Chronicon Paschale (the Paschal or Easter Chronicle), [1] also called Chronicum Alexandrinum, Constantinopolitanum or Fasti Siculi, is the conventional name of a 7th-century Greek Christian chronicle of the world. Its name comes from its system of chronology based on the Christian paschal cycle; its Greek author named it Epitome of the ages from Adam the first man to the 17th year of the reign of the most August Heraclius .
The Eastern Roman Empire inherited the concept of chronicles (Annales) and histories (Historia) as distinct genres, with different writing styles and public appeal; this distinction can already be found in the works of Sempronius Asellio in the 1st century BC. As with other examples of its genre, the Chronicon Paschale is a popular account which relates anecdotes, physical descriptions of the chief personages (which at times are careful portraits), and extraordinary events such as earthquakes and the appearance of comets. It links Church history with a supposed Biblical chronology. For the years 600 to 627 the author writes as a contemporary historian—that is, through the last years of emperor Maurice, the reign of Phocas, and the first seventeen years of the reign of Heraclius.
The Chronicon Paschale is a huge compilation, attempting a chronological list of events from the creation of Adam. The principal manuscript, the 10th-century Codex Vaticanus graecus 1941, is damaged at the beginning and end and stops short at 627. The Chronicle proper is preceded by an introduction containing reflections on Christian chronology and on the calculation of the Paschal (Easter) cycle. The so-called 'Byzantine' or 'Roman' era (which continued in use in Greek Orthodox Christianity until the end of Turkish rule as the 'Julian calendar') was adopted in the Chronicon as the foundation of chronology; accordingly the date of the creation is given as 21 March 5507 BC. [2]
The author identifies himself as a contemporary of the Emperor Heraclius (610–641), and was possibly a cleric attached to the suite of the Ecumenical Patriarch Sergius. The work was probably written during the last ten years of the reign of Heraclius.
The chief authorities used were: Sextus Julius Africanus; the Fasti consulares ; the Chronicle and Church History of Eusebius; John Malalas; the Acta Martyrum ; the treatise of Epiphanius, bishop of Constantia (the old Salamis) in Cyprus (fl. 4th century), on Weights and Measures. [2]
Sextus Julius Africanus was a Christian traveler and historian of the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries. He is important chiefly because of his influence on fellow historian Eusebius, on all the later writers of Church history among the Church Fathers, and on the whole Greek school of chroniclers.
Joannes or John Zonaras was a Byzantine Roman historian, chronicler and theologian who lived in Constantinople. Under Emperor Alexios I Komnenos he held the offices of head justice and private secretary (protasēkrētis) to the emperor, but after Alexios' death, he retired to the monastery on the Island of Hagia Glykeria,, where he spent the rest of his life writing books.
Heraclius Constantine, often enumerated as Constantine III, was one of the shortest reigning Byzantine emperors, ruling for three months in 641. He was the eldest son of Emperor Heraclius and his first wife Eudokia.
Theophanes the Confessor was a member of the Byzantine aristocracy who became a monk and chronicler. He served in the court of Emperor Leo IV the Khazar before taking up the religious life. Theophanes attended the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 and resisted the iconoclasm of Leo V the Armenian, for which he was imprisoned. He died shortly after his release.
The gens Julia was one of the most prominent patrician families in ancient Rome. Members of the gens attained the highest dignities of the state in the earliest times of the Republic. The first of the family to obtain the consulship was Gaius Julius Iulus in 489 BC. The gens is perhaps best known, however, for Gaius Julius Caesar, the dictator and grand uncle of the emperor Augustus, through whom the name was passed to the so-called Julio-Claudian dynasty of the first century AD. The nomen Julius became very common in imperial times, as the descendants of persons enrolled as citizens under the early emperors began to make their mark in history.
George Syncellus was a Byzantine chronicler and ecclesiastical official. He lived many years in Palestine as a monk, before coming to Constantinople, where he was appointed synkellos to Tarasius, patriarch of Constantinople. He later retired to a monastery to write what was intended to be his great work, a chronicle of world history, Ekloge chronographias, or Extract of Chronography. According to Anastasius Bibliothecarius, George "struggled valiantly against heresy [i.e. Iconoclasm] and received many punishments from the rulers who raged against the rites of the Church", although the accuracy of the claim is suspect.
