there was a local tradition of these sorts of texts in the fifth and
sixth centuries in Alexandria just as there was in Constantinople, Rome and
Ravenna.56
As we shall see in the discussion of the date of the Serapeum in the last
section below, these many additions to the basic translated consularia raise many
problems for us: we have no idea how this Alexandrian material was dated in
these original sources, how the various compilers understood the consular year,
how they thought it related to the Egyptian year and how that affected the
insertion of the material from disparate local sources into the translated Latin
consularia. Evidence from other chroniclers who used non-Roman calendars
suggests that foreign dating systems, such as consular years and Olympiads, were
simply mapped onto familiar or local calendars so that all were coterminous.57 In
this case it would mean that an Alexandrian compiler would have equated the
consular year with the Alexandrian year (New Years Day = 1 Thoth = 29
August), so that anything that happened from 29 August to 31 December of one
year would actually be dated by the consuls of the next year. But we just have too
little evidence to judge the situation in this case. Finally, as we have seen, the
ordinations of Peter, Timothy and Theophilus were misdated by a number of
years in the Chron. Alex. and their chronology was further altered in the Cons.
Gol. to take into account the later addition of two erroneous pairs of consuls.58
These problems led to errors in the relationship of these entries to other
contemporary events, like the destruction of the Serapeum, a confusion that
suggests some considerable passage of time between the events and the
compilation of these various Alexandrian events from their various sources.
55
56
57
58
calculated, and those of the Cons. Gol. alone, which were added later by someone with
an insufficient knowledge of Roman dates.
See Burgess, Date (see fn. 26), 29, 30, 38 (n. 23), 40 1, 42 (n. 36), 46, 68 for several lists
of the many and diverse Alexandrian aspects of this text. These aspects are so strong
that our first surviving reference to the Chron. Scal., from 1579, calls it a chronica
Alexandrina, see Grafton, Scaliger 2 (see fn. 24), 564, with n. 11.
See Croke, City Chronicles (see fn. 17), with the caveat that the differences Croke
rightly identifies are the result of private, not official or public, compilation. On this see
Burgess, Chronicle of Hydatius (see fn. 26), 180 6, and Burgess and Kulikowski,
Mosaics of Time 1 (see fn. 21), 146 71 passim.
R.W. Burgess, Studies in Eusebian and Post-Eusebian Chronography (Stuttgart, 1999)
28 35.
More will be said on this in the commentary at ro 17 22 below and in the appendix.

59
Description of the Papyrus

As we have seen, the fragments of the Chron. Gol. were acquired by
Golenischev at some point before 1901 from a certain Sheikh Ali in Giza.59
Nothing further is known about the provenance of the papyrus fragments in
Egypt or the date of their acquisition.60
Given the extremely fragmentary condition of the papyrus, the preservation
of both the text and illustrations at the time of Bauer and Strzygowski was
actually quite good. This is true especially for the best-preserved leaf, fol. VI,
which holds our specific interest here. We owe a debt to Bauer for having done
such careful groundwork in reconstructing as much as he could of the fragments.
In the case of fol. VI, he juxtaposed the two main fragments (A and B), which
themselves were both put together from two pieces, and added to them several
smaller fragments, three to fr. A and two to fr. B, as well as reinforcing the
creases with tape. As was noted by Bauer, even though the recto was in pristine
condition, inkblots appear in two spots, one over the y of Badymor in ro 11
(which does not prevent the reading of the letter) and a larger one in ro 14 16,
which obscures the reading of the last two or three letters before the lacuna.
These spots are minor compared to the text on the verso, however, which was
less well preserved and already much abraded in Bauers time, making any
reading, especially after vo 24, difficult.61 An additional problem is that on the
verso less text has been preserved on each side of the lacuna between fr. A and
B than on the recto, which makes the verso even harder to reconstruct.
Today fol. VI is in a deplorable condition, as can be determined from the
high-resolution photographs we received from the Pushkin Museum. First of all,
fr. A and B are no longer aligned properly, with fr. B needing to go up several
lines (or fr. A down). There have also been several clumsy attempts at
restoration. For example, the top part of fr. B has been retaped to the lower part
(at ro 12 13) by three instead of the original two pieces of tape but appears to
have come loose, leading to the tilting of the top of the fragment.62 Moreover,
the removal has left a brown trace of the old tape furthest to the right. Here, as
in other places, the new tape has been applied without any regard for the letters
of the text, which has led to some of them being partially obscured.63 In several
59 This may be Ali the Arab of Giza known to have sold several Coptic manuscripts to
Charles L. Freer in May 1908, see B. Layton, Catalogue of Coptic Manuscripts in the
British Library Acquired since the Year 1906 (London, 1987) xxvii.
60 Strzygowskis suspicion in Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see
fn. 3), 132, 186, 190 that this work was originally copied and then later discovered in a
monastery in Upper Egypt is pure speculation; Bauer (p. 16) leaves the question open.
61 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 9 10.
62 Several other creases are loose, e. g. the one at fr. B, below ro 9.

60
places fragments are misplaced or have been misaligned.64 To make matters

even worse, on the edges some small parts of the papyrus have disappeared,
leading to the loss of text.65 Finally, the papyrus has suffered some staining and
other damage.66 In general, the bottom part of the recto especially is much less
legible than it was in 1905. The condition of the verso is even worse. The text
here has largely vanished and vo 24 29, which was already difficult to read, has
almost entirely disappeared and seems to have been cleaned at some point
with disastrous consequences.67 Given its current condition we have based our
readings on the old plates of the first edition and reproduce them here with this
article (Pls 1 2).68
An idea of the dimensions of the codex can be gained from the largest
fragments, those of fol. VI. They measure (height x width) 18.3 x 8.4 cm (fr. A)
and 22.5 x 10.5 cm (fr. B), respectively.69 None of the margins has been
preserved, which makes it impossible to reconstruct the exact format of the
original leaf, and thus of the codex. Bauer speculates, because the approximate
distance between fr. A and B is known, and allowing for some space out to the
margins, that the format would have been ca. 30 x 24 cm.70 In his standard work
on the ancient codex, however, E.G. Turner prefers a format of either 32 x 22 or
33 x 25 cm, which would be in agreement with his Group 2 or 3, and either seems
more likely.71
63 E.g. at ro 27 there is tape over the s of Heodoso. u.

64 The small fragment containing the letters ep in ro 14 is loose and should join fr. B down
to the right; in ro 15, after Bakemti-, there is a misplaced small fragment (where the
inkblot is) that should go at the end of fr. A, ro 20 1, just before the lacuna (an u and j
above each other); the small fragment of six lines (ro 26 31) that Bauer had correctly
joined to the right of fr. A, ro 26 9, has wrongly been glued below ro 29; and the small
fragment below fr. B, ro 31 (the letters ki) is wrongly attached.
65 In ro 18 after -psjopor the beginning of the a is now missing; in the small fragment
covering ro 26 31, at ro 28 9 the k of k. al(pqot\tou) and the a of -a. kou are no longer
there; and the letters visible of ro 31 at the bottom of this fragment, c. q. .o. , are completely
gone.
66 E.g. in l. 2 behind L
. anlou and in l. 7 through the y of Septel]b. qym.
67 The papyrus has been in this ruinous state for quite some time, as is witnessed by the
exhibition catalogue Koptische Kunst (see fn. 15) of 1963, when our leaf was displayed
(together with another leaf) in Essen, Germany, and a new photograph was made (found
under cat. no. 623) that shows the papyrus in essentially the same condition as it is now.
68 In these plates the reconstructed text in the lacunae as proposed by Bauer and included
in the original plates, has been left out.
69 Bauer does not give these numbers; they are based on Hodjash in Alaoui, Art copte (see
fn. 15), 42.
71 Turner, Typology (see fn. 13), 119 (n. 49), agreed upon by Aland and Rosenbaum,
Repertorium II 1 (see fn. 12), 10 (n. 10). Bauer compares his proposed format to the one

61
The text of fol. VI has been written in a dark-brown ink, one column per
page. The dating formula for each entry of the consularia consists of the
following: a number in the left margin denoting the year in the Era of
Diocletian; the pair of consuls, starting slightly to the left of the column margin
with the first letter of the first consuls name written in larger script and any nonimperial name followed by toO kalpqottou ;72 and the augustalis, in the set
formula 1p_ at the time of, followed by the name of the augustalis and his title,
aqcoustakou.73 Interestingly, these entries are set off by a horizontal stroke in
the left margin in front of the last line of the dating formula.74 In some cases
historical entries of varying length have been added, always starting with tot\
t` 5tei in this year and ending with the Roman and/or Egyptian date.75 As we
have already noted above, several of these features the use of toO kalpqottou
and tot\ t` 5tei and the addition of Diocletian years, augustales and Egyptian
months are not found in other Late Antique consularia except for the Cons.
Scal., indicating a common source for both texts.
The format of the text is also different from most other Late Antique
consularia and related texts. For instance, the Cons. Ber. and Cons. Vind. pr. are
written two columns to the page, with centrally spaced ja_/et between both
consuls and different inks for the consuls and historical entries; the Fasti Parisini
was also written in this format, though because it is fasti and has but one
historical entry (of 490), it has no colours;76 the Descriptio consulum is written
two columns per page with the introductory His cons(ulibus) in red; and the
Cons. Vind. post. and the regular fasti of the Chronograph of 354 (contained in
the same manuscript as the Cons. Vind. pr.) also have the central et and coloured
72
73
74
75
76
of Paris, Bibliothque nationale lat. 4884, that is, the manuscript of the Chron. Scal., 33 x
28 cm, which comes closer to the dimensions proposed by Turner (it fits into Turners
Group 2). For Turners division of papyrus codices in groups according to their format,
see his Typology, 14 22.
Or the plural at the end if both are non-imperial. The starting of the names of the
consuls slightly to the left of the column and with the first letter written in larger script is
preserved at ro 13, 15, 27; vo 6, 17. Cf. the Cons. Ber., e. g. P. Berol. inv. 13296 ii 26 and 30,
where the historical entries start slightly to the left of the consuls names and the first
letter of tat, t0 rp(ate) is written in larger script.
If the augustalis is the same as in the previous year, the wording is 1p toO aqtoO at the
time of the same, which is restored at ro 10 and found at vo 18 9. Aqcoustakou can be
abbreviated or not depending on the space.
Extant at ro 12, 14, 16, and perhaps vo 20. Cf. Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische
Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 12. These have been indicated in our text.
Roman date with the equivalent (f 1stim that is) Egyptian date: ro 3 4, 7 8, vo 15 6,
22 3. Egyptian date alone: ro 20 1. Roman date alone: ro 26, vo 4, 13.
On the Fasti Parisini see M. Klaassen, The Fasti Parisini: An Independent Consular List
from the Fifth Century, Journal of Late Antiquity 5 (2012) 145 65, esp. 162 5.

62
inks.77 In contrast, the Cons. Scal. and Cons. Gol. were copied in a single column,
in one colour and without the centrally spaced ja_/et, though the Cons. Scal. retains
some evidence of the use of the central et with widely spaced consuls earlier in the
text. This fact again serves to demonstrate the closeness of these two texts.78
Most of the historical entries are illustrated with pictures, in some cases even
two pictures.79 They have been drawn in black ink after which various colours
have been added and they are found into the margins on the sides and at the
bottom of the page. The illustrations carry captions that have been written in a
smaller, more cursive and forward-leaning script than in the text, a script also used
for the Diocletian years in the left margin. The inks used for the captions,
sometimes the black of the pictures, other times the dark-brown of the text,
however, suggest that at least the captions with the dark-brown ink were written
by the same scribe who wrote the text.80 The fact that the same hand used the
black ink of the drawings for a caption makes it likely that this scribe also
produced the images.81 The pictures were drawn before the text was written as is
made clear by the instances where letters of the text are squeezed or abbreviated
towards the end of a line at the edge of a picture.82 The division of the images had
an impact on the spacing of the text, as can be seen from comparing the recto with
the verso: even if on both sides the number of letters per line is usually 20 24,
on the recto, where there are only pictures in the right margin, the letters are
77 For the Chronograph of 354, see now R.W. Burgess, The Chronograph of 354: Its
Manuscripts, Contents, and History, Journal of Late Antiquity 5 (2013) 345 96.
78 For a comparison of (most of) these texts from the point of view of the Cons. Ber., see
Burgess and Dijkstra, Berlin Chronicle (see fn. 22), 284 5.
79 The only historical entries that are not illustrated are the proclamation of Maximus as
emperor and his death (ro 23 6), perhaps because of the double illustration of the other
historical event of the same year (Picture 2 and 3) or because it was depicted in the top
right margin of the vo (and thus now lost), and the proclamation of Eugenius as emperor
(vo 13 6), no doubt as a result of his death in the next entry, which is depicted to the
right. Historical entries with two illustrations are the death of Timothy/ordination of
Theophilus (ro 17 22, with Pictures 2 3) and the destruction of the Serapeum (vo 23 9,
with Pictures 5, 8), both Alexandrian events.
80 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 14 5; Kurz, Date (see
fn. 12), 21. All captions except for the one belonging to Picture 5 have been written in
dark-brown ink. The assumption that the scribe wrote both text and captions is
supported by fol. I vo 4 6, which is written in the small, cursive hand using the darkbrown ink.
81 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 15. Cf. Burgess and
Dijkstra, Berlin Chronicle (see fn. 22), 285, where we also assume that scribe and
miniaturist of the Cons. Ber. is the same person on account of the brown and black inks
used for both text and images.
82 In vo 24 the scribe solved the lack of space by writing an abbreviation sign above y for
ym. Cf. the Cons. Ber., at P. Berol. inv. 13296 ii 26, where because of lack of space the
scribe wrote a bent line above the o to mark final u in Jystamtmou.

63
larger and more-spaced out than on the verso, where pictures occur on the left,
right and lower margins, and the script is therefore smaller and more compact.83
When we compare the position of the pictures here with their position in the
three other known Late Antique illustrated consularia, Cons. Ber., Cons. Mar.
and Cons. Scal., we can see an example of all three possibilities: the Cons. Gol.
has marginal illustrations, the Cons. Ber. and Cons. Mar. interlinear, and the
Cons. Scal. both. In the case of the Cons. Scal., it is certain that the text was
written first since the illustrations were never made, and this would seem to be
the case for the Cons. Ber. as well, the opposite of what happened with the Cons.
Gol.84 Unlike the Cons. Mar., which contains line drawings, some in black, some
in red, the images in both the Cons. Ber. and the Cons. Gol. were coloured. The
images with both texts are also comparable in that they are quite stereotypical,
as can be seen from a quick comparison between Constantinoples reduction to
a gate with towers in the Cons. Ber. (Picture 6) and the Serapeum reduced to its
faade in the Cons. Gol. (Picture 5).85 Still, the Cons. Gol. gives the impression
that more care has been taken with its images than was the case in the Cons.
Ber., and this impression is confirmed by the higher quality of the script used in
the former.86
The text has been written in a fairly sophisticated example of Alexandrian
majuscle.87 In his rather meager description of the palaeography, Bauer dates
the hand of our manuscript to the first half of the fifth century, though it is
evident that this date is not based on solid palaeographic grounds and is aligned
with the date established on the basis of the text (that is, shortly after 412).88 It
is therefore worthwhile to briefly discuss here how this palaeographical date has
fared with specialists of Greek palaeography and what date they generally agree
upon. At the end of the discussion, we shall see how this date relates to the place
of the work in the Late Antique chronicle traditions.
Bauers arguments for a palaeographical date in the first half of the fifth
century were deconstructed in 1972 by O. Kurz, who offers a much fuller
discussion of the palaeography. He also provides an excellent summary of
83 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 12 3. The only
exceptions are lines where the number of letters is smaller because they are the last line
of the chronological part of an entry (e. g. ro 29) and ro 9 15, where the lack of pictures
in the right margin has resulted in much longer lines.
84 Burgess and Dijkstra, Berlin Chronicle (see fn. 22), 285.
85 Cf. Weitzmann, Studies (see fn. 15), 121, who emphasizes the stereotypical nature of the
illustrations in Cons. Ber. and Cons. Gol.
86 Cf. Burgess and Dijkstra, Berlin Chronicle (see fn. 22), 285.
87 For a description of the letter forms, we refer to Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische
Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 12 3, and especially Kurz, Date (see fn. 12), 20 1.
88 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 12 3. Note his proviso
Freilich lassen sich solche Unzialschriften berhaupt nicht mit Sicherheit datieren.

64
preceding scholarship, which clearly shows that while many scholars take over
Bauers date without much discussion, students of Greek palaeography have
always been in favour of a later date for the work.89 In fact, already in 1910, D.
Serruys placed the manuscript in the sixth century, together with a number of
other texts written in what is traditionally called Coptic uncial writing. This
date was mostly based on a Paschal letter (P.Grenf. II 112) dated to 577 or 672,
for which he preferred the sixth-century date.90 In 1914, H. Lietzmann
introduced another, eighth-century Paschal letter from Berlin (P. Berol.
inv. 10677), and dated the earlier Paschal letter to 672, thus opting for a
seventh-century date (or even later) for the Chron. Gol.91 In his 1959 study of
manuscripts in Coptic uncial, J. Irigoin reverted to the sixth-century date.92 For
his study, Kurz takes into consideration both Paschal letters. While preferring a
date of 672 for the earlier Paschal letter, he argues that the writing of the Chron.
Gol. agrees best with the eighth-century Paschal letter, and dates the script to
the last quarter of the seventh century or the years around AD 700.93
Kurz views on a late date of our manuscript were refuted in G. Cavallos
1975 seminal article on the script that since that date has been known as
Alexandrian majuscle. Not only does Cavallo argue in detail why a date of
577 is to be preferred for P.Grenf. II 112, he also provides a precise chronology
of the known undated manuscripts on the basis of the dated ones. Hence he
assigns the Chron. Gol. to the mid-sixth century.94 In their standard Greek
Bookhands, Cavallo and H. Maehler confirm the date of 577 for P.Grenf. II 112,
though they give a less specific date of the sixth century for our text.95 In the
years since the appearance of Cavallos 1975 article, his palaeographical date of
89 Kurz, Date (see fn. 12), 17 20.
90 D. Serruys, Contribution ltude des canons de lonciale grecque, in Mlanges
offerts M. mile Chatelain (Paris, 1910) 492 9 at 497 9. This is also the preferred date
of the first editors, B.P. Grenfell and A.S. Hunt, P.Grenf. II, pp. 164 5.
91 H. Lietzmann, Ein Psalterfragment der Jenaer Papyrussammlung, in Neutestamentliche
Studien, Georg Heinrici zu seinem 70. Geburtstag (Leipzig, 1914) 60 5, repr. in his
Kleine Schriften, 3 vols (Berlin, 1958 1962) 1.410 5 at 414 5. Suprisingly, in his later
edition of the Cons. Ber., Ein Blatt aus einer antiken Weltchronik, in R.P. Casey, S.
Lake, A.K. Lake (eds), Quantulacumque. Studies Presented to Kirsopp Lake by Pupils,
Colleagues and Friends (London, 1937) 339 48, repr. in Kleine Schriften 1, 420 9 at 420,
Lietzmann mentions a fifth-century date for the Chron. Gol.
92 J. Irigoin, Lonciale grecque de type copte, JByz 7 (1959) 29 51 at 41 (no. 60).
93 Kurz, Date (see fn. 12), 20 2 (quote on p. 22).
94 G. Cavallo, Cq\llata )kenamdq?ma, JByz 24 (1975) 23 54, repr. in Il calamo e il
papiro. La scrittura greca dallet ellenistica ai primi secoli di Bisanzio (Florence, 2005)
175 202 at 190 5, 199. Cf. his earlier Ricerche sulle maiuscola biblica (Florence, 1967)
116 (with Pl. 106), where he dates the Chron. Gol. to the end of the sixth or seventh
century.
95 G. Cavallo, H. Maehler, Greek Bookhands of the Early Byzantine Period, A.D. 300 800
(London, 1987) 82 (no. 37).

