Chronicon Paschale

The Chronicon Paschale, derived from the Greek word Πασχάλιο χρονικό, also bears the alternative title Paschal Chronicle, Chronicon Alexandrinum, Chronicon Constantinopolitanum or Fasti Siculi. There is a written in Greek in the Eastern Roman Empire Chronicle, written around 630. The modern name comes from the era used by the Christian Easter canon ago.

The author is unknown, because the beginning and end of the Chronicle missing. According to many researchers can be from the factory, however, open up that he was a clergyman and a confidant of the Patriarch Sergios. Other scholars suggest, however, due to the occasional use of the first person plural in conjunction with the staff of the magister officiorum that the author of Chronicles was not a cleric, but a member of the civilian realm administration, what could talk, that the author apparently Latin - in Ostrom to about 625 official language of government - dominated, which would then already have been unusual for a priest.

This comprehensive work provides a world chronicle of the days of Adam ( the creation of the world is on 21 March 5509 BC dates ) to the year 630 represents; However, the main manuscript from the 10th century breaks off with the year 628. The sources, which the author uses are not always identify clearly, but he has about used John Malalas; but after the death of the Emperor Maurikios he was an eyewitness of the events. During the years 534-601 often left untreated, the report for the next time much more extensive and detailed than it actually was common in chronicles. For the years 602-628, therefore, represents the Chronicon Paschale one of our main sources dar.

The work is indeed partly erroneous ( just for the period prior to 602), but also includes some very important historical information about the time of the late late antiquity in the eastern Mediterranean world. Some of the documents that have been recorded in the chronicle, are considered authentic. Thus, as the text of the letter, in which the new Sassanian Kavadh II Siroe the Eastern Roman Emperor Heraclius in 628 asks for peace, apparently cited in the text as well as various imperial pronouncements.

The tradition is based on the Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1941 from the late 10th century.

Translation

• Mary and Michael Whitby (translator ): Chronicon Paschale 284-628 ( Translated Texts for Historians = ). Liverpool 1989, ISBN 0-85323 -096 X ( this annotated translation includes only the portion of the work, dealing with late antiquity ).