The Chronicle of Theophanes is the last and most extensive work in Greek in the genre of chronographic narrative established by Eusebius in the early fourth century AD. The work covers more than half a millennium from the accession of Diocletian (AD 284) down to the Byzantine emperor Michael I (813), but the Chronicle arose from an even more ambitious project: a complete account of universal history from the Creation, conceived and carried as far as Diocletian by Theophanes’ friend George Synkellos. Theophanes, according to his introduction, completed the remainder, using materials gathered by George, after George’s death. The narrative of Theophanes’ contribution therefore runs from the Roman imperial restoration of the Tetrarchs to the world of the iconoclast Byzantine emperors, the Abbasid caliphates, and the Carolingian emperors. Though the bulk of entries concerns imperial and ecclesiastical politics in Byzantine Constantinople, events in the late- and post- Roman West, Sassanian Persia, and Islamic Syria feature regularly. Theophanes covers much of the geographical and temporal spread of late Antiquity, and his Chronicle is a valuable companion to the study of the period. Much of the material in the latter part of the Chronicle is unique, but the earlier section, up to the beginning of the seventh century, consists largely of selections from sources (some of the most important of which were in turn compendia of earlier works) which are either extant or for which close comparanda exist. The whole is a rich and diverse mine of data. Despite the difficulties in using Theophanes, whose chronography is often brave but flawed, the Chronicle is a constant point of reference for much work in late antique or early Byzantine history if only because of its compass alone.
Project: 6. Under a cloak of terror: violence and armed conflict in Europe.
Chronology: I b.C,
Scope: Secondary Education, Higher Education
Resource type: Document
Source: The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor, Byzantine and Near Eastern History AD 284-813
Owner: Porto group (Modernalia)
Copyright: Oxford University Press