Anastasius Bibliothecarius Sources

Anastasius's work was compiled from the Greek writings of Theophanes, Nicephorus, and George Syncellus ( Neil, 1998:45). As discussed below by Neil (1998:46), Anastasius had access to an older copy of Theophanes Chronographia that we don't have.

Anastasius' Chronographia consisted of excerpts of the Chronographia of Theophanes⁵⁷ which extended up to the year 813, the Opuscula historica of Patriarch Nikephoros⁵⁸ and the Chronicle of George Synkellos⁵⁹. Anastasius' Chronographia Tripertita has been edited by de Boor,⁶⁰ who found that, while it is an often inconsistent rendition of the Greek, Anastasius' version of Theophanes' Chronographia was