65
the Chron. Gol. in the sixth century has been widely accepted.96 Moreover, the
date of 577 for P.Grenf. II 112 has been cemented by several recent studies, in
particular an important study by A. Camplani of 1992.97 Even though these do
not mention our text, they independently confirm its date in the sixth century
because of its close palaeographical relationship with P.Grenf. II 112. In fact, in a
recent re-appraisal of the palaeography, Cavallo has convincingly argued on the
basis of the similarities with P.Grenf. II 112 for a more specific date of the
Chron. Gol. in the second half of the sixth century, probably in its last quarter.98
In sum, this brief survey of the literature on the palaeography has shown
that Bauers initial date of the first half of the fifth century has long been
abandoned by specialists of this type of writing in favour of a later date. The
common consensus is that the text dates to the sixth century, a date that has
been confirmed by recent discussions of the Paschal letter P.Grenf. II 112. This
date is now corroborated by the study of Cavallo, who opts for a date in the
second half of the sixth century. Despite these clear indications of a sixthcentury date, recent studies still frequently mention the early or first half of the
fifth century as the date for this papyrus.99 As we have seen in the previous
96 E.g. A. Porro, Manoscritti in maiuscola alessandrina di contenuto profano. Aspetti
grafici codicologici filologici, Scrittura e civilt 9 (1985) 169 215 at 184 6 (no. 9; Pl.
Va); Aland and Rosenbaum, Repertorium II 1 (see fn. 12), 9 (n. 2). Cf. Turner, Typology
(see fn. 13), 119 (no. 370), who gives a date of the sixth-seventh centuries, but upon
completion of his study he did not yet know of Cavallos article.
97 E.g. A. Camplani, La Quaresima egiziana nel VII secolo: note di cronologia su Mon.
Epiph. 77, Manchester Rylands Suppl. 47 48, P.Grenf. II 112, P.Berol. 10677, P.Kln
215 e unomelia copta, Augustinianum 32 (1992) 423 32 at 429 30; R.S. Bagnall, N.
Gonis, An Early Fragment of the Greek Apophthegmata Patrum, ARG 5 (2003) 260
78 at 262; P. Radiciotti, Una nuova proposta di datazione per il PSI 1400 con alcune
osservazioni sulla maiuscola alessandrina, Studi di egittologia e di papirologia 5 (2008)
117 28 at 121 2; G. Bastianini, G. Cavallo, Un nuovo frammento di lettera festale
(PSI inv. 3779), in G. Bastianini and A. Casanova (eds), I papiri letterari cristiani. Atti
del convegno internazionale di studi in memoria di Mario Naldini (Florence, 2011) 31
45 at 32, 37 8. Cf. Aland and Rosenbaum, Repertorium II 1 (see fn. 12), 537 41 (no.
KV 81) at 539 40 (n. 1), who still give the positions for both dates, 577 and 672, but do
not seem to know of Camplanis article.
98 G. Cavallo, Per la data di P.Golenischev della Cronaca universale alessandrina,
BASP 49 (2012) 237 40.
99 E.g. Bagnall, Cameron, Schwartz, Worp, Consuls (see fn. 17), 53; Muhlberger, FifthCentury Chroniclers (see fn. 17), 38; Horak, Illumierte Papyri (see fn. 7), 98; A. Martin,
Athanase dAlexandrie et lglise dgypte au IVe sicle (328 373) (Rome, 1996) 819;
Haas, Alexandria (see fn. 18), 180 (caption at Fig. 17); Davis, Early Coptic Papacy (see
fn. 18), 64; Hahn, Gewalt und religiser Konflikt (see fn. 18), 90, and Wann wurde das
Sarapeion (see fn. 19), 375; McKenzie, Architecture (see fn. 18), 245 (caption at
Fig. 411); Hahn, Conversion of the Cult Statues (see fn. 18), 350; Watts, Riot (see
fn. 18), 205; Cameron, Last Pagans (see fn. 18), 62. Some other dates are also
mentioned, e. g. Croke, Chronicles (see fn. 17), 305 (seventh/eighth century) and

66
section, however, the relationship of the Cons. Gol. to the Late Antique chronicle
traditions points rather in the direction of a dating after 527, which fits perfectly
with a palaeographical date in the second half of the sixth century. For these
reasons, the fifth century should no longer be cited as the date of this work.
Let us now move to the scribal features of the text. The scribe copied his text
without any orthographic errors, at least as far as can be judged from the extant
text.100 He uses the common abbreviation mark throughout the text,101 and in one
instance, because of lack of space, writes a stroke above y to abbreviate -ym (vo
24).102 In addition to the horizontal strokes to set off the end of the chronological
part of the entry, supralinear strokes are found above all numbers in the text. The
scribe also makes frequent use of punctuation marks. In the sequence touty- ty (ro
17) a small stroke is found above the first y to mark the division between both
words.103 Three times a rough breathing has been written, above the relative
pronoun f (ro 7) and above the definite article b (ro 17 8), an apostrophe in !mt
(ro 21) and a diaeresis above the initial i of Qmdij(t_omor) (ro 21).104
In the following section we offer a re-edition and, for the first time, a
translation of fol. VI. Unlike the other fragments, which have hardly been
commented upon, the text of fol. VI has been the subject of some further work.
In 1922, F. Bilabel included the text of fols I VI, with notes, in his Kleinere
Historikerfragmente.105 He makes a number of changes to Bauers text by
resolving abbreviations and placing dots underneath doubtful letters. He also
includes fifteen minor corrections, which mostly concern the reading of letters
100
101
102
103
104
105
Hodjash in Alaoui, Art copte (see fn. 15), 42 (eighth century?), though neither justifies
either date.
Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 12: Der Text is sehr
korrekt geschrieben. He mentions as orthographic errors Qd_m instead of eQd_m (fol. VI
vo 22) and tap][mysim instead of tape_mysim (Pl. VII, fr. B vo 3 4) but in fact the first
spelling is correct (see commentary at ro 7) and the second one was corrected to
tape[_mysim by F. Bla, in his short discussion of Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3) in Literarische Texte mit Ausschlu der christlichen, APF 3
(1906) 473 502 at 491 2 (no. 339), a reading that is taken over by Aland and
Rosenbaum, Repertorium II 1 (see fn. 12), 10 (n. 14).
See the entries in K. McNamee, Abbreviations in Greek Literary Papyri and Ostraca (Ann
Arbor, 1981) 12, 43, 46, 53, 91. At p. 12, a]uc is wrongly included under aqcoust\kior,
and should resolve to a]qc(ostou), not a]qc(oustakou); also add ro 14. At p. 91, eptel
for Septel(bq_ym) in ro 4 is actually found in a lacuna and therefore restored, and at vo 15
the papyrus has eptelb for Septelb(q_ym), not eptelbq, as in ro 26.
See also n. 82 above.
See further commentary ad loc.
Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 12. Cf. the scribal
features of the Cons. Ber., as described by Burgess and Dijkstra, Berlin Chronicle
(see fn. 22), 286 7.
F. Bilabel, Die kleineren Historikerfragmente auf Papyrus (Bonn, 1922) 46 57 (no. 13).
Of fol. I and Pl. VII ro only a description is given; the other fragments are left out of
consideration.

67
that Bauer places in a lacuna or the placement of letters in a lacuna that Bauer
does not. These small corrections are not always improvements, however,106 and
the only major correction, a reconstruction of vo 24 29 on the basis of the
already tentative readings by Bauer, is unpersuasive.107 Forty years later C.
Vandersleyen included the text of fol. VI in his study of the fourth-century
augustales. As he himself explains, he reverts to Bauers text, but takes over
Bilabels proposed reconstruction of vo 24 29, as well as the placing of dots
under certain letters.108 He also makes two corrections to Bauers text, the first
of which actually derives from Bilabel while the second is rather a step
backwards.109 The corrections proposed by both Bilabel and Vandersleyen were
based on the plate provided in the first edition.
For the transcription of our new text, we have taken a fresh look at the plate,
which shows so much more of the text than the papyrus in its present condition
allows.110 In the critical apparatus, differences with the first edition are noted,
except in those cases where the difference only consists of the presence or
absence of a dot. Readings by Bilabel and/or Vandersleyen have only been
noted when they differ from the first edition. To avoid overburdening the
apparatus, Bauers readings in vo 24 29, almost nothing of which can be read,
and Bilabels reconstruction have been left out, but will be treated in detail in
the commentary. All scribal features and orthography have also been indicated
in the critical apparatus. In general, apart from some minor corrections, Bauers
text is reliable until vo 24, and our improvements to the text mostly concern the
restorations of the lacunae on the basis of a fuller knowledge of the Late
Antique chronicle traditions. Regarding vo 24 29, we shall argue that Bauers
reconstruction is highly tentative and should be abandoned in favour of a more
prudent text.
106 E.g. in ro 7 he wants to see Qd_m abbreviated, but this is not necessary. See commentary
ad loc.
107 See commentary ad loc.
108 C. Vandersleyen, Chronologie des prfets dgypte de 284 395 (Brussels, 1962) 172 3,
with the explanation on p. 171 (n. 4). He places Bilabels dots only underneath letters
that have been read by Bauer, e. g. at ro 11, where Bauer reads QC, and Bilabel QC. , he
takes over the latters reading. However, in ro 12 where Bauer has Eq]sebou, and
Bilabel Eqs]e. b. .o. u. , Vandersleyen takes over Bauers reading but places dots under the
remaining letters, thus ignoring what was observed by Bilabel, namely that the s is in the
lacuna: Eq]s. e. b. .o. u. . Moreover, he does not take over the dots consistently. E.g. at ro 7,
where Bilabel has Septel]b. qym, Vandersleyen prints Septel]bqym (without a dot) of
the ed. princ.
109 In ro 3, he takes over Koucd]om\ from Bilabel, rather than Bauers Kouc]dom\ (the d
belongs inside the lacuna). At ro 18, he proposes )[kenamdq]ear but, as both Bauer and
Bilabel saw, the q is (partly) visible outside the lacuna.
110 We have checked our transcription against the current photographs from the Pushkin
Museum, but these have only been useful in comparing some of the traces of ink.

68
Text and Translation

Fol. VI, recto
Provenance unknown
second half of VI CE
H x W = 18.3 x 8.4 cm (fr. A) + 22.5 x 10.5 cm (fr. B)
5.
10.
15.
[QB
[_
[QC]
_
QD
_
QE
_
20.
25.
Qr
30.
[_
[QF
[_
[Tot\ t` 5tei 1svcg C]q. [atia-]

[mr b basiker rp] L
(Picture 1)
. anlou
[toO tuqmmou 1m Keud]om\ pq
[g- jak(amd_m) Septel(bq_ym), f 1sti]m Hh jr,
[ja aqt` t` 5tei 1ce]mmhg
[jmqior 1m Jymstam]timoup[kei pq e- Qd_m Septel]b. qym, f
[1stim Hh ia.]
Uiwoldou ja Jkeqw]o. u t_m kal(pqot\tym)
1p toO aqtoO )mtymmou aqcousta]kou.
)qjadou a[qc(ostou) uRoO Heodosou t] a- ja
Badymor t[oO kal(pqot\tou) 1p Eqs]e. b. .o. u. a. qcou[st]a. k(ou).
jmyqou 1p[ivamesttou ja]saqor t a- ja
Eqodou to. O. [kal(pqot\tou)] 1p Paukmou aqcoustak(ou).
Bakemtim. i.a. [moO a]q. c(ostou) t e- ja Eqtqopou
toO kal(pqot\tou) 1. p. [9quh]q. ou aqcoustakou.
TilTot\ t` 5[tei Til]heor b 1psjopor ). [kenamd]q. ear, b !heor
dekvr P[tqou toO 1]pisj(Picture 2)
b cio. [r]
pou, 1teke. [tgsem 9p]e. v jr
Qmdij(t_omor) b j[a 1jhise]m !mt aqHev. [i-]
toO Hev[ikor 5tg jg] ja aqko. [r]
t` t` 5[tei Lnilor] 1pqhg
(Picture 3)
eQr basik[a pq 1-2 jaka]md(_m) Laqtym ja[ 1svcg 1m J]o. qt_mi pq e- jakam[d(_m) Sept]elbq(_ym).
Heodoso. u aqc[(ostou) t b ja] Jumg[cou] toO. k. al(pqot\tou) 1[p )ken]m. dqou
aqc]o. us[t]a. kou.
Tilasou j]a P[qoltou t_]m.
kal(pqot\tym) 1p Eqa]c. q. .o. [u aqcousta]k. .[ou].

384
385
386
387
388
389
69
Fol. VI, verso

(Picture 4)
5.
QG.
10.
[Tot\ t` 5tei let toO uRoO]

jm[yqou Heodsior eQs/khe]
1m [Ul, ja aqtm eQr basi-]
k[a 5stexem Qd(o?r) Youm(_air) ja]
5d[yje jocciqiom Uylaoir.]
Ba[kemtimiamoO aqc(ostou) t d ja]
M[eyteqou toO kal(pqot\tou) 1p ]
au[
]
Ta. [tiamoO ja Sullwou t_m]
[kal(pqot\tym) 1p Eqacqou aqcoust(akou).]
390
391
[b] cior H. [e]v. i.[kor]
(Picture 5)
15.
20.
25.
[Tot\ t` 5tei Bakemtimia-]

[mr 1teketgsem 1m Bimm,]
[pq d Qd_m Youm(ym) j]a. . 1. p. . q[hg eQr basika E]q. c. mior
[pq ia jakamd(_m)] Sept. e. l. b(q_ym),
[f] 1. s. t. i.m H. [h] jc.
QH
)qjado. [u aqc(ostou)] t b ja Uouvmou [toO kal(pqot\tou)] 1. p. . t. oO a. q. toO Eqa. [cqou aqco]u. s. t. a. k. (ou)
_ )ken. [amdqear.]
To[t\ t` 5tei 1m] .ir 1s. vcg Eq. [cmior pq] g-. Q.d. _m Yamou. [aq(_ym), f 1stim Hh] g-. , ja aqt`
t` [5tei
]..q. y(m)
e. k.[
].qi
.[
].ouepi
.[
]traces?
[
]..
[Sa]q\. p. i.t. o. r.
mou. [
]
(Picture 6)
Bakem. t. [imiamr]
Eqcm[ior]
392
(Picture 7)
to. j. ..
(Picture 8)
t
[R]e. qm.
Recto 2. L
3. Keud]om\: Kouc]dom\ ed.
. anlou : L]anlou ed. princ., Lanlou Bilabel
princ., Koucd]om\ Bilabel, Vandersleyen
6 7. 1m Jymstam]timoup[kei : eQr Jymstam]timopo[kim ed. princ.
7. [Qd_m]: [eQd_m] ed. princ., [eQd(_m)] Bilabel j b pap.
8. [Hh]: [Va_vi] ed. princ.
9. [Uiwoldou]: [Uiwolqou] ed. princ. j kal pap.
10.
[1p toO aqtoO )mtymmou: [1p )mtymmou (?) ed. princ.
11. [QC]: [Q]C ed. princ.,
[Q]C. Bilabel, Vandersleyen
12. Eqs]e. b. .o. u. : Eq]sebou ed. princ., Eqs]e. b. .o. u. Bilabel, Eq]s. e. b. .o. u. Vandersleyen j aucou[t]ak pap. j a. qcou[st]a. k(ou): aqcou[sta]k(ou) ed.
princ.
13. 1p[ivamesttou : 1pi[vamesttou ed. princ., 1pi.[vamesttou Bilabel, Vandersleyen
14. aucoutak pap.
15. Bakemtim. i.a. [moO: Bakemtiam[oO ed. princ. j a]uc pap. 16. kal pap.

70
17. touty- pap. j b pap.