Sedulius was a Christian poet in Hiberno-Latin during the first half of the 5th century.
Anno Mundi, abbreviated as AM or A.M., or Year After Creation, is a calendar era based on the biblical accounts of the creation of the world and subsequent history. Two such calendar eras of notable use are:
Amyrtaeusof Sais is the only pharaoh of the Twenty-eighth Dynasty of Egypt and is thought to be related to the royal family of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. He ended the first Persian occupation of Egypt and reigned from 404 BC to 399 BC. Amyrtaeus' successful insurrection inaugurated Egypt's last significant phase of independence under native sovereigns, which lasted for about 60 years until the Persians conquered the country again.
The Byzantine calendar, also called the Roman calendar, the Creation Era of Constantinople or the Era of the World, was the calendar used by the Eastern Orthodox Church from c. 691 to 1728 in the Ecumenical Patriarchate. It was also the official calendar of the Byzantine Empire from 988 to 1453 and it was used in Russia until 1700. This calendar was used also in other areas of the Byzantine commonwealth such as in Serbia, where it is found in old Serbian legal documents such as Dušan's Code, thus being referred to as the Serbian Calendar as well.
Libius Severus, sometimes enumerated as Severus III, was Western Roman emperor from November 19, 461 to his death on November 14, 465. A native of Lucania, Severus was the fourth of the so-called "Shadow Emperors" who followed the deposition of the Valentinianic dynasty in 455. He ruled for just under four years, attaining the throne after his predecessor, Majorian, was overthrown by his magister militum, Ricimer. Severus was the first of a series of emperors who were highly dependent on the general, and it is often presumed that Ricimer held most of the de facto power during Severus' reign
Leontia was an empress of the Eastern Roman Empire as the wife of Phocas.
Heinrich Gelzer was a German classical scholar. He wrote also on Armenian mythology. He was the son of the Swiss historian Johann Heinrich Gelzer (1813–1889). He became Professor of classical philology and ancient history at the University of Jena, in 1878. He wrote a still-standard work on Sextus Julius Africanus. He worked out the chronology of Gyges of Lydia, from cuneiform evidence, in an 1875 article.
John of Antioch was a 7th-century chronicler, who wrote in Greek. He was a monk, apparently contemporary with Emperor Heraclius. Heinrich Gelzer identifies the author with the Monophysite Syrian Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch John of the Sedre, who ruled from 630 to 648.
The gens Antistia, sometimes written Antestia on coins, was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. The first of the gens to achieve prominence was Sextus Antistius, tribune of the plebs in 422 BC.
Pompeius was a politician of the Eastern Roman Empire and nephew of the Emperor Anastasius I. His family gained political prominence with the accession of Anastasius. Pompeius was consul in 501, and was elevated to the patricianate, probably by Anastasius. He held military office, serving in the Iberian War. He married a woman named Anastasia, and had at least one son. In 532, Pompeius' brother Hypatius was acclaimed emperor by the rioters during the Nika riots; after the riots were put down, both Hypatius and Pompeius were executed.
Gaius Furius Pacilus Fusus was a Roman statesman of the early Republic. He was a descendant of the ancient patrician house of the Furii, which filled the highest offices of the Roman state from the early decades of the Republic to the first century AD. He was probably closely related to Quintus Furius Pacilus Fusus, whom Livy mentions as Pontifex Maximus in 449 BC, and was likely the father of Gaius Furius Pacilus, consul in 412 BC.
Just how far back in history organized contests were held remains a matter of debate, but it is reasonably certain that they occurred in Greece almost 3,000 years ago. However ancient in origin, by the end of the 6th century BC at least four Greek sporting festivals, sometimes called "classical games," had achieved major importance: the Olympic Games, held at Olympia; the Pythian Games at Delphi; the Nemean Games at Nemea; and the Isthmian Games, held near Corinth. The Olympic Games were perhaps the greatest of these sporting events, and all Olympian victors were highly appreciated among the Greeks.
The Excerpta Latina Barbari, also called the Chronographia Scaligeriana, is a late antique historical compilation, originally composed in Greek in AD 527–539 but surviving only in a Latin translation from the late 8th century. The identities of the author/compiler of the original and of the translator unknown.