18. ). [kenamd]q. ear : )[kenamd]qear ed. princ., )[kenamdq]ear
Vandersleyen j b pap.
20. 9p]e. v : 9pe]v ed. princ., 9p]ev Bilabel
21. zmdij
pap. j amt pap.
24. jaka]md pap.
26. ept]elbq pap.
28. toO. : to[O] ed. princ., toO.
31.
Bilabel j kal pap. j k. al(pqot\tou): k]al(pqot\tou) ed. princ., k. al(pqot\tou) Bilabel
Eqa]c. q. .o. [u : Eqac]qo[u ed. princ., Eqac]q. .o. [u Bilabel, Vandersleyen
Verso 4. [Qd(o?r)]:
[eQd(o?r)] ed. princ.
6. Ba[kemtimiamoO : Ba[kemtiamoO ed. princ.
10. [Eqacqou]: [Eqacqou
(?)] Vandersleyen
11. in marg. H. [e]vi.[kor]: H[e]vik[or] ed. princ., H[e]vikor Bilabel
11 2. [Bakemtimiamr]: [Bakemtiamr] ed. princ.
13. [Qd_m]: [eQd_m] ed. princ.
14.
E]q. c. mior : Eq]cmior ed. princ., E]q. cmior Bilabel
15. eptelb pap. j in marg. Bakem. t. [imiamr]: Bakem[tiamr] ed. princ., Bakemti[amr] Bilabel
17. )qjado. [u: )qjad[ou ed. princ. j
in marg. Eqcm[ior]: Eqcmio[r] ed. princ., Eqcm[ior] Bilabel
18. [toO : t[oO ed. princ. j
kal(pqot\tou)]: kal](pqot\tou) ed. princ., kal(pqot\tou)] Bilabel j 1. p. .: [1]p ed. princ.
19.
auco]utak pap.
21. 1m] .ir : 1m .]a. ir ed. princ., 1m] .a. ir Bilabel, Vandersleyen
23.
- pap.
[1stim]: [1sti] ed. princ. j [Hh]: [Va_vi] ed. princ.
24. -q. y(m): -qy
27. in marg.
to. j. ..: Tajaqom ed. princ.
29. in marg. [Sa]q. p. i.t. o. r. : [Sa]qap?j[o]m ed. princ. j l. Saqpidor j [R]e. qm. : Reqm ed. princ.
Translation
Recto
5.
102
10.
103
104
15.
20.
105
In this year Emperor Gratian

was killed by the usurper
Maximus at Lugdunum on
25 August, which is 26 Thoth,
and in the same year Honorius
was born in Constantinople
on 9 September, which
is 11 Thoth.
Ricomedes and Clearchus viri clarissimi,
when the same Antoninus was augustalis.
Augustus Arcadius, son of Theodosius, I and
Baudo vir clarissimus, when Eusebius was augustalis.
Nobilissimus Caesar Honorius I and
Evodius vir clarissimus, when Paulinus was augustalis.
Augustus Valentinian V and Eutropius
vir clarissimus, when Erythrius was augustalis.
In this year Timothy the
bishop of Alexandria, the
brother of Bishop Peter,
died on 26 Epeiph
in the second indiction and in his place sat
Theophilus for 28 years and in
the same year Maximus was proclaimed
emperor on [14 28] February
(Picture 1)
384
385
386
387
Timothy
(Picture 2)
Saint
Theophilus
(Picture 3)

71
25.
30.
and was killed in Cortona

on 28 August.
106 Augustus Theodosius II and Cynegius vir clarissimus, when Alexander was
augustalis.
107 Timasius and Promotus
viri clarissimi, when Evagrius was augustalis.
388
389
Verso
(Picture 4)
5.
10.
In this year with his son

Honorius Theodosius arrived
in Rome and crowned him
emperor on 13 June and
gave a congiarium to the Romans.
108 Augustus Valentinian IIII and
Neoterius vir clarissimus, when
[] was augustalis.
Tatianus and Symmachus
viri clarissimi, when Evagrius was augustalis.
390
391
Saint Theophilus
(Picture 5)
15.
20.
25.
In this year Valentinian

died in Vienna
on 10 June and Eugenius
was proclaimed emperor
on 22 August,
which is 23 Thoth.
109 Augustus Arcadius II and Rufinus vir clarissimus, when the same
Evagrius was augustalis
of Alexandria.
In this year [] Eugenius
was executed on 6 January, which is 8 Thoth, and in the same
year []
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
(Picture 6)
Valentinian
Eugenius
(Picture 7)
(?)
The
temple
of Serapis
(Picture 8)

392
72
Commentary
Recto
1 8 (383). These lines form the historical entry for 383. As Bauer explains, the
two or three lines with the year of the Era of Diocletian, the consuls, and the
augustalis of this year must have been at the bottom of the previous page.111 We
know this because in the transition from recto to verso, between the last line on
the recto (ro 31) and the first traces on the verso (two letters at the beginning of
vo 2), only one line is missing; as a result, no text is missing above ro 1 and the
recto must have consisted of 31 lines.112 The break between chronological and
historical entry across two pages is also found precisely between ro 30 1 and vo
1 5. We would expect the chronological portion of this entry to have read QA
Leqobadou ja Satoqmmou t_m kal(pqottym) 1p )mtymmou aqcoustakou
(as in the Cons. Vind. post. 501 and the Cons. Scal. 324), but as we saw above in
n. 44, the consuls for 382 and 383 are missing from Cons. Scal. and must have
been missing from the Cons. Gol. as well. The original text of the common
source, the Chron. Alex. or perhaps the Greek version of the consularia
themselves, suffered a haplography here as a scribe accidentally jumped from
the -ou t_m kal(pqottym) of 381 to the same text of 383 and omitted everything
in between. This must have happened before the episcopal entries had been
added. As a result the consuls and augustalis in the Cons. Gol. were probably QA
Suacqou ja Eqweqou t_m kal(pqottym) 1p )mtymmou aqcoustakou (=
Cons. Scal. 319 20). It is impossible to say how these words were divided over
the lines, since we do not know whether there was a picture on the verso of the
previous leaf (in which case there would have been 20 4 letters to a line) or
whether the names would run across the full length of the column (cf. ro 9 16).
1 4 (383). [Tot\ t` 5teiHh jr : Magnus Maximus was proclaimed
emperor in Britain (though we do not know when, see commentary at ro 22 6
(387) below). He then crossed to the continent and was met by Gratian and the
Roman army near Paris. Gratian retreated, was overtaken at Lyon and
assassinated by Andragathius, Maximus magister equitum, on 25 August 383.
Thus the date given here is correct.113
111 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 49.
112 The verso has 29 lines, but this is because of Picture 8 at the bottom.
113 PLRE I s.v. Andragathius 3 (pp. 62 3), (Fl.) Gratianus 2 (p. 401) and (Magnus)
Maximus 39 (p. 588); D. Kienast, Rmische Kaisertabelle. Grundzge einer rmischen
Kaiserchronologie (Darmstadt, 19962) 333, 341 2.

73
1 2 (383). C]q. [atiamr]: the restoration by Bauer is plausible and the letter
of which only the long vertical stroke is visible could well be that of a q. There
are some slight traces on the edge of the papyrus of the following letters, but too
little remains to identify either of them.
Picture 1. There are two scenes depicted here that adjoin each other so we
shall describe them here under one heading.114 Above is a naked figure,
apparently the new-born Honorius, sitting on a yellow triangle with green spots,
with his right arm (of which only the lower part has been preserved) raised. The
papyrus breaks off where the head and left arm should be. There is a vertical
blue stain across the figures legs. Below is a green oblong object, probably
intended as a scenic base of vegetation (as in, for instance, Picture 4), above
which are the naked legs of a prone figure, apparently the slain Gratian.115
3 4 (383). pq [g- jak(amd_m)Hh jr : Before we can look at the Egyptian
dates of the Cons. Gol., we must briefly examine the Egyptian dates of the Cons.
Scal. for context. The first Egyptian equivalent of a Roman date appears at
Cons. Scal. 40, 18 Epeiph for 15 July, which is incorrect (15 July is 21 Epeiph).
We know from the Cons. Vind. pr. and Cons. Vind. post. (41) that 15 July is
correct, so either the conversion was done incorrectly or one of the numbers has
been corrupted at some point. Other dates appear in Cons. Scal. 117 (27 May =
2 Pauni), 120 (25 March = 29 Phamenoth), 149 (29 June = 5 Epeiph) and 286 (9
October = 12 Phaophi), which are correctly converted, and 219 (24 November =
17 Thoth) and 271 (23 July = 27 Epeiph), which are not. In the first case we have
an originally Egyptian date that is the correct date for the Exaltation of the Holy
Cross (14 September), the event being dated. It is therefore the Latin
conversion that is incorrect, VIII kal. Dec. for XVIII kal. Oct. This corruption
or confusion cannot be explained. In the second case both the Cons. Vind. pr.
and Cons. Vind. post. (478) give the date as XII kal. Aug. (21 July), not X kal.
Aug. (23 July) as here. 27 Epeiph is 21 July, and so here the error lies in the Latin
date. There seems no rhyme or reason as to why some Roman dates are
converted and others not. No Latin dates after Cons. Scal. 271, in 363, have been
converted. There are unconverted Egyptian dates in Cons. Scal. 228 (22
Pharmouthi), 300 (7 Pachon), 313 (20 Mecheir), and 325 (26 Epeiph), all
ordination dates for Alexandrian bishops, which indicates a local Alexandrian
source for this material, as one would expect.
Although only parts of three dating equivalents survive in the Cons. Gol., it
is enough to show us how a reader or scribe converted from Roman into
114 In this description and the following ones, given that this study is mainly concerned with
the text, we aim to describe the pictures as objectively as possible without engaging in
the differing interpretations that have been proposed for specific elements, unless such
interpretations are relevant for the meaning and understanding of the text.

74
Egyptian dates. By some quirk all the surviving dates (ro 3 4 (383), 7 8 (383), vo
15 6 (391), 22 3 (392) are founded upon the month of September, with the
exception of 392, where the original September has somehow become January.
As we shall see, the date was converted on September, so January is a later
scribal error.116 We can see from the surviving examples that a reader or scribe
correctly knew that conversion to a Greek date from a Roman date with a day
involving the kalends required the addition of a day to the number of days in the
month before the subtraction of the given number before the kalends.
Unfortunately, that was all he knew. So his procedure was as follows: subtract
the given days before number from the number of days in the named month (to
which one is added if it is days before the kalends) and place the result in front
of the named month. This gave him a completely incorrect Greek date (that is,
in the form of day number and month, like our dates), which he could then
compare to a table of equivalents and obtain the Egyptian date. As we can see
from the examples below, the calculated Greek date is in every case converted
correctly. In these examples, the surviving text of the Cons. Gol. is underlined,
square brackets enclose missing text, and the missing portions of the Latin dates
have been supplied from the Cons. Vind. pr. The correct modern equivalents of
the Roman dates with their correct Egyptian equivalents appear in parentheses
at the end.
ro 3 4 (383). [VIII kal. Sept.] = (30 + 1) 8 = 23 September = 26 Thoth (25 August
= 2 Epagomenae)
vo 15 6 (391). [XI kal.] Sept. = (30 + 1) 11 = 20 September = 23 Th[oth] (22
August = 29 Mesore)
vo 22 3 (392). VIII id. Ian. (= Sept.) = 13 8 = 5 September = 8 [Thoth] (6
September = 9 Thoth)
In 392 a calculation based on January would have returned an Egyptian date

with a 10, not an 8, which proves that the original September date is correct.
Knowing the calculation method, we can supply the missing date in ro 7 8 (383):
[V id. Septem]ber = 13 5 = 8 September = [11 Thoth] (9 September = 12 Thoth)
As a result of these observations, we restore Hh in the lacuna at ro 8 and vo 23,

not Va_vi as restored in both cases by Bauer. This has the added advantage that
in vo 23 the line has 23 letters/signs, not 25 as in Bauers restoration, which would
yield too many letters.117
116 As already noted by Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 67.
117 Cf. Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 52 3, 65, 67 8, taken
over by Bilabel, Historikerfragmente (see fn. 105), 53, who thinks that the compiler
wrongly equated August with Thoth and bases his restorations of ro 8 and vo 23 on this

75
3 (383). Keud]om\: Bauers final text has Kouc]dom\, but it is clear that this
is a typo, since in his discussion of ro 1 8, he prints Koucd]om\ and there is no
trace of the d.118 Bilabel, followed by Vandersleyen, correctly places the d in the
lacuna and reads Koucd]om\. However, we restore Keud]om\ following the
readings of Cons. Vind. pr. (502 3) and Cons. Scal. (321 2), which have Leudimo
(a scribal slip for Leuduno) and Leuduna, respectively, a shared error involving
the name of Lugdunum (modern Lyon) that shows that both were relying on a
common source that spelled the citys name Leuduno, a common Latin Antique
and medieval spelling.119 There is no way of knowing why the translator of the
Cons. Scal. rendered Keudom\ as Leuduna instead of Leuduno.
5 8 (383). [ja aqt` t` 5teiHh ia]: Honorius was born in Constantinople
on 9 September 384. The Descriptio consulum, an earlier recension of which was
at this point being compiled contemporaneously, is the only source for the
year.120 The Cons. Vind. pr. and Cons. Scal., both witnesses to the Cons. Ital.,
give the same day and month as the Descriptio (which must therefore be
correct), but the former dates it to 383 (as does the Cons. Gol., which thus
follows the same tradition here) and the latter to 385, though the use of
Honorius birthday for Arcadius accession in 383 shows that the entry on
Honorius birth once stood in 383 as well.121
6 7 (383). 1m Jymstam]timoup[kei : Bauer reads eQr Jymstam]timopo[kim,
imitating Fricks back-translation of the in Constantinopolim of the Cons. Scal.122
However, clearly a locative is required by the meaning and that is what we find
in the Cons. Vind. pr.: Constantinopoli (502). The problem lies with the fact that
the alternative locative of Constantinople is Constantinpolim,123 and the
118
119
120
121
122
123
equation. His thoughts first appeared in a preliminary publication of ro 1 8, A. Bauer,

Aus einer neuen Weltchronik, in Beitrge zur alten Geschichte und griechischrmischen Alterthumskunde. Festschrift zu Otto Herschfelds Sechzigstem Geburtstag
(Berlin, 1903) 330 5 at 334 5.
Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 73, cf. 49.
For the location of Lugdunum, see R.J.A. Talbert, Barrington Atlas of the Greek and
Roman World (Princeton, 2000) 17 (D2), 18 (B4).
Socr. h.e. 5.12.3 (GCS Neue Folge 1, p. 286.17 20) and Chron. Pasch. s.a. 384 (p. 563.9
11 Dindorf) derive from a Greek translation of a version of this earlier recension of the
Descriptio.
PLRE I s.v. (Fl.) Honorius 3 (p. 442); Kienast, Kaisertabelle (see fn. 113), 340
(erroneously has December). Cf. Bauers analysis of the sources in Bauer and
Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 50 2, first published in Bauer,
Aus einer neuen Weltchronik (see fn. 117), 331 4.
Frick, Chronica minora (see fn. 26), 371.9 10 (also 369.28).
See e. g. the following examples from the Descriptio consulum: processit Constantinopolim praefectus urbis nomine Honoratus (359.2), leuatus est Valens augustus Constantinopolim in miliario VII in tribunali (364.3), leuatus est Arcadius augustus
Constantinopolim in miliario VII in tribunali (383.1), and defunctus est Cynegius
praefectus Orientis in consulatu suo Constantinopolim (388.1); or from the Cons. Vind.

76
translator of the Cons. Scal. has confused this with the alternative in + ablative,
to produce a hybrid (hardly the least of his grammatical problems). The original
Greek would have been a translation of the normal locative we see in the Cons.
Vind. pr., Constantinopoli, that is, 1m Jymstamtimoupkei.
7 (383). [Qd_m]: Bauer restores here and in vo 4, 13 what he considers to be
the correct form, eQd_m, even if the only place where the word can actually be
read, vo 22, has Q.d. _m.124 However, the spelling Qd_m is what is found in the Cons.
Ber. (late fifth/early sixth century) and throughout the Chron. Pasch. (ca. 630),
for instance.125 We therefore restore this form in the lacuna. Bilabel proposes to
abbreviate to [eQd(_m)], but an abbreviation is not necessary to fit the word in
the line.
9 (384). [QB]: The years of the Era of Diocletian were calculated from the
first year of the reign of Diocletian, thus Egyptian year 284/285, and were used
in Egypt as a dating system from the early fourth century right down to the
twelfth century (and one survives even from the fourteenth).126 This system
appears in both the Cons. Scal. and the Cons. Gol. In the former all that remains
are years twelve and thirteen, correctly attributed to 296 and 297 (where the text
returns after the loss of a quire from the original Greek). After these two the
translator appears to have forgotten to copy the remainder, no doubt because of
their location in the margin (he was at this point skipping all the captions, which
also appeared in the margins).127 In the Cons. Gol. years 102 to 109 have been
preserved or are restored in the margins for the years 384 to 392.128 The years
102 to 108 (for 384 to 390) are two years too high, which is remarkable given the
massive corruption of the consular list that we can see in the Cons. Scal. Yet
surprisingly enough, if we count the consuls in the Cons. Scal. from the surviving
Diocletian years (including the intrusive consuls at entries 309 10; see n. 44
above), we reach the figure of 101 in this year (384), which is only one year too
124
125
126
127
128
post.: defunctus est Theodosius imperator et leuatus est Martianus imperator Constantinopolim (564).
Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 12.
For Qd_m in the Cons. Ber., see P.Berol. inv. 13296 i 3 and ii 33.
Bagnall and Worp, Chronological Systems (see fn. 17), 63 87. This system was also used
extensively by the Alexandrian Church as a means of dating in Easter tables. It may be
interesting to note that it was Dionysius Exiguus rejection of these years of an impious
persecutor for his own sixth-century Easter table that led to his substitution of years
from the birth of Christ, Anni Domini, a system that eventually came to be used as the
standard means of dating in the Western world (Mosshammer, Easter Computus (see
fn. 43), 67).
These attestations are not included in the list of Bagnall and Worp, Chronological
Systems (see fn. 17), 68 82.
[QB] and [QC] in ro 9 and 11 are restored on the basis of the preserved entries QD Qr in
ro 13, 15, 27; [QF] in ro 30 on the basis of that sequence and the following entry, QG. in vo
6.

77
high (384 = 100). This proves that even though the Diocletian years do not
appear in the manuscript, they must have existed in the Greek original: the
corruption of the consular list is so great that there is simply no other way in
which the (almost exactly) correct number of years could have been accounted
for in any other way. The Cons. Gol. must have had a similarly corrupt consular
list, but one that had either an extra consular year or an error in counting that
caused the compiler to skip a Diocletian year on top of the one already
skipped while counting, the opposite of the counting error we can see in vo 9
(391): in vo 6, year 108 (QG. ) is assigned to 390 and in vo 17, year 109 (QH) to 392,
which reduces the overall error to one year and thus puts it back in sync with the
Cons. Scal.129 The evidence of these two errors suggests that the original
compiler did not undertake any calculations to work out the era of any given
year or work backwards from a known era in the present, but simply started with
the first year of Diocletian and went through the text assigning one number to
each consular year, once the final version had been copied out.
[Uiwoldou]: despite referring to the Cons. Scal. for the names of the
consuls, Bauer restores the first consul as [Uiwolqou], the consuls correct
name, rather than [Uiwoldou], which reflects the combined testimony of the
Cons. Vind. post. 504 and Cons. Scal. 323 (Richimede/Richomedo) and that
should therefore be restored here.130
10 (384). [1p toO aqtoO )mtymmou aqcousta]kou : the restoration is based
upon the readings of the Cons. Scal., sub eodem Antonino <Augustalio> (324)
in this year and sub Antonino Augustalio (320) in the previous year.131 Bauer
does not think that the Cons. Scal. is a good model for the augustales, however,
and fills in the lacuna with 1p )mtymmou (which should be 1p )mtymmou), but
only beispielsweise, hence his question mark.132 If we look at the number of
letters, ro 9 15 have no picture in the right margin and cover the whole length of
the papyrus. Of these lines, ro 9 has the larger letters of ro 1 8 and it also stops
earlier than ro 11 5, which has smaller and more compact letters, especially
129 Bagnall and Worp, Chronological Systems (see fn. 17), 70, list these numbers under
years 101 9; however, year 101 is probably just a typo for 102. See also pp. 138 9 for a
table of equivalents for these years where the three Egyptian dates listed start in the
Julian year listed. Cf. Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3),
55 6. In his review of Bauer and Strzygowski, S. de Ricci, Une chronique alexandrine
sur papyrus, RA (4me srie) 11 (1908) 108 16 at 112 (n. 1) states that Bauer thinks
that the numbers are two too high because he fails to see that the Era of Diocletian does
not start with a year 0, but with year 1, but Bauer is correct: if 285 is year 1 then 385 is
year 101, 384 is 100 and the difference between that and 102 is two years.
130 Cf. Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 54.
131 See commentary at ro 1 8 above.

78
towards the end of the line. As a result, ro 9 if the restoration is correct only
has 26 letters, whereas ro 11 5 have between 30 and 34 letters. It is impossible to
say whether ro 10 would have had the larger letters of the previous line or the
smaller ones of the following lines. In the latter case, our restoration, which
relies upon the parallel of the Cons. Scal., our only guide in such matters, is to be
preferred.
11 (385). [QC]: Bauer reads [Q]C ; Bilabel, followed by Vandersleyen, places a
dot below the C. If there was the lower part of the vertical stroke of this letter, it
is not clear enough from the photographs to warrant a reading.
12 (385). Badymor : only four texts spell the name of the consul posterior
with a d/d instead of the correct t/t : the Cons. Scal., the Cons. Gol., Socrates133
and the Fasti Heracliani.134 All four are Egyptian: the consuls in Socrates are
used to date the death of Timothy and the ordination of Theophilus,135 and the
latter is Egyptian fasti that extend from 222 to 630 and include indictions, years
of Diocletian and years from the accession of Philip III as king of Macedonia
(323), which is the beginning of what we now refer to as Ptolemaic Egypt. There
is no indication that such a spelling ever appeared in the papyri, though.136
Eqs]e. b. .o. u. : only the bottom of the last five letters of the name of the
augustalis have been preserved. Nonetheless, there is no doubt about Bauers
restoration of the name. In particular, the second letter, which contains the clear
rounded lower part of the b, is diagnostic. Bauer even sees a trace of the s, and
restores Eq]sebou, but if it is there it only shows a small dot on the edge of the
papyrus, an insufficient trace to read the letter.137 Bilabel also places the s in the
lacuna, and has the same reading as the one proposed here. Vandersleyen takes
over Bauers reading, but places dots on the letters outside of the lacuna,
Eq]s. e. b. .o. u. .
We encounter here the first major difference between the texts of the Cons.
Gol. and the Cons. Scal.: the former reports the augustalis as Eusebius, while the
latter records Florentius. Florentius is known from independent sources to have
been augustalis on 20 December 384, on 17 February and 16 June 386, and
therefore throughout 385, so the Cons. Scal. is correct here.138 Eusebius is not
otherwise known to have been an augustalis (see the appendix). It hardly seems
possible to confuse Eqsebou and Vkyqemtou, but we have already seen above
(commentary at ro 3 4 (383)) how in vo 22 3 Septelb(q_ym) was corrupted to
133
134
135
136
137
Socr. h.e. 5.12.5 (GCS Neue Folge 1, p. 286.22 3).

Ed. Mommsen, Chronica minora 3 (see fn. 26), 401.
See commentary at ro 17 22 (387) below.
Bagnall and Worp, Chronological Systems (see fn. 17), 191.
Cf. Bauers preliminary study Zur Liste der praefecti Augustales, WS 24 (1902) 347 51
at 349, in which he reads Eqs]ebou.
138 PLRE I s.v. Florentius 7 (p. 364).

79
Yamouaq(_ym), so almost anything is possible. On the other hand, it could be a

deliberate change by a reader or scribe who thought he had better information
than his text.
a. qcou[st]a. k(ou): only the oblique line of the first a is preserved. The letters
sta appear in a triangular lacuna. The preceding ou is ligatured and the u
connects high up to the s, but it is unclear where the s begins, so it cannot be
read. Immediately to the right of the lacuna is an oblique line of what must be
the second a. The trace at the end of this line may be the end of the horizontal of
the t, but since it could also be the end of the oblique of the a, it cannot be read
either.
13 (386). 1p[ivamesttou : Bauer sees a small coloration on the edge of the
papyrus as part of the i, and reads 1pi[vamesttou, to which Bilabel and
Vandersleyen add a dot, 1pi.[vamesttou. Again (cf. the commentary at ro 12
(385)), however, the trace is insufficient to print the letter outside the bracket.
9pivamstator is the Greek equivalent of nobilissimus puer (and as such
included in our translation, though here the compiler simply treats it as an
adjective modifying ja_saqor). This rank is found for the first time in consular
dates for Gratian in 366 and Valentinian Galates in 369. It is missing in 386 from
the Cons. Vind. post. (506) but appears in Cons. Vind. pr. (506).139 It also appears
in 386 in the Alexandrian Fasti Heracliani.140 This entire consular date has been
lost from the Cons. Scal.
14 (386). aqcoustak(ou): to save space at the end of this line, the t is written
with the horizontal stretching out over the preceding s and following a.141
15 (387). Bakemtim. i.a. [moO : the reading of the last three letters is complicated
by an ink blot. Bauer reads the shorter form Bakemtiam[oO, probably because in
this case ro 15 has the same number of letters (30) as ro 16, which both end at the
same point. However, ro 15 starts further to the left and because of the changing
letter sizes the exact amount of missing text is hard to predict, so the reading
with Bakemtim. i.a. [moO, yielding 32 letters, is equally possible. Moreover, when we
look closer at the doubtful letters, the oblique line of the letter after Bakemti- is
too skewed for an a, which should be straighter up, hence a m is more likely. The
following traces seem to fit well with the letters i and a. An added advantage of
this restoration is that it leaves four letters in the lacuna ([moO a]), rather than
the three in Bauers text ([oO a]), which conforms neatly with the four letters/
signs of the previous line immediately above ([kal]). Thus the reading Bakem139 Bagnall, Cameron, Schwartz and Worp, Consuls (see fn. 17), 266 7, 272 3, 306 7, and
Bagnall and Worp, Chronological Systems (see fn. 17), 188, 191.
140 Mommsen, Chronica minora 3 (see fn. 26), 401. For the Fasti Heracliani, see
commentary at ro 12 above.
141 Also remarked by Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 13.

80
tim. i.a. [moO is preferable, and also what we would expect in comparison with the
Cons. Scal. (329), which has Valentiniano.
16 (387). aqcoustakou : Bauer sees a colon written after this word.
However, what he sees as the dot above, seems rather to be the small hook
going down from the u, as in the u in the line above it. The dot below may be just
a small ink blot, such as the one found to the right of Picture 2 (right of the head
of the mummy).
Picture 2. The dead Bishop Timothy of Alexandria is represented as a
mummy, thus underscoring the Egyptian milieu of this text. The mummy is
coloured blue, is wrapped in linen denoted with criss-crossing lines and bound
with three yellow-green bands. Above, to the left of the mummy is the caption:
Tiljheor.142
17 (387). Tot\ t`: it seems that the scribe first wrote toutye and then,
realizing he should have written ty twice, corrected the e to a t, which is larger
and extends further down than usual, and has a small hook to the left at the
bottom of the vertical. Perhaps this correction is connected to the addition of a
small stroke on the first y to mark the division between Tot\ and t`:
touty- ty.143
17 22 (387). Tot\ t` 5[tei5tg jg]: Timothy was the brother of Peter,
Timothys predecessor as bishop of Alexandria, and died on 20 July 385.144
Theophilus was ordained bishop of Alexandria the following Sunday (26 July
385) and died on 15 October 412.145 For this year, besides the Egyptian date (ro
20), the indiction year is given (ro 21), another common chronological system in
Late Antique Egypt and the fourth chronological system used in this text,
though this is the only place where it appears.146 Theophilus was ordained in
either the thirteenth or the fourteenth indiction (which depends on when the
indiction is deemed to have started, the beginning of May, July or September).147
This entry, however, places it during a second indiction, which normally runs
from 388 to 389. On the other hand, the second indiction is also equivalent to
year 105 of Diocletian,148 which this year just happens to be (ro 15: PE) as a
result of the earlier errors (see commentary at ro 9 (384) above), so it seems
143 Cf. Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 12.
144 The consular year is given by Socr. h.e. 5.12.5 (GCS Neue Folge 1, p. 286.22 3), who
also says that it was the year after Honorius birth in 384.
145 Russell, Theophilus (see fn. 18), 4 (with n. 9), 35.
146 Bagnall and Worp, Chronological Systems (see fn. 17), 22 35.
147 Bagnall and Worp, Chronological Systems (see fn. 17), 127 8 and 138.
148 The equivalence can be seen in the Fasti Heracliani (Mommsen, Chronica minora 3 (see
fn. 26), 401), and Bagnall and Worp, Chronological Sytems (see fn. 17), 138.

81
likely that the indiction was a later addition to the text it is not mentioned by
Theophanes or the Cons. Scal. from a table that equated years of Diocletian
and indictions. Theophilus was bishop for 27, not 28 years.149
18 (387). ). [kenamd]q. ear : to the left of the lacuna, the belly of the a is clearly
visible, and to the right of the lacuna part of the round upper part and the
characteristic small hook at the bottom of the vertical of the q are discernible.
Bauer, followed by Bilabel, places no dots beneath the doubtful letters;
Vandersleyen does not see the traces of the q, and proposes )[kenamdq]ear.
20 (387). 9p]e. v : the lower, rounded part of the e, as well as the horizontal
stroke, are clearly preserved. Bauer places the e in the lacuna (9pe]v), while
Bilabel notes the e without a dot (9p]ev).
Picture 3. A standing figure with a grey beard holding a book in both hands,
on which is shown a T-shaped pattern. He has a grey scarf around his neck, and
wears a yellow tunic and brown cloak.150 Springing up at his right foot is a green
line, probably a plant (cf. Pictures 4, 5 and 7). Even though the image is frontal,
the figure is glancing towards his left. To the right of his head is the caption, b
cio. [r] Hev. [i]ko. [r] Saint Theophilus, the new bishop of Alexandria.151
22 6 (387). ja aqt` t` 5[teiSept]elbq(_ym): For Maximus proclamation
in 383, see the commentary to ro 1 4 (383) above. It is peculiar that Maximus
accession is noted here, just before his death, when he has already been
described as a usurper (b tqammor) in ro 3 (383). However, Maximus survived as
emperor long enough to celebrate his quinquennalia in 388, the year of his
defeat,152 so perhaps a record of these celebrations was preserved in some way
and was misunderstood as indicating Maximus accession, rather than his
anniversary. This would explain the presence of this entry in 388. The date given
for Maximus dies imperii, 14 to 28 February, is otherwise unknown, but does
149 Cf. the discussion of this passage by Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische
Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 56 8.
150 Wilpert, Beitrge (see fn. 15), 3 4, 14 5, Martin, Athanase (see fn. 99), 327 (n. 20) and
Davis, Early Coptic Papacy (see fn. 18), 64, think that the scarf is the episcopal pallium
but Theophilus is more probably dressed in civilian clothes, see K.C. Inneme,
Ecclesiastical Dress in the Medieval Near East (Leiden, 1992) 53 (Pl. 57), with the more
general comments in his Christian Secular, Monastic, and Liturgical Dress in the
Eastern Mediterranean, in G. Vogelsang-Eastwood (ed.), Encyclopedia of World Dress
and Fashion, Volume 5: Central and Southwest Asia (Oxford, 2010) 165 70 at 165. We
would like to thank Karel Inneme for discussion on this topic.
151 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 58, 121.
152 For his qunquennalia in 388, see R.W. Burgess, Quinquennial Vota and the Imperial
Consulship in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries, 337 511, NC 148 (1988) 77 96 at 84 5,
92 (with illustration), repr. in Chronicles, Consuls, and Coins: Historiography and
History in the Later Roman Empire (Farnham, 2011) Ch. XIV. For the vota coinage
marking his quinquennalis, see J.W.E. Pearce, The Roman Imperial Coinage, Vol IX:

82
accord well with what is known about his accession in 383.153 Since this entry
does not belong to the tradition of the Cons. Ital. or Cons. Vind., it must have
been added by a reader or compiler after 527. One suspects that Rome would
have been a more likely repository for such a fact than Alexandria, but there are
no means of deciding the matter. Whatever the entrys origin, the date should be
considered more seriously than it has been in the past (to our knowledge it has
been completely ignored), especially when we take into account the accurate
information on the location of Maximus death contained in the same entry
(commentary at ro 25 6 below).
After the defeat of his armies, Maximus was arrested in Aquileia and then
executed three miles outside that city (in tertio ab Aquileia lapide) on 28 July
388.154 This date is given by the Descriptio (s.a. 388.2: V kal. Aug.) and is
supported by Hydatius (Chronicle 17, relying on an earlier recension of the
Descriptio than the extant version)155 and Theophanes (AM 5880, p. 70.28, de
Boor; from a witness to the Cons. Ital.), who garbles the day. The Cons. Vind. pr.
(510) and Cons. Gol., also from the Cons. Ital., state that it was 28 August (V
kal. Septembris), which is almost universally accepted by modern scholars.156
Socrates supports this alternative tradition, though he gives 27 August, since he
has erred in converting the Latin date as he often does, using the named
September not August as the basis for the backwards calculation.157 The
Descriptios date, confirmed by Hydatius and Theophanes, is virtually contemporary with the event itself and should be accepted for that reason alone, but it
is also supported by two insufficiently acknowledged studies of the 1960s in
which O. Perler definitively demonstrated that 28 July is the correct date.158
The error must therefore lie with the date reported by the Cons. Vind. pr.
and the two other Eastern texts. Now Socrates Church History was written
between 439 and 443 and so represents the earliest witness to this variant date,
but there is no evidence that anything in this work is in any way related to the
Cons. Ital. We can only assume that some years after the dissemination of the
July date in 388, the August date was disseminated in such a way that it
153
154
155
156
157
158
Valentinian I Theodosius I (London, 1933) Trier 80 1, 86; Lugdunum 35; Arelate 28;
Mediolanum 17 (pp. 28 9, 50, 69, 79).
See the discussion of J.F. Matthews, Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court, A.D.
364 425 (Oxford, 1975) 173.
This detailed information comes from Prosper, Chronicle 1191 (ed. Mommsen, Chronica
minora 1 (see fn. 26), 462). For the location of Aquileia, see Talbert, Barrington Atlas
(see fn. 119), 19 (F4).
Ed. Burgess, Chronicle of Hydatius (see fn. 26), 76.
E.g. PLRE I s.v. (Magnus) Maximus 39 (p. 588); Kienast, Kaisertabelle (see fn. 113), 342.
Socr. h.e. 5.14.1 (GCS Neue Folge 1, p. 288.5 6).
O. Perler, Augustinus und das Todesdatum des Augustus Magnus Maximus von Trier,
in Festschrift fr Alois Thomas. Archologische, kirchen- und kunsthistorische Beitrge
(Trier, 1967) 289 96, and Les voyages de saint Augustin (Paris, 1969) 197 203.

83
influenced the source that lay behind the Cons. Vind. pr. and the Cons. Gol. but
not the older version behind the Chronicle of Theophanes.159 We cannot know
the origin of the variant or the vector of its dissemination, but it is nevertheless
useful here because it demonstrates once again the closeness of the Cons. Gol.
and the Cons. Vind. pr. and distances the tradition of the Cons. Gol. from the
Alexandrian source used by Theophanes.160
24 (387). jaka]md(_m): the same word is found abbreviated several times in
the Cons. Ber., but there it is rendered with a different abbreviation mark as
jak.161
25 6 (387). 1m J]o. qt_mi: as we have seen above (commentary at ro 22 6),
Maximus was killed three miles outside Aquileia. The Cons. Gol. says it was in a
place named -oqtm or perhaps in Latin -ortona. Bauer notes a Cortona just north
of Aquileia and indeed there are still two small villages or localities (frazioni)
named Cortona and Cortona Alta, the first about three and the other about four
Roman miles north-east of Aquileia, due south of the modern Ruda (on the Via
Localit Cortona Alta, which becomes the Via Cortona), which no doubt still
retain the name of the old site.162 It would have been situated on the east side of
the major Roman road that entered Italy from Emona through Pons Sontii and
headed south to Aquileia, which was Theodosius route against Maximus.163 There
can be no doubt, therefore, that this is authentic and accurate information gleaned
from an otherwise unknown source. It was probably this same post-527 source
that provided Maximus dies imperii (see commentary at ro 22 6 above). Like the
date, this information has been ignored by modern scholars.
28 (388). toO. : enough of the upper left end of the u is preserved for it to be
read, as it was by Bilabel. Bauer has to[O].
k. al(pqot\tou): of the initial k the entire oblique stroke can be read as it was
by Bilabel whose reading we follow. Again, Bauer puts it in the lacuna
(k]al(pqot\tou)).
31 (389). Eqa]c. q. .o. [u : the last line of the recto is almost entirely
reconstructed and rests mainly on the reading of the name of the augustalis.
Of the traces of the four letters, the reading of the q is practically certain
159 This might seem unusual but there are a number of cases in the fourth and fifth centuries
of widely disseminated dates that differ from one another in ways that cannot be
explained by a simple confusion of figures (e. g. III for VI) or words (e. g. kl. for id. or
Iun. for Ian.), such as the death of Valentinian II (see commentary at vo 11 3 below),
the accession of Theodosius II and the death of Honorius.
160 Cf. Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 60 1.
161 P. Berol. inv. 13296 i 12, ii 8, 39, 44, 48.
162 See Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 59 60, where
Bauer discusses several options and settles for Cortona. Both sites can be found on
Google Maps and Italian tourist and local government web sites.
163 See Talbert, Barrington Atlas (see fn. 119), 19 (F4) and 20 (A4 B3).

84
because of the characteristic upper loop. The i and o fit the traces, while part of
the first letter, which could be a c, are also visible. Bauers reconstruction of the
name is thus reasonable.164 At the end of the line there is a little scrap of papyrus
on which the traces of two, ligatured letters are visible, possibly ki, as fits the
reconstruction.
If this reconstruction is correct, however, this augustalis must be an error.
Evagrius is not attested in office until 16 June 391 and his predecessor,
Alexander, who would seem to have been appointed in 388, was still in office on
1 March 390.165
Verso
Picture 4. Two figures are standing next to one another. On the right, the largest
figure has a blue globe encircled by white lines in his left hand, which is
obscured by it. He wears a long, red-purple cloak over a white, belted tunic. The
belt is yellow and the tunic has a yellow border and two decorative yellow
squares perhaps representing embroidery. There appears to be another yellow
patch above the belt on the left. His shoulders and head have not been
preserved, which shows that the picture ran beyond the text into the margin and
close to the upper edge. The figure stands on a green base, with a plant springing
up to his left. To his right is a much smaller figure, also wearing a long-sleeved
white tunic and red-purple cloak and holding an identical blue globe in his left
hand, which is obscured by it, towards which his right hand extends. The globes
and purple cloaks mark these figures as emperors, the larger one being the
senior and the smaller one the junior emperor.166 No captions have been
preserved, but the historical entry to the right (as partially restored) mentions
Honorius (vo 2), which must be the small figure, and thus the larger figure is his
father, Theodosius I.167
164 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 61, already found in
Bauer, Liste (see fn. 137), 349.
165 PLRE I s.v. Alexander 12 (p. 42) and Evagrius 7 (p. 286). Cf. Hahn, Wann wurde das
Sarapeion (see fn. 19), 375 6 (n. 32), who rejects the reconstruction for this reason; but
that Evagrius cannot have been the prefect of 389 does not mean that the reconstruction
is wrong, since the compiler may have made a mistake, as he did with other praefecti
augustales. See the appendix for discussion.
166 For the globe as an imperial attribute, see Pearce, Roman Imperial Coinage (see fn. 152),
324 under Globe Emperor. On Roman coinage of the fourth and fifth centuries the
junior emperor (who is always younger) is depicted as being noticably smaller than his
senior colleague.

85
1 5 (389). The second-most problematic entry in the Chron. Gol. is the one
at the start of the verso. Almost nothing of it survives but the apparent reference
to Honorius (vo 2), the general parallels to the Cons. Vind. and the date prove
that it must relate to Theodosius visit to Rome in 389 with his son, Honorius.
Bauer offers two reconstructions,168 both of which do damage to the word order
that is preserved in the five other texts that report the entry and derive from the
same ultimate common source, the public proclamation of this event. In the
following comparison, the texts that are related through the Cons. Ital. are
marked with an asterisk.
Introiuit Theudosius augustus in urbem Romam cum Honorio filio suo die iduum
Iuniarum et dedit congiarium Romanis (Descriptio consulum s.a. 389).
eQs/khem Heodsior b basiker 1m Ul, let toO uRoO aqtoO jmyqou, ja 5stexem
aqtm 1je? eQr basika. (Chron. Pasch. s.a. 389, p. 564.8 10 Dindorf).
Theodosius Romam introiuit cum Honorio idus Iunias et exiuit inde III kl Septemb.
(Cons. Vind. pr. 512).*
Theodosius imperator cum Honorio filio suo Romam mense Iunio introiuit,
congiarium Romano populo tribuit urbeque egressus est kal. Septembris (Marcellinus comes s.a. 389.1).*169
Gkhe Heodsior 1m Ul, let imyqou toO uRoO aqtoO ja 1jhisem aqtm basika
1m aqt0 pq ef Qd_m Youmou, ja !m/khem 1p Jymstamtimopokim (Theophanes AM
5881, p. 70.31 3 de Boor).*
These can be compared to Bauers two proposed reconstructions, which we

place side by side here for easier comparison:
[Tot\ t` 5tei let toO uRoO]
jm[yqou Heodsior eQs/khe]
1m [Ul, ja aqtm eQr basi-]
k[a 5stexem eQd(o?r) Youm(air) ja]
[Tot\ t` 5tei eQs/khe let]

jm[yqou toO uRoO aqtoO]
1m [Ul, Heodsior b basi-]
ke[r eQdo?r Youmair ja]
As can be seen Bauer has used the Chron. Pasch. to reconstruct the text. The
Chron. Pasch.s entry is, however, for the most part a translation of the entry in
the Descriptio (see below) and is therefore independent of the Cons. Ital.
traditions and so cannot be used as a template for this entry. The reference to
Honorius proclamation, at least, also appears in Theophanes, which, as we have
seen above (pp. 53 4), would make its appearance in the Cons. Gol. more likely.
169 Ed. Mommsen, Chronica minora 2 (see fn. 26), 62.

86
The inclusion of this part of the entry would also seem to be confirmed by the
illustration, which clearly shows a junior emperor. Any entry that makes no
mention of Honorius proclamation would have to look more like Cons. Vind.
pr. or Marcellinus, but there does not seem to be any reconstruction based on
these texts that will fit the traces. Bauers decision to opt for the reconstruction
on the left is thus plausible, but far from conclusive, since so much must be
reconstructed and any word order that contradicts all other parallels by putting
Honorius before his father is suspicious. We have not found a suitable
alternative for this problematic reconstruction, however, and as a result have
kept Bauers reconstruction.
In spite of modern theories to the contrary,170 the belief that Honorius was
proclaimed emperor in Rome during Theodosius visit in 389 is a concoction of
Byzantine historiography, appearing for the first time in the ca. 470 Alexandrian
chronicle that was used by Theophanes in ca. 814, as cited above. Besides its
appearance here in the Cons. Gol., it can also be found in a confused passage in
Zosimus (early sixth century) that refers to 394171 and in the Chron. Pasch.
(ca. 630).172 No other source mentions it. Honorius was proclaimed augustus at
the Hebdomon, seven miles outside Constantinople, on 23 January 393.173
2 3 (389). eQs/khe] 1m [Ul,: cf. the Cons. Ber., which has a similar
construction at P.Berol. ii 42 3: eQs/kham (read eQs/khem) 1m Jyst(amtimou)p(kei) t klxama (read kexama) t_m "cym !postkym )mdqa ja Kouj
the relics of the holy apostles Andrew and Luke entered Constantinople.174
Both are in imitation of the underlying Latin construction of in + accusative.
4 (389). [Qd(o?r)]: for the restoration, which differs from Bauers ([eQd(o?r)]),
see above, commentary at ro 7.
170 E.g. A. Cameron, Theodosius the Great and the Regency of Stilico, HSPh 73 (1969)
247 80 at 260 1, repeated in Barbarians and Politics at the Court of Arcadius (Berkeley,
1993) 3 (n. 7), who hypothesized that Honorius was proclaimed caesar in 389. The key
piece of evidence for this idea is a comment by Claudian, de IV cons. Hon. 169 (on which
see M. Dewar, Claudian. Panegyricus de sexto consulatu Honorii Augusti (Oxford, 1996)
107 8), but as Cameron now states, it would be in keeping with [Theodosius] policy of
making it clear that one of his sons rather than poor Valentinian II was to be emperor of
the West one day at least to make a public announcement in Rome (personal
communication).
171 Zos. 4.59.1, p. 328.19 21 Paschoud, with his comments countering Camerons article,
Zosime. Histoire nouvelle, 3 vols (Paris, 1979 2000) 2.2.468 70.
172 Theophanes does not appear to have used the Chron. Pasch. See Mango and Scott,
Chronicle of Theophanes (see fn. 42), lxxx.
173 PLRE I s.v. (Fl.) Honorius 3 (p. 442, citing the Cons. Const. (= Descriptio) for the date,
but it does not even mention Honorius accession; it should read Cons. Vind. pr. 521);
Kienast, Kaisertabelle (see fn. 113), 340.
174 See the commentary ad loc. by Burgess and Dijkstra, Berlin Chronicle (see fn. 22),
299.

87
5 (389). [jocciqiom]: the word is not attested in the papyri. It is the normal
Latin word to denote an imperial gift to the people, as opposed to a donative
(donatiuum), which was given to the soldiers. As a technical term (that was no
doubt unfamiliar to the translator anyway) it was left in Latin.
6 (390). QG. : the right part of the G has faded, but the vertical stroke is
certain and no other letter makes sense here.
Ba[kemtimiamoO: rather than Bauers Ba[kemtiamoO, see above, commentary at ro
15. The two extra letters do not make a difference, since all sentences in this column
(except those that stop sooner as a result of their being the end of a chronological
or historical entry) have 20 3 letters, and this line now has 23 letters.
Beneath the letters Ba is a wavy line, which looks like the one below vo 20
(see commentary ad loc.) and may be used there to set off the chronological part
of the entry. If the same is the case here, however, it should have been written
two lines down.
7 8 (390). [1p
]au[
]: Bauer considers two options for restoration: either one in which Evagrius features as
augustalis for the second time, 1p toO] aq[toO aqcoustakou] or 1p toO] aq[toO
Eqacqou aqc(oustakou),175 or one in which an unknown augustalis is
mentioned, starting either at the end of ro 7 or beginning with Aq- in ro 8. He
has a preference for the second option, since the first one would result in the
unlikely circumstance that Evagrius was augustalis four times in a row.176 Indeed,
the first option can be rejected. The reading of vo 18 9 (392) is 1. p. . t. oO a. q. toO
Eqa. [cqou, so that the augustalis for 391 should be restored to Eqacqou in vo 10.
There is no room for toO aqtoO here, since the line already has 23 letters, which
means that Evagrius cannot have been the augustalis for 390. We know from the
Cod. Theod. 13.5.18 that Alexander was augustalis on 18 February 390, and
probably 1 March as well (CJ 10.40.8),177 but we cannot restore 1p
)ken]jm. [dqou aqcoustakou], unless it is assumed that the scribe, who is
clearly well-educated, incorrectly divided the name at the line break (which
would be )kejnmdqou).178 Besides, the reading of the first two letters of vo 8 is
175 While the first proposal is highly unlikely, the second proposal only has 17 letters, not
21 2; given that the scribe would have wanted to fill up the space of ro 8 as much as
possible, he would rather have written aqcoust(akou), which yields 21 letters, or
aqcoustak(ou), which gives 23. Besides, aqcoustakou would not be abbreviated auc,
which is used for aqc(ostou) in our text, e. g. at ro 15.
176 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 63, restated at p. 117.
Cf. Bauer, Liste (see fn. 137), 349 in which he still regards the reading 1p toO] aq[toO
Eqacqou aqc(oustakou) als sicher.
177 PLRE I s.v. Alexander 12 (p. 42).
178 See, conveniently, H.W. Smyth, Greek Grammar (rev. ed. by G.M. Messing; Cambridge,
MA, 1956) 35 ( 140).

88
clearly au and am. would be difficult to defend.179 It is also impossible to read

these letters as ak. , which would allow the restoration 1p]j )k. [enmdqou aqcoustakou.180 Thus, the restoration of these lines must remain open.
9 10 (391). Ta. [tiamoOkal(pqot\tym): the restoration proposed by Bauer
is likely, but requires a mistake by the copyist, who for some reason forgot to
write the T to the left of the column and to insert the Diocletian year, so that in
the other two entries the number goes from QG. (vo 6) to QH (vo 17).181
Picture 5. A large figure standing, his right arm raised,182 his left, covered
hand holding a book with a cross-shaped pattern on it. He wears a long redpurple cloak, with yellow tunic and grey scarf around his neck. The figure can be
identified from the caption, crammed above his head just below Picture 4, as [b]
cior H. [e]v. i.[kor], Saint Theophilus, who is also depicted in Picture 3. There the
bishop is dressed in the same way, except that he is now cloaked in purple
instead of brown. The book, too, is similar, though it also is purple and it has a
cross-shaped, not T-shaped pattern on the cover, as in Picture 3. When we
compare the faces, in both cases Theophilus is glancing slightly towards his left
and has a grey beard, but in Picture 5 he seems to be older: his beard is less full
and he suffers from male pattern baldness. At both his feet branches spring up
that reach his waist.183
Theophilus is standing on top of a faade with columns and a triangular
entrance, painted in blue and yellow, in which is shown the bust of a beardless
man with curly hair wearing the modius, the characteristic headdress of the god
Serapis.184 Strzygowski interprets the piece of architecture as a pedestal, an
179 Cf. the writing of au in ro 21 (last two letters), with am (in the word before it): the m is
broader and has a long oblique in between the two verticals.
180 Cf. Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 63 (n. 3). The
reconstruction would be unsatisfactory anyway, since then there would only be 19
letters/signs in vo 7. For the letters ak at the beginning of a sentence, cf. vo 20: the
ligature with the a would require an up going and forward facing line, not one bending
over backwards, as is the case here.
181 For the reconstruction, see the considerations by Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 64. For the Diocletian years, see commentary at ro 9 above.
182 The papyrus is abraded here, so it is difficult to see whether he has something in his hand
and, if so, what it is.
183 Cf. Davis, Early Coptic Papacy (see fn. 18), 64, followed by Watts, Riot (see fn. 18),
206 7 who sees a close resemblance between Theophilus as depicted here and the Old
Testament prophets shown elsewhere in the manuscript (fol. III, Pl. VII ro, fr. C;
described by Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 149 51)
and links this to Theophilus own identification with these prophets. Such comments
assume a close chronological relationship between the illustration and Theophilus
himself, which we now know to be untrue. Besides, the only resemblance among these
images is that the figures hold a book and, as noted above, the pictures are all quite
stereotypical.

89
architectural framing for the bust of Serapis, on which the triumphant

Theophilus is standing. In his critical review of Strzygowskis interpretation of
the images, in particular of Picture 5, however, J. Wilpert rightly remarks that
temples are often depicted in shortened form consisting of a faade with
columns, in which the deity is shown in the entrance.185 This architectural form
thus represents the Serapeum in stereotypical form, just as it is found on
Alexandrian coins.186 The combination of Theophilus and the Serapeum cannot
be connected to any of the extant historical entries, except for the second one of
392 (vo 23 9, see ceommentary below) and since Theophilus is often connected
with the destruction of the Serapeum, it is highly likely that the entry described
this event.
11 in marg. (caption to Picture 5). [b] cior H. [e]v. i.[kor]: this is apparently
the only caption written in the black ink used for the images. The reading is
made difficult by the abrasion of a narrow band on the papyrus, which causes
the obliteration of most of the first and the second letters of Theophilus name,
as it does of the left foot of Theodosius and part of the vegetation in the image
above (Picture 4). .cior is certain. Before that is a trace that could well be of b.
It is unclear whether the other traces here and down towards Theophilus right
hand represent more text or belong to the picture. To the right of cior is a trace
that could only be the beginning of the h. The next letters we see are the o and
the clear upper part with vertical stroke of the v. The top of the next letter is also
visible, which is probably the i, after which the remainder disappears in the
lacuna. Bauer reads the name as H[e]vik[or], Bilabel as H[e]vikor.187
11 3 (391). [Tot\ t` 5teiYoum(ym)]: Valentinian II committed suicide in
Vienna (modern Vienne in France) on 15 May 392.188 The date restored here for
the death of Valentinian II is what is found in the Cons. Vind. pr. (516), but is
incorrect. There is no easy way to account for this error: IIII id. Iun. has
somehow been substituted for id. Mai., which is found in Epiphanius De
mensuris et ponderibus, written soon after the event in 392.189 It also appears in
184 For the iconography of Serapis, see in general G. Clerc, J. Leclant, Sarapis, in LIMC 7.1
(1994) 666 92, with the accompanying figures.
185 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 72 (n. 1), 122, 169. Cf.
Wilpert, Beitrge (see fn. 15), in particular pp. 6 9 on the interpretation of the
building.
186 Sabottka, Serapeum (see fn. 18), 299 310, with examples.
187 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 66, cf. the notation by
Strzygowski on p. 122, [He]vi[kor]. Bilabel probably leaves out the square brackets
between -or by mistake, as they are clearly in the lacuna.
188 PLRE I s.v. (Flavius) Valentinianus 8 (pp. 934 5); B. Croke, Arbogast and the Death of
Valentinian II, Historia 25 (1976) 235 44; Kienast, Kaisertabelle (see fn. 113), 335. For
the location of Vienna, see Talbert, Barrington Atlas (see fn. 119), 17 (D2).
189 Epiph. mens. 20 (PG 43, col. 272).

90
the Chronicle of Marcellinus comes (s.a. 391.2),190 though through a typical

scribal error Mai. May has become Mar. March, so the correct date must have
originally stood in the Cons. Ital. as well, since Marcellinus is also a witness to
that tradition. We have seen this problem above in 387 (commentary at ro 22 6)
and will see it again below in 392 (vo 22 3). Here the reading Qdo?r Laair would
be impossible as more letters are needed to fit the space in the lacuna, which
helps to confirm the restoration [pq d Qd_m Youm(ym)].191
11 2 (391). [Bakemtimiamr]: instead of Bauers [Bakemtiamr], see above,
commentary at ro 15.
13 (391). [Qd_m]: rather than Bauers [eQd_m], see above, commentary at ro 7.
Picture 6. Only the bottom part of this image has been preserved. It shows
the lower part of a figure clad in a purple cloak and to its right a piece of yellow
clothing. The figure can be identified on the basis of the caption, which is found
here exceptionally below the image and not above it, as the Emperor
Valentinian. The image must therefore have depicted the death of Valentinian
as described in the historical entry to its left (see commentary at vo 11 3
above).192
15. in marg. (caption to Picture 6). Bakem. t. [imiamr]: we restore here the full
name, not the shortened one, Bakem[tiamr], as Bauer has it, or Bakemti[amr] as
is read by Bilabel.193 See above, commentary at ro 15. The reading after Bake- is
made with difficulty, but the broad, forward-leaning m and t that one finds in the
captions can be made out. It cannot be decided whether there are any traces of
the i still on the papyrus, or whether they fall in the lacuna, as does the rest of
the name.
13 5 (391). j]a. . 1. p. . q[hg H. [h] jc : Eugenius was proclaimed emperor in
Lugdunum (Lyon) by Arbogast on 22 August 392.194 The Cons. Vind. pr. (517)
and the Cons Gol. (as confirmed by the Egyptian date) are the only sources to
preserve this date.195
13 4 (391). j]a. . 1. p. . qj[hg : little remains of the letters on vo 13, but Bauers
restoration of this entry is likely and what there is fits the traces, especially g. q at
the end of the line, of which the q is certain.
190 Mommsen, Chronica minora 2 (see fn. 26), 62.

191 As already remarked by Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see
fn. 3), 65 6 (n. 1).
193 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 64. Cf. Strzygowski,
who in his discussion of the image at p. 122 notes the caption as Bake[mtiamr].
194 PLRE I s.v. Arbogastes (p. 96), Eugenius 96 (p. 293); Kienast, Kaisertabelle (see
fn. 113), 343 (erroneously citing Cons. Const. = Descriptio consulum).
195 So Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 65.

91
14 (391). E]q. c. mior : only the letters em can be read with certainty from the
plate in the first edition (Pl. 2). In this case, however, the recent photographs
from the Pushkin are useful, as they confirm Bauers reading of the last five
letters (emior). The u is partly in the lacuna; of the c only traces survive. Bilabel
has E]q. cmior.
15 (391). Sept. e. l. b(q_ym): sep can be read, as well as the b and abbreviation
mark at the end. The letters in between are much faded but fit the traces.196
16 (391). [f] 1. s. t. i.m H. [h]: of the first four letters of 1. s. t. i.m, only the bottom is
preserved, though the proposed letters fit the traces; m is completely there. The
rounded curve of the following h is also visible.
17 (392). )qjado. [u : after the clear reading of )qjad- there is a trace of the
following o ; Bauer has )qjad[ou.
Picture 7. A figure in a long-sleeved white tunic and purple cloak that is
wrapped around his lower body kneels, leaning backwards and stretching out his
right hand, upon a thick base of vegetation, from which emerges a plant. The
sleeve of his tunic has a yellow border similar to the yellow border and patches
on the tunic worn by Theodosius in Picture 4, and he appears to be wearing a
diadem. There is a blue stain across his tunic like the stain in Picture 1. Beside
his head is the caption that identifies him as the usurper Eugenius, whose death
is mentioned in the historical entry to the left (see commentary at ro 21 3
below).197
17. in marg. Eqcm[ior]: Bauer reads two more letters behind Eqcm-.198
There are what may be traces of black ink behind the m and on the other side of
the head, but these traces are insufficient to allow any reading. Bilabel also has
Eqcm[ior].
18 (392). [toO : Bauer sees a trace of the horizontal of the t on the edge of the
papyrus and notes t[oO, but if so there is too little left to read the letter.
18 9 (392). kal(pqot\tou)] 1. p. . t. oO a. q. jtoO : the abbreviation mark does not
seem to be preserved, then we have the traces of 1. p. ., followed by the secure
reading t. oO, in which only the left part of the horizontal of the t has faded. The
trace of the oblique stroke of the a can be seen, but the u is almost completely
erased. Cf. Bauers reading kal](pqot\tou) [1]p toO aqtoO and Bilabels kal(pqot\tou) 1]p toO aqtoO.
19 (392). aqco]u. s. t. a. k. (ou): the reading of this word is problematic and
further obscured by cracks in the papyrus. However, the final abbreviation mark
196 Cf. Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 64 5: Z. 15 ist
Septelb so deutlich, als dies auf dieser Seite berhaupt erwartet werden kann.
197 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 68 9, 122. Cf. Wilpert,
Beitrge (see fn. 15), 12 4.
198 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 66. Cf. Strzygowski,
who notes the caption as Eqcm[ior] later on in the work (p. 122).

92
is fairly clear, which, together with the expected number of letters within the
restoration results in the reading aqco]u. s. t. a. k. (ou).
20 (392). )ken. [amdqear]: the first three letters are certain and the fourth is
likely, so that the restoration is probable, even though the name of the city has
not been added to any of the other augustales, either here or in the Cons. Scal.
There are traces of ink to the right of the lacuna, but according to Bauer these
are traces of letters from the recto that show through because of abrasion to the
papyrus.199 We are inclined to follow this estimation, also because if the
reading is )ken. [amdqear], nothing more is to be expected.
Beneath the )k is a wavy line that may be an indication of the end of the
chronological part of the entry, although it has not been preserved at vo 8
(though there is a similar wavy line at vo 6, see commentary ad loc.) and on the
recto the strokes are thicker and there they have been put in front of, not before,
the last line of the entry.
21 3 (392). To[t\ t` 5teiHh] g-. : Eugenius was defeated and killed at
the River Frigidus in north-eastern Italy by the army of Theodosius on 6
September 394.200 The correct date is preserved in the Cons. Vind. pr. (522a) and
Socrates.201 As we saw above in the commentary on ro 3 4, the Cons. Gol.
supports this date.202
21 2 (392). 1m] .ir : Bauer believes that this was the name of the town or
city where Eugenius was murdered. The word probably ends with -air or -oir,
but remains unidentified.203 There is no evidence for a location of Eugenius
death in the Cons. Ital. or Cons. Vind., so if that is what indeed appears here, it
must have been added independently, as its unusual location at the head of the
entry would suggest. As we saw above (commentary at ro 25 6 (387)) the
location of Maximus death was added independently by a scribe or reader and
is accurate, and thus there is good reason for believing this location may have
been correct as well.
22 3 (392). pq] g-. Q.d. _mHh] g-. : As noted above (commentary at ro 3 4)
although the Greek now reads Yamou. [aq(_ym), it was originally Septelb(q_ym), as
is confirmed by the Egyptian equivalent. There is no way to determine how such
199 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 66: Z. 20 hat nach dem
Worte )ken. amdqear nichts mehr gestanden; was wie Buchstabenreste aussieht, sind die
durchscheinenden Schriftzge des Rekto.
200 PLRE I s.v. Eugenius (p. 293); Kienast, Kaisertabelle (see fn. 113), 343. For a detailed
analysis of the literary accounts on the Frigidus, see now Cameron, Last Pagans (see
fn. 18), 93 131.
201 Socr. h.e. 5.25.16 (GCS Neue Folge 1, p. 309.8 10).
202 Cf. the observations by Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3),
67 8.
203 Cf. Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 68, with some
proposals.

93
a copying error could have occurred and it may have been a deliberate change.
For the restoration [Hh] instead of Bauers [Va_vi], see the same entry of the
commentary at ro 3 4 above.
23 (392). [1stim]: Bauer restores 1sti, and the same form is found in Bilabels
and Vandersleyens text, but in ro 4 and vo 16 1stim is found (the former partly
restored), in spite of the lack of a following vowel, while in ro 8 this form is
restored, so it should be restored here as well.
23 9 (392). ja aqt` t` [5tei ]: the last lines of the verso contain a second
historical entry for the year 392. The entry is longer than usual, as it extends
over seven lines, compared with four to six lines for the other ones. Yet it is also
the most badly damaged part of the papyrus, and almost nothing of it can be
read. Here are the readings proposed by Bauer, along with the extensive
reconstruction by Bilabel that is followed by Vandersleyen:
ed. princ.:
Bilabel/Vandersleyen:
ja aqt`
t` [5tei oR mao t_]m :[k]k[m]y(m)
1. kg[]e. s. t. [t_]m. Wqistia[m_m..]ou 1piswi[f t]
cq[llata .] UylamoO[
]
ja aqt`
t` [5tei B vhaqt t_]m :[k]kmy(m)
v. kg [jatekhg. Pq]]sb. [ey]m Wqistia. [m_m rp Heov_kou t]oO 1pisj. . [pou pelvh]mtym eW]t[a]
cq[llata basik]yr rp] UylamoO[
]
204
If we start with Bauers readings, even though he admits that the text here is
very hard to read, his readings are tentative at best.205 In vo 24 nothing can be
read after the lacuna except for y(m) and the preceding letter seems to be rather
a q, which makes the reading :[k]k[m]y(m) doubtful. Vo 25 indeed starts with
e. k, but the next letter is unclear, as is everything after the lacuna until qi. The
letters on the next line cannot be read either, so that Wqistia[m_m cannot be
restored. At the end of vo 26 five readable letters (ouepi) can be found, but these
do not help us in the reconstruction. At the beginning of vo 27, swi is certainly
incorrect and after the lacuna there are either traces or no letters at all. Nothing
of vo 28 can be read, and even though at the beginning of vo 29 the letters mou. are
legible, the preceding letters at the end of vo 28 do not match the letters Uyla-.
Under such circumstances, almost any reconstruction is possible and it
would have been better if Bauer had left it with the readings that he was
reasonably sure of. However, he clearly wanted to bring the text into line with
204 Bilabel prints [t` 5tei, but this is evidently a typo, which is corrected by Vandersleyen,
without comment.
205 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 69: sehr schlecht
leserlich.

94
the well-known accounts of the Church historians concerning this event. Thus he
reconstructs oR mao t_]m :[k]k[m]y(m) in vo 24 on the analogy of Socrates tor
1m )kenamdqe t_m :kkmym mao}r.206 And he seriously considers vkg for 1. kg[
in vo 24 (though 1. kg[ is maintained), because vkg vhaqt^ corruptible material
is found in the account of Sozomen.207 This method of reading the accounts of
the Church historians into the text is carried to the extreme by Bilabel. Despite
the shaky foundation of the first edition and the fact that he did not consult the
original, he changes some of Bauers readings (e. g. 1. kg[ into v. kg, although
Bauer had preferred the former) and fills in the blanks in order to create a
continuous narrative in the style of the Church historians (e. g. he adds
Sozomens vhaqt^ in ro 24).208 His version translates as In this year the
corruptible material of the pagans was destroyed. Messengers of the Christians
were sent by Theophilus the bishop and then letters of the emperor by
Romanus . The result is a continuous narrative, but not one that is based on a
solid consideration of the extant text.
Thus we present a more sober text. There is simply too little left to attempt
any reconstruction, as we do not have a parallel Latin text as we do for so many
entries above. It could be objected that Bauer had the papyrus in front of him
and could have seen more. On the other hand, the reading q. y(m) at the end of vo
24 casts serious doubts on his readings in this part of the text. The little that
remains of the historical entry does not mean that we think that it is not about
the destruction of the Serapeum. The picture to the left (Picture 7), which
connects Theophilus with the Serapeum, as well as the Serapeum depicted
below and to the right (Picture 8), clearly relate to the historical entry and there
is no doubt that this entry narrated the destruction of the Serapeum. In the next,
and final, section, we shall turn to the question to what extent our text can be
used as a source for the dating of this defining moment in the history of Late
Antique Alexandria.
Picture 8. A triangular faade of a building painted in blue and yellow and
supported by two white columns to the left, with a roof in blue to the right. In
206 Socr. h.e. 5.16.1 (GCS Neue Folge 1, p. 289.23).
207 Soz. h.e. 7.15.6 (GCS Neue Folge 4, p. 880.24).
208 Apart from the fact that the traces do not support the reading v. kg, the opening of the
entry with B vhaqtv. kg is highly unlikely in this context. The word vkg is used in the
common Christian discourse to describe idols as being man-made, not as a synonym of
image (as Bilabel suggests; cf. also the remark by Bauer and Strzygowski,
Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 70 (n. 1)), but to describe the material which
the image is made of, see G.W.H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford, 1961
1968) s.v. vkg 4. This is precisely the context of the passage in Soz. h.e. 7.15.6 (GCS Neue
Folge 4, p. 880), where t !c\klata the statues are made of vkg vhaqt^ corruptible
material. At the beginning of this historical entry one would therefore expect a word
such as %cakla rather than vkg if statues were the subject matter of the sentence.

95
the entrance of the faade, this time below an arch, a modius appears, the same
headdress as seen in Picture 5. So even though the papyrus breaks off here, it
would seem that the same bust of Serapis was originally shown here. The
building is identified with a caption to the left as [Sa]q\. p. i.t. o. r. t [R]e. qm. the
temple of Serapis. To the left of the Serapeum are two figures: on the left hand
side of the lacuna there has been preserved the left side of a figure with a raised
right arm and on the right hand side is a man with both arms raised. The men
seem to be similarly dressed in a grey-blue tunic with bare arms. Bauer and
Strzygowski interpret these figures as monks hurling stones at the Serapeum but
there is no sign of stones and their identification as monks is doubtful.209 Even if
it is not clear what the relation is between the men and the Serapeum, it seems
almost certain that we do have here, besides Picture 5, a second illustration of
the historical entry for 392, on the destruction of the Serapeum.
27 in marg. to. j. ..: this word, written above the roof of the Serapeum,
cannot be read. It probably starts with the article t, but a satisfactory reading
cannot be found for the following noun, though it probably starts with a j. Bauer
discusses several options, but cannot find a solution either. He notes in his text
Tajaqom, which does not mean anything.210 It is not even clear whether the
word is a (second) caption to Picture 7 above or Picture 8 below.
29 in marg. (caption to Picture 8). [Sa]q\. p. i.t. o. r. t [R]e. qm. : Bauer has
[Sa]qap?j[o]m (for Saqape?om) t Reqm, but when we compare with [R]e. qm. two
lines down, there is room for two to three more letters after -qapi-. Moreover,
one would rather expect either the temple of Serapis or the Serapeum, not
the Serapeum temple.211 Even if the reading is made with difficulty, we
therefore propose to read [Sa]q\. p. i.t. o. r. , the exchange of t and d being a normal
phenomenon in the papyri.212 As a TLG search shows, the phrase t toO
Saq\pidor Reqm (and variants) is commonly attested for describing the
Serapeum of Alexandria throughout Antiquity.213 There is no trace of the
initial i of Reqm that Bauer sees.
209 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 71 2, 122, 192. Cf.
Wilpert, Beitrge (see fn. 15), 9 12; Hahn, Gewalt und religiser Konflikt (see fn. 18),
94 (n. 383); D. Brakke, From Temple to Cell, from Gods to Demons: Pagan Temples in
the Monastic Topography of Fourth-Century Egypt, in Hahn, Emmel and Gotter, From
Temple to Church (see fn. 18), 91 112 at 102 (n. 31).
211 It should be said that Eunap. VS 11.1 (p. 38.12 3 Giangrande) speaks of t Seqape?om
Reqm, but still in a caption the temple of Serapis is more likely.
212 F.T. Gignac, A Grammar of the Greek Papyri of the Roman and Byzantine Periods, 2 vols
(1976 1981) 1.82.
213 For a useful collection of many attestations, see also A. Calderini, Dizionario dei nomi
geografici e topografici dellEgitto greco-romano, vol. 1.1 (Cairo, 1935) 140 6 s.v.
)kenmdqeia (Saqape?om), with the Supplements published by S. Daris since 1988.

96
The Date of the Destruction of the Serapeum

In the foregoing we have seen that the Cons. Gol. includes, as the second
historical entry under the year 392, an entry on the destruction of the Serapeum,
though this is borne out by the two pictures (Pictures 5 and 8) to the left, bottom
and right that illustrate the entry rather than by the text itself (vo 23 29), which
can no longer be reconstructed. As is the case with the previous entries, it must
now be determined how the date of 392 assigned to this entry in the Cons. Gol.
relates to the actual date of the event. According to Bauer, who refers to the
chronological errors of the other entries, the date in the Cons. Gol. is not to be
trusted at all. He connects the destruction of the Serapeum described the
closest in time to the event by Eunapius and the four Church historians Rufinus,
Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret214 with the edict promulgated by Theodosius I on 16 June 391 and addressed to Evagrius, praefectus augustalis, and
Romanus, comes Aegypti, in Alexandria that forbade sacrifice and access to
temples (Cod. Theod. 16.10.11). He therefore advocates a date in 391.215 This has
been the predominant view until quite recently and, following Bauer, the Cons.
Gol. has been virtually ignored as a source that can contribute to the date of the
event.216
In 2006, however, J. Hahn brought the Cons. Gol. back into the discussion.
In his study Wann wurde das Sarapeion von Alexandria zerstrt? he takes a
fresh new look at all the evidence and comes to the conclusion that the event
took place in 392, not 391. Since his main evidence for this date is the Cons.
214 Eunap. VS 6.11.1 7 (pp. 38 9 Giangrande); Rufin. hist. 11.22 3 (GSC Neue Folge 6.2,
pp. 1025 30); Socr. h.e. 5.16 7 (GCS Neue Folge 1, pp. 289 91); Soz. h.e. 7.15.2 10
(GCS Neue Folge 4, pp. 878 84); Thdt. h.e. 5.22 (GCS Neue Folge 5, pp. 320 1).
215 Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 72 3: Da in unserer
Chronik die Ergebnisse hufig um 1 3 Jahre verschoben sind, so kommt ihrer Angabe,
obschon es sich um ein stadtalexandrinisches Vorkommnis handelt, doch entscheidende
Beweiskraft nicht zu. Immerhin glaube ich, da die auf 391 fhrende berlieferung als
die bessere dadurch seine Sttze erhlt, and he continues by supporting his view in
detail in a footnote (p. 73 (n. 1)).
216 For an overview of the most prominent scholarship on the date of the destruction of the
Serapeum, usually placed in 389, 391 or 392, but especially 391, see Hahn, Wann wurde
das Sarapeion (see fn. 19), 369 70 (n. 7). As far as we are aware, the only exceptions
are G. Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Ann Arbor, 1990) 59 and P. Brown,
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity. Towards a Christian Empire (Madison, WI,
1992) 113 (n. 234), who mention 392 as a date on the basis of the Cons. Gol., and T.D.
Barnes, Ammianus Marcellinus and His World, CPh 88 (1993) 55 70 at 61 2, who
repudiates Bowersocks proposal by referring to the errors in the entries for 391 and 392
in the Cons. Gol. and sides with Bauer for the date of 391 on the basis of Cod.
Theod. 16.10.11. In response to this rebuttal, G. Bowersock, Late Antique Alexandria,
in Alexandria and Alexandrianism (Malibu, 1996) 263 72 at 266 (n. 14) withdrew his
earlier proposal.

97
Gol., in the following we shall discuss his arguments in detail, focusing in

particular on his use of the Cons. Gol., before we return to the question of
whether, in the light of the present study, the Cons. Gol. can indeed be used to
determine the date of the destruction of the Serapeum.
The point of departure of Hahns study is the close connection that is often
assumed between the law of 16 June 391 and the destruction of the Serapeum.
As Hahn points out, Cod. Theod. 16.10.11 cannot be taken as an imperial order
to destroy the temples at Alexandria despite the impression given by the
Church historians that such an order was given.217 The law has to be seen in the
context of a series of three laws in the period of 391 392, the other being a
similar law forbidding sacrifice and access to temples in Rome on 24 February
391 (Cod. Theod. 16.10.10) and the more general law against sacrifice of 8
November 392 (Cod. Theod. 16.10.12), which were aimed at forbidding public
worship, not at taking away the material basis of traditional cults. Hahns most
fundamental contribution to the debate on the date of the destruction of the
Serapeum is to disconnect the law of 16 June 391 and the destruction of the
Serapeum. In other words, 16 June 391 is to be considered only as a terminus
post quem for the date of the event.218
In the remainder of the article Hahn attempts to further pinpoint the date of
the event by including three sources that have thus far not, or rarely, been taken
into consideration, as well as prosopographical considerations. Two of these
sources are Jeromes De viris illustribus, of 392, in which he remarks that one of
his students, Sophronius, has nuper (recently) written a book on the destruction
of the Serapeum, and Epiphanius of Salamis De mensuris et ponderibus, also of
392, in which he mentions the daughter library at the Serapeum without
217 Most explicit is Socr. h.e. 5.16.1 (GCS Neue Folge 1, p. 289: basik]yr () pqstacla),
who takes an imperial order, obtained by Theophilus, as a starting point for his account
of the destruction of the Serapeum; Rufin. hist. 11.22 (GSC Neue Folge 6.2, p. 1026:
rescribit () Haec scripta () prima epistulae pagina) only mentions an imperial
response in the form of a letter when the situation escalates; Soz. h.e. 7.15.7 8 (GCS
Neue Folge 4, pp. 880 2: t_m () cqav]mtym paq basik]yr), which is largely based on
Rufinus account, describes the same order of events but is, like Socrates, more explicit
and states that in his letter Theodosius ordered jahaiqeh/mai () to}r 1m )kenamdqe
mao}r that the temples in Alexandria were to be destroyed. The historicity of an
imperial order, at least one that ordered the destruction of temples, is doubtful. See,
apart from the detailed arguments set out by Hahn, the important article by R.M.
Errington, Christian Accounts of the Religious Legislation of Theodosius I, Klio 79
(1997) 398 443 at 401, 404 5, 423 8, with the more general remarks in his Roman
Imperial Policy from Julian to Theodosius (Chapel Hill, 2006) 249 51, and Cameron,
Last Pagans (see fn. 18), 62 3, 72, 799.
218 Hahn, Wann wurde das Sarapeion (see fn. 19), 371 4, which derives from his Gewalt
und religiser Konflikt (see fn. 18), 81 4, and is found again (in English) as Conversion
of the Cult Statues (see fn. 18), 340 4.

98
referring to its destruction.219 Hahn takes the second work in particular as proof
for a date of the Serapeum incident in 392, but Epiphanius only mentions the
Serapeum in the context of the first Ptolemies as a later addition to the main
library in the Broucheion, and the passage therefore does not refer to a
contemporary situation, which makes the absence of any reference to the
destruction nothing but an argumentum e silentio.220 A study of the prosopography does result in a narrowing of the time frame. As in the law of June 391,
both Evagrius and Romanus are mentioned in two of the accounts of the
destruction of the Serapeum, which means that the incident must have occurred
when both were still in office.221 On Romanus nothing further can be said, but
with respect to Evagrius we know that Hypatius had succeeded him as
praefectus augustalis by 9 April 392.222 This date thus provides a terminus ante
quem for the Serapeum incident, which must have taken place after 16 June 391
and no later than 8 April 392.223
219 Hier. Vir. ill. 134 (p. 55.11 Richardson), dating the composition of his work to the
fourteenth year of Theodosius I (prol. and 135, pp. 1.4 5 and 55.19 20 Richardson);
Epiph. mens. 11 (PG 43, col. 256), dating the composition of his work to the consuls of
392. For the date of the Vir. ill., Hahn, Wann wurde das Sarapeion (see fn. 19), 374 (n.
24) refers to the standard study by J.N.D. Kelly, Jerome. His Life, Writings, and
Controversies (London, 1975) 174, who dates the work somewhere between 19 January
392 and 18 January 393, probably towards the close of the span, though if Jerome is
counting regnal years the way he does in the Chronici canones, the fourteenth year
would be 1 January to 31 December 392. Epiphanius mentions the death of Valentinian
II, which occurred in Vienne on 15 May 392 (see commentary at vo 11 3 above), and its
date so he must be writing in the second half of the year, certainly no earlier than July.
220 Hahn, Wann wurde das Sarapeion (see fn. 19), 374 5, 380 2.
221 Eunap. VC 6.11.2 (p. 38.20 Giangrande, accepting the emendation of Eqet_ou to Eqacq_ou); Soz. h.e. 7.15.5 (GCS Neue Folge 4, p. 880.15 7). In fact, as Hahn, Wann wurde
das Sarapeion (see fn. 19), 375 notes, this correspondence has led many scholars to
assume a close connection between the law and the Serapeum destruction.
222 PLRE I s.v. Evagrius 7 (p. 286), Hypatius 3 (p. 448) and Romanus 5 (p. 769). The date of
9 April 392 is based on Cod. Theod. 11.36.1 = Cod. Iust. 1.4.6; Hypatius is mentioned
again as praefectus augustalis in Cod. Theod. 13.5.20 of 12 April 392. A Potamius is
mentioned as praefectus augustalis in Cod. Theod. 1.29.7 = Cod. Iust. 1.55.5 of 5 March
392, but this date has been corrected to 5 May 392, as he held the same office between
22 June and 30 July 392 (Cod. Theod. 12.1.126, 16.4.3, 8.5.51). See PLRE I s.v. Potamius
(p. 720).
223 Hahn, Wann wurde das Sarapeion (see fn. 19), 375 6. This chronology for the
destruction, no matter how close to Hypatius taking office, definitively discounts from
consideration the evidence of Epiphanius, who cannot have been writing any earlier
than 15 May 392 (see n. 189 above) and hence it is certain that he wrote after the event.
At pp. 378 80, Hahn argues against the interpretation of the prosopographical data by
Barnes, Ammianus (see fn. 216), 61 2 that the circumstance that Hypatius was in
office in early April 392 surely establishes the date as 391 by countering that he could
have been in office for only a short while before Theodosius edict of 9 April was issued
to him.

99
At the heart of Hahns argument for narrowing the date even further lies the
Cons. Gol. Hahn follows Bauer in placing the Cons. Gol. in the first half of the
fifth century and points out that, even if fragmentary, one of its historical entries,
more elaborate than the others and illustrated in the margins, describes the
destruction of the Serapeum under the year 392 and mentions Romanus, while
Evagrius is listed as the praefectus augustalis of that year.224 Hahn continues by
arguing against Bauers point that the Cons. Gol. contains many chronological
errors and therefore cannot be used to date the event. He bases himself on some
of Bauers own assumptions, in particular that fol. VI is the last leaf of the codex
and that the text was written not long after 412, in order to argue that the shift of
the execution of Theodosius rival Eugenius from 394 to the same year as the
destruction of the Serapeum, along with the associated images, was a deliberate
compositional choice, a grand finale with the Serapeum destruction illustrating
the triumph of the Alexandrian church. Quite the opposite from Bauer, then,
Hahn believes that it is unlikely that the local compiler could have made a
mistake with the date and he considers the Cons. Gol. a powerful argument for
placing the event in 392.225 Since Evagrius was out of office in April, he
concludes that the destruction of the Serapeum is to be dated between January
and early April 392.226
The present study has shed a completely different light on the Cons. Gol.
and disproves many of Bauers assumptions, which also underlie Hahns
arguments. For instance, the work has to be dated to the second half of the sixth
century and fol. VI was not the last leaf of the manuscript, which would have
continued into the sixth century with its consular list and historical entries.
These facts considerably weaken Hahns argument, since it now seems that
there was a significant lapse of well over a century between the event itself
(whether 391 or 392) and the compilation of the text. We have also seen that in
224 Hahn, Wann wurde das Sarapeion (see fn. 19), 375 7. At p. 376 (n. 36) he remarks that
even if he refrains from discussing the text in detail, he finds Bauers reconstruction of vo
23 9 problematic: allerdings sind im Einzelnen wie im Grundstzlichen Zweifel an
Bauers Lesungen wie auch an seiner Vorgehensweise angebracht. Despite this
cautionary remark, however, at vo 28 9 he takes over Bauers reading of UylamoO as
unzweifelhaft.
225 Hahn, Wann wurde das Sarapeion (see fn. 19), 377 8: Jenes Ereignis, das den
schlielichen Triumph der alexandrinischen Kirche unter ihrem Bischof Theophilos
ber das Heidentum reprsentiert, stellte offensichtlich auch den chronologischen
Schlupunkt oder doch zumindestens den historischen Hhepunkt der Chronik dar. Ein
chronologischer Irrtum des Verfassers ist unter diesen Umstnden auszuschlieen.
226 Hahn, Wann wurde das Sarapeion (see fn. 19), 378: Im Verein mit der oben
erschlossenen, nicht ber Anfang April 392 hinausreichenden Amtsfhrung des
Evagrios als praefectus Augustalis ist die Zerstrung des Sarapeions in die ersten
Monate des Jahres 392 zu datieren.

100
vo 28 29 the reading of the name Romanus, which Hahn accepts as certain, can
no longer be supported by the traces on the papyrus.
Moreover, the idea of fol. VI as the grand finale of the codex is to be
revised. Quite apart from the fact that fol. VI cannot have been the last leaf,
Hahns argument that the death of Eugenius was added to the entry of 392 on
compositional grounds relies on a mistaken view of how consularia came into
existence and developed. As we have seen, they were not literary works that
were deliberately composed at one time, but were compiled annually or in
blocks of years and therefore grew organically from base texts that were
constantly recopied, reworked and expanded upon, leading to the increasing
likelihood of errors, which our extant copies are full of. Under these circumstances it is highly unlikely, if not impossible, that the entry of 394 was
deliberately placed alongside the one of 392; it must instead be the result of an
error made somewhere in the tradition. It is also absurd to claim that the date of
the destruction of the Serapeum is correct and that of the execution of Eugenius
a deliberate relocation, yet still maintain that the other errors in the same text
are just errors.227 A case in point is a comparison with the year 387, which also
contains an entry with a clear Alexandrian element. The first entry of that year,
the death of Timothy and ordination of Theophilus as bishop of Alexandria, is
two years late. The second entry, the proclamation and execution of Maximus, is
in the first part four years late and in the second part one year early. There is
thus no reason to regard the entry of 392 as more trustworthy than the other
entries.
Finally, the Cons. Gol. cannot be treated in isolation, as if it were a unique
text that has nothing in common with the other consularia of Late Antiquity.
What we have done in this article is to look precisely at the Cons. Gol. from its
place within these traditions and discuss its interrelations with other, similar
texts. In this respect, by accepting 392 as the date of the destruction of the
Serapeum from the Cons. Gol., but refusing elsewhere in the same article to
consider the dates given in other consularia and related texts because of their
notorious unreliability without submitting them to careful examination, Hahn
employs a double standard.228 It is therefore not irrelevant to look at what these
other texts give as a date for the event. To start with, Marcellinus comes, writing
227 Cf. Hahn, Wann wurde das Sarapeion (see fn. 19), 378, where he tries to explain the
other errors by the copyist as a result of the latters failure to properly combine eine
Reichschronik aus Italien und eine Lokalchronik aus Alexandria, which is fundamentally true, but such problems apply to the entire work, not all of it except the entry on
the Serapeum.
228 Hahn, Wann wurde das Sarapeion (see fn. 19), 370: aufgrund ihrer notorischen
Unzuverllichkeit.

101
in Constantinople in ca. 519, mentions the Serapeum specifically and gives the
consuls of 389 as a date.229 Theophanes (AM 5882, p. 71.7 20 de Boor) dates it
to the year after Theodosius visit to Rome in 389, so 390.230 The Gallic
Chronicle of 452 dates it to the absolute year of 392, but contextually dates it
one year after a portent of 390, two years before the death of Valentinian II in
392 and three years before Theodosius death in 395, thus 390, 391 or 392.231
Finally, Malalas 13.47 (p. 270.80 1 Thurn) dates it to the reign of Honorius,
after the death of Arcadius, that is, after 408.232 Even if we posit that the
information contained in the sixth-century Cons. Gol. goes back to an
Alexandrian source closer to the event, it is doubtful whether this information
would be more accurately reported than its other Alexandrian events or more
accurately than it is by any of the other histories and chronicles that mention it.
As we have seen above, Theophanes employed a source that is closely related to
an ultimate source of the Cons. Scal. and Cons. Gol., and like the latter two it
was part of an Alexandrian chronicle. Given what we can tell about its content
from Theophanes narrative, this chronicle probably included an entry on the
destruction of the Serapeum, yet the date he gives for the event is 390, two years
earlier than the one in the Cons. Gol.233
There thus remains not a single argument why the Cons. Gol. can be used as
evidence for a date of 392 for the destruction of the Serapeum. Although it must
have happened somewhere between 16 June 391, the date of the edict of
229 Mommsen, Chronica minora 2 (see fn. 26), 62.

230 Since Theophanes major source for his description of the destruction was Theodore
Lector (Mango and Scott, Chronicle of Theophanes (see fn. 42), 109 (n. b)), whose
narrative contains no dates, it is probable that Theophanes had to rely upon his
Alexandrian chronicle for his date, as noted above.
231 Ed. R.W. Burgess, The Gallic Chronicle of 452: A New Critical Edition with a Brief
Introduction, in R.W. Mathisen and D. Shanzer (eds), Society and Culture in Late
Antique Gaul. Revisiting the Sources (Aldershot, 2001) 52 84 at 70. Mommsens edition
(Chronica minora 1 (see fn. 26), 650) is erroneous at this point, see Burgess, Gallic
Chronicle, 58 60.
232 Cf. for these attestatons Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3),
73 (n. 1); Hahn, Wann wurde das Sarapeion (see fn. 19), 370 (n. 8), who does not
mention the important testimony of Theophanes.
233 An additional consideration that Hahn fails to take into account is that such a local
entry may have been dated according to the local calendar. As we saw above (p. 58), any
local compiler would probably have equated consular years with local Egyptian years,
which began on 29 August. Thus the date according to the consuls of 392 in the Cons.
Gol. (vo 17 8) could have been considered to be 29 August 391 (technically 30 August
391, since 392 was a leap year, but no compiler would have known that) to 28 August
392, not 1 January to 31 December 392. As a result, even if we could completely trust the
date of the Cons. Gol., it would not necessarily help the chronological problem of 391
vs. 392.

102
Theodosius (Cod. Theod. 16.10.11),234 and 8 April 392, the last possible date in
office of Evagrius, the date cannot be further specified and should therefore be
opened up again to 391 or 392.235
Appendix: The List of Praefecti Augustales

In addition to the date of the destruction of the Serapeum, the Cons. Gol. is well
known for its list of praefecti augustales, the governors of Egypt.236 The Cons.
Scal. provides a slightly earlier and longer list that was considered a
fundamental witness to the sequence of augustales and their dates both before
and after the publication of the Cons. Gol. in 1905.237 Most scholars have treated
234 It should be noted that 16 June is the data date, that is the date at which the law was
signed by the emperor, who was in Milan at the time, not the accepta date, the date at
which is was received in Alexandria. It would have taken more than a month, if not two,
for the edict to have reached Alexandria and been promulgated there. For known times
between data and accepta dates in Roman legislation, see A.H.M. Jones, The Later
Roman Empire, 284 602. A Social, Economic, and Administrative Survey, 3 vols
(Oxford, 1964) 1.402 3, 3.91 3. So it is unlikely that anything would have happened in
Egypt until August at the earliest.
235 This date is also found in Errington, Roman Imperial Policy (see fn. 217), 250 (n. 109).
236 The title praefectus augustalis was first introduced for the governors of Egypt ca. 381,
when the diocese of Egypt was created. See e. g. M. Gelzer, Studien zur byzantinischen
Verwaltung gyptens (Leipzig, 1909) 7 8; Vandersleyen, Chronologie (see fn. 108),
246 7; J. Lallemand, Ladministration civile de lgypte de lavnement de Diocltien
la creation du diocse (284 382) (Brussels, 1964) 76; B. Verbeeck, Prefect, in Atiya,
Coptic Encyclopedia 6 (see fn. 14), 2007 10 at 2008; R.S. Bagnall, Egypt in Late
Antiquity (Princeton, 1993) 64; B. Palme, Praesides und Correctores der Augustamnica,
AntTard 6 (1998) 123 35 at 128 9, 132 3; R.M. Errington, A Note on the Augustal
Prefect of Egypt, Tyche 17 (2002) 69 77 at 69; B. Palme, The Imperial Presence:
Government and Army, in Bagnall, Egypt in the Byzantine World (see fn. 18), 244 70
at 247. This date contradicts the list of augustales in the Cons. Scal., which, as we shall
see below (Table 3), begins in 367. In fact, this list led A.H.M. Jones, The Date of the
Apologia contra Arianos of Athanasius, JThS N.S. 5 (1955) 224 7 to argue that
Tatianus, the first augustalis in the Cons. Scal. list, was the first augustal prefect, and
Jones editorship ensured that his views were reflected in PLRE I s.v. (Fl. Eutolmius)
Tatianus 5 (p. 876) and the list of augustales on p. 1085, despite the clear refutation by
Lallemand, Administration, 56 (n. 3). When in the following we refer to a prefect in the
list of the Cons. Scal., we are aware of the anachronistic use of the title praefectus
augustalis before ca. 381. However, this appendix is mainly concerned with the names in
the Cons. Scal., and in particular with their relationship to the names in the Cons. Gol.,
not its evidence for the evolution of the office.
237 For previous studies, see especially Bauer, Liste (see fn. 137); Bauer and Strzygowski,
Alexandrinische Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 114 7; R. Fruin, Die praefecti augustales der J.
384 392, Klio 8 (1908) 526 9; L. Cantarelli, La serie dei prefetti di Egitto II. Da
Diocleziano alla morte di Teodosio I (Rome, 1911) 315 7, 342 57; Vandersleyen,

103
these two texts as if they were near-contemporary documentary sources, on an

equal footing with, say, the Cod. Theod., and Vandersleyen in particular takes
great pains to try to fit all their evidence into the list that he assembles from the
extant literary, documentary and legal sources.238 However, as we have shown
above, these texts are nothing more than late compilations of disparate earlier
and mostly unknown sources and are subject to all the problems associated with
Byzantine chronography: corrupt sources, sloppy copying and random emendation and correction by readers and copyists. We must, therefore, re-evaluate
the evidence for the augustales in the light of the results of the above study.
In the table below (Table 3) we have set out the evidence of the Cons. Scal.
and Cons. Gol. alongside the extant evidence from all other literary,
documentary and legal sources, as provided by PLRE I.
Table 3
LDL
s.
X
()
(367)
Literary, documentary and legal sources derived from PLRE I

(starting from p. 1085).
the same (used to denote the same augustalis as the previous
year)
beginning and end of Cons. Scal. and Cons. Gol.
year missing from text
name missing in lacuna
continuous count of years from 367 in Cons. Scal., ignoring
consular dates
Date
LDL
367 27 Jan.
367 10 May
367
Tatianus
Proclianus/Tatianus
368
Tatianus
Tatianus (368)
369
Tatianus
370
Cons. Scal.
Cons. Gol.
Tatianus (367)
s. Tatianus (369)
Chronologie (see fn. 108), 138 81. Cf. H. Hbner, Der Praefectus Aegypti von
Diokletian bis zum Ende der rmischen Herrschaft (Munich, 1952), who at pp. 108 15
provides a list of prefects for the period covered by his study but without discussing the
problems in the sources.
238 Vandersleyen, Chronologie (see fn. 108), 19 22 is the relevant part of his list.

104
Table 3 (Continued)
Date
LDL
370
Tatianus/Olympius
Palladius
Tatianus
370 6 Oct.
371
371
372
372
Cons. Scal.
Olympius Palladius/
Aelius Palladius
Cons. Gol.
s. Tatianus (370)
Publius (371)
Aelius Palladius
373
373
s. Publius (372)
Aelius Palladius
374
Aelius Palladius/?
Tatianus (373)
375
377
s. Tatianus II (374)
376
s. Tatianus (375)
376/377
Palladius (376)
378
Tatianus (377)
379
Hadrianus (378)
379
Hadrianus (379)
366239
367/387
382/387
Paulinus (380)
239 This year and the following are additions that were only made to the consular list of the
Cons. Scal. after the augustales had been added (see see n. 44 above).

105
Table 3 (Continued)
Date
LDL
Cons. Scal.
379
380
380 17 March Iulianus
Bassianus (381)
Hypatius (382)
381
Antoninus (383)
382
382 14 May
Palladius
383
383 29 April Hypatius
8 May
384
384 4 Feb.
384 20 Dec.
385
385
Optatus
Florentius
Florentius
Cons. Gol.
s. Antoninus (384) ()
Florentius (385) Eusebius
386
386 16 June Florentius
386 25 July Paulinus
30 Nov.
(Paulinus)(386) Paulinus
387
X (387)
Erythrius
388
388 30 April Erythrius
388
(Alexander ?)
Alexander
389
389
Evagrius
(Alexander ?)
390
390 18 Feb. Alexander
1 March
()

106
Table 3 (Continued)
Date
LDL
391
391 16 June
Evagrius
392
392 9 12
April
392 5 May
30 July
Hypatius
Potamius
Cons. Scal.
Cons. Gol.
() = (Evagrius)
s. Evagrius
First of all, the most obvious and interesting aspect of this table is the fact
that the list of augustales in the Cons. Scal. contains the correct number of
names for the years covered in spite of the massive corruption of the underlying
consular list. We have noted the same situation above at ro 9 of the commentary
with regard to the entire consular list from 296, where we have attributed the
accuracy to the underlying accounting of the Diocletian years. No doubt the
Diocletian years and augustales were the major chronological systems employed
by the compiler and we have seen at least one instance (the fabricated consuls at
Cons. Scal. 309 10) where the consular list was manipulated to fit these systems.
The Cons. Scal. is in fact full of such examples. It seems best, then, to consider
the chronology of these augustales not in terms of the corrupt consular dates but
in terms of the dates in brackets above.
The Chron. Scal. starts off well with the right name, Tatianus, in the right
year, (367), even including a day of the month that appears to be correct.
Tatianus was not augustalis at the beginning of the year,240 so no name appears
with the consuls of 367 and eodem Tatiano only appears with the second
appearance of the name as a dating supplement in (369). This shows that unlike
the references to the praefecti Aegypti in the headings to Athanasius Festal
Letters, which were intended to provide the names of all the praefecti who held
office during the year cited, these notices are only intended to provide the name
of the augustalis at the beginning of the year. Thus only one augustalis ever
supplements the consular date. The fact that Tatianus appears the correct
240 But which year, Roman or Egyptian? It looks as though the source used here was
similar to the one used for the headings to Athanasius Festal Letters, which reckoned by
consular years as we can tell from the names in 370 and 371. In 371 Olympius Palladius
is the first prefect listed for that year yet we know from the Cod. Theod. that Tatianus
was still prefect on 6 October 370. If the compiler had been counting from 29 August
Tatianus would have been listed as the first prefect in 371. In each year the prefect
mentioned by the Cons. Scal. matches the first prefect listed by these headings. For other
years, we cannot say what years are being employed because there is insufficient

107
number of times (three) and in the correct years ((367) (370)) indicates that the
consuls for 369 and any associated entries were missing from the text at the time
the augustales were added and that they were not lost in the translation or
copying of the Chron. Scal. itself. Tatianus is twice followed by a Publius that
would seem to be a corruption of the correct Palladius since the years agree,
(371) and (372). Publius is a praenomen and could never have stood in any
source list, so it must be a corruption.
Strangely, the list then repeats itself, three correct Tatiani and a single, this
time correct Palladius, for the years (373) to (376). Tatianus appears a third time,
after Palladius in (377), which seems to be a dittography (covering up an original
Palladius). However, in (374) the Cons. Scal. specifically notes that Tatianus was
augustalis for a second time (but in none of the other three years) and ties this
notice to an entry about two of Tatianus building projects in Alexandria. Now
Tatianus cannot have been augustalis at this time since he is recorded as being
comes sacrarum largitionum from 16 February 374 to 17 June 380241 and we have
a complete list of augustales down to late 373/early 374 the headings to
Athanasius Festal Letters which does not indicate a second augustalis for the
year 373 and so one must assume that Aelius Palladius continued in office until
at least the beginning of the new consular year, 1 January 374. As a result, there
is no place for a second prefecture for Tatianus.242
So what has happened here? It looks as though we have a simple duplication
of the tenures of Tatianus and Palladius (368 372 = 373 377), which would
seem to be a mistake of the original source list, not of the compiler of the Cons.
Scal. The problem may have arisen over the fact that, as we can see from the
headings to the Festal Letters, there would have been at least four years in a row
of Palladii after Tatianus and perhaps that was assumed to be a mistake.
Someone later saw Tatianus reappearance in this reduplication and so sought to
explain it as a second tenure. The entry on Tatianus, no doubt from an
Alexandrian chronicle or consularia source independent of the list of augustales,
therefore belongs to the period 367 370. Once again the augustales show that
the consular list of the Cons. Scal. was already corrupt when they were added.
Unfortunately we have no other external evidence for the names of the
augustales between 374 and March 380, so we have no means of judging whether
Hadrian and Bassianus are real names or not, and what their dates would have
evidence and it may have varied from source to source. As a result we shall refer to the
beginning of the year below, but there are no means of determining when any given
year actually started.
241 PLRE I s.v. (Fl. Eutolmius) Tatianus 5 (p. 877).
242 This duplication has been noted before, e. g. Lallemand, Administration (see fn. 236),
247; PLRE I s.v. (Fl. Eutolmius) Tatianus 5 (p. 877); Errington, Note (see fn. 236), 74.
Cf. Vandersleyen, Chronologie (see fn. 108), 147 50; Palme, Praesides (see fn. 236),
132, esp. n. 38.

108
been, except by the sequence of bracketed years used above, thus (378) and
(379) for Hadrianus and (381) for Bassianus. The second Hadrian is missing an
eodem and an augustalio, but we do not know if these were errors in the original
Greek or the Latin translation. There is a Hadrian from Alexandria who held
office between 395 and 414 in the West, who could easily be a son or other
family member, and we know of an Eastern notarius named Bassianus in 371/
372, so the names are at least plausible as augustales at the time.243
Paulinus appears six years too early, in (380). He was augustalis in 386 387,
though his name was originally associated with the consuls for 386, as we can see
from the Cons. Gol. (see discussion below).244 Unfortunately the consuls for 386
(and any associated augustalis) have been lost from the Cons. Scal. However, a
simple dislocation over so many years seems implausible and so it may be that
the name is an error or replacement.245 Hypatius too is a real name but it also
appears too early, in (382) instead of 383 (29 April 8 May, so perhaps augustalis
at the beginning of the year).246 This shift of a single year appears in the Cons.
Gol. as well, as will be seen below.
Antoninus, (383) and (384), is the most puzzling of the names in this list,
since it neither belongs itself nor seems to be a corruption of any other known
name. This suggests that it was introduced from a different source and replaced
the original names (which would have been Optatus and Florentius, as we shall
see). It should therefore be dismissed. PLRE I accepts it as a name from a
dubious source (thus branded with !* *!) and assigns it to 381 382?, noting
that he is indicated as being in office in 384 as well.247 Although the consuls in
the Cons. Scal. are indeed those for 381 and 384, as we have seen, when
calculating these tenures we must follow the sequence of augustales (the years in
brackets), not the corrupt consuls. Finally, Florentius is the correct name in the
correct year, though if the underlying list before the addition of Antoninus was
in fact Hypatius, Optatus and Florentius as suggested below this Florentius
would be the Florentius of 386 not 385.
Turning next to the Chron. Gol., we see that its list starts off badly in 385
with an impossible name, Eusebius, like Cons. Scal.s Antoninus. There is no
room for a Eusebius in 385 since Florentius was augustalis between 20
December 384 and 16 June 386.248 Strangely, PLRE I accepts Eusebius and shifts
his date to 387, the only date without a name on the evidence of the external
243 PLRE I s.v. Bassianus 2 (p. 150); Hadrianus 2 (p. 406).
244 PLRE I s.v. Paulinus 8 (p. 677).
245 Although it may be a coincidence, the real Paulinus (386 387) was augustalis four or
five years after (a third) Palladius (14 May 382) the first augustalis attested
independently of the Cons. Scal., PLRE I s.v. Palladius 14 (pp. 660 1) and in the Cons.
Scal. Paulinus (380) appears four years after Palladius (376).
246 PLRE I s.v. Hypatius 3 (p. 448).
247 PLRE I s.v. Antoninus 5 (p. 75).

109
sources.249 But since the Cons. Scal. lists those who were augustalis at the
beginning of each year, that must be the case here as well. As a result, Paulinus,
Erythrius and Alexander must all fit into the list as a block each one year early,
so Paulinus must be the correct name for 387 and Eusebius must be an error or
(more likely) substitution for Florentius, who appears in the Cons. Scal. for this
year and so was probably in the Chron. Alex.250 As a result the entire sequence
of the original Greek source between 383 (at least) and 389 (Hypatius to
Alexander) was a year early, as can be seen below.
Table 4 Reconstruction of the Common Source behind the Cons. Scal. and Cons. Gol.
to Illustrate the One-Year Shift
Date
LDL
Cons. Scal.
382
Palladius
Hypatius (382) = 383
383
Hypatius
Antoninus (383) =
Optatus? = 384
384 (early)
Optatus
384 (late)
Florentius
Antoninus (384) =
Florentius? = 385
385
Florentius
Florentius (385) = 386
Eusebius = Florentius
(385) = 386
386 (early)
386 (late)
Florentius
Paulinus
Paulinus (386) = 387
387
Cons. Gol.
Erythrius (387) = 388
388 (early)
388 (late)
Erythrius
(Alexander?)
389
(Alexander?)
Alexander (388) = 389
248 PLRE I s.v. Florentius 7 (p. 364).

249 PLRE I s.v. Eusebius 23 (p. 305).
250 This one year error of the augustales was first noted by Vandersleyen, Chronologie (see
fn. 108), 178 9. Cf. the earlier attempt by Fruin, Praefecti augustales (see fn. 237) to
resolve the anomalies in the list of augustales. If one is worried about the change of
Optatus and Florentius to Antoninus, and Florentius to Eusebius, one need only
remember the change of September to January in vo 22 3 (see also commentary at ro
3 4).

110
On this evidence, it would therefore seem that PLRE I is correct in

identifying Alexander known as augustalis in February March 390 and
probably mentioned in that position in a letter by Libanius of 388 as the new,
unnamed augustalis referred to in another letter by Libanius also in 388.251
Consequently, the Cons. Gol.s Evagrius in (389) = 390 should be Alexander,
though the mechanism of the replacement is unknown. Unfortunately, given the
corruption of the list and the missing text in 390 and after 392, we do not know
how far the one-year shift continued and without that knowledge we cannot
determine the causes of the proliferation of Evagrius name. It can at most
appear twice, once for 391 and once for 392 (but only if he was augustalis at the
beginning of the latter year) and its association with 392 may simply be the
result of his association with the destruction of the Serapeum (learned from
Sozomen, for example) not the main source for the list. So something has
seriously gone wrong here, but we lack the evidence to evaluate it properly.252
It should be noted finally that understanding the one-year shift we can see
that the Bassianus in the Cons. Scal. (381) could still be a legitimate name for
382 if Palladius entered office after the beginning of that year or for 381 if the
backward shift of Table 4 had not begun yet.
What can we conclude from the above evidence? Unfortunately, that there
is almost nothing of value in these lists. From the little evidence that survives we
can hypothesize the following: 1. the list is obviously a patchwork and therefore
had not been compiled from a single, official list of praefecti, like the list of the
Praefecti urbi in the Chronograph of 354.253 There is unfortunately no way of
determining what these sources were, how old they were, what chronological
system they were based upon, who compiled them or when. There must have
been at least some private sources, documents like the headings of the Festal
Letters of Athanasius, which also provide a parallel for the use of such names as
chronological indicators;254 2. whatever sources were used, at least some were
already corrupt, while others contained quite good information, as we can see
from the day of the month and year associated with the beginning of Tatianus
251 Lib. Ep. 871.3 4 (vol. 11, pp. 27.17 28.3 Foerster), Ep. 882.3 (vol. 11, p. 37.3 5
Foerster). For the sources, see PLRE I s.v. Alexander 12 (p. 42), which is based on O.
Seeck, Die Briefe des Libanius (Leipzig, 1906) 54 (s.v. Alexander IV). To the attestations
mentioned in PLRE I add two inscriptions that commemorate maintenance work to the
canal of Alexandria under the direction of Alexander, I.Metr. 124 = A. Bernand, Le
delta gyptien daprs les textes grecs, 4 vols (Cairo, 1970) 1.335 6 (no. 5); SB V 8295 =
Bernand, Delta gyptien 1, 340 6.
252 For Vandersleyens treatment of this problem, see Chronologie (see fn. 108), 178 80.
253 Ed. Mommsen, Chronica minora 1 (see fn. 26), 65 9.
254 The chronological headings to the Festal Letters are the work of a later editor who
compiled and dated the letters ca. 400: see T.D. Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius.
Theology and Politics in the Constantinian Empire (Cambridge, MA, 1993) 185, 187. The
source for the chronological information in these headings is unknown.

111
office. Later corruption, such as the dittographies involving Tatianus and

Evagrius, made the list even more inaccurate; 3. in those sources the augustales
were not accompanied by consular years, otherwise they could have been used
to correct the rampant corruption that existed in the source consularia and the
augustales would show a greater tendency to follow the proper consuls, which
they obviously do not; 4. the compilation of this list and at least some of its early
sources cannot have been contemporary, since, as we have seen in n. 236 above,
the office of augustalis did not exist until ca. 381 and no one of that generation
would have believed that it had been created in 367. Nevertheless, there is still
good information hidden here, since, as M. Errington has shown, there were
important changes to the office of prefect under Tatianus and those changes
were somehow recorded and are reflected (incorrectly, unfortunately) in the
compilation of this list;255 and 5. these names were probably emended or
otherwise tampered with from other sources by later readers or copyists in the
fifth and sixth centuries. We can see similar chronological tampering with the
added consular names and the resulting shift of the entries on the deaths of
Peter and Timothy in the Cons. Scal. (see commentary at ro 9 above).
Antoninus and Eusebius are perhaps the best evidence for such tampering
with the names of the augustales.
The most important conclusion is really the one noted in the second section
of this article, that both lists derive from a common source and so are of equal
authority, which we can now say is negligible. PLRE I assigns its exclamation
marks and asterisks to four otherwise unattested names from the Cons. Scal., of
which only one is certainly erroneous, yet accepts without question the similarly
unattested (and only fragmentally preserved) Eusebius from Cons. Gol. and
even goes out of its way to find room for the name by shifting it to 387. Yet the
triple mention of Evagrius, which is explicitly stated to be wrong,256 has no affect
on the editors estimate of the Cons. Gol.s authority. Eusebius should be
rejected, just like Antoninus, since the name was originally Florentius, as we can
see from the Cons. Scal. As discouraging as it may be, from the combined
evidence of the Cons. Scal. and the Cons. Gol. we can probably only accept the
date of the beginning of Tatianus prefecture and that Alexander was the new
augustalis of 388. We may also be able to say that Hadrian and Bassianus were
prefects in the late 370s and very early 380s. The rest is simply too uncertain or
tainted.
255 Errington, Note (see fn. 236), 70 6.
256 PLRE I s.v. Evagrius 7 (p. 286): it [= the Gons. Gol.] wrongly gives his office from 389
to 392. This statement is based on Bauer, Liste (see fn. 137), 349 50 (daraus folgt
also, da nach dieser Chronik Euagrius seit 389 ununterbrochen Augustalis war, quote
at p. 350) but discounts Bauers later doubt, in Bauer and Strzygowski, Alexandrinische
Weltchronik (see fn. 3), 63, 117, about the restoration of the augustalis name in 390. See
commentary at vo 7 8 above.

112
Pl. 1. Moscow, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, inv. no. 310/8, recto (after Bauer and
Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik, Pl. VI recto).

113
Pl. 2. Moscow, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, inv. no. 310/8, verso (after Bauer and
Strzygowski, Alexandrinische Weltchronik, Pl. VI verso).



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The Alexandrian World Chronicle, its Consularia and the

Date of the Destruction of the Serapeum (with an Appendix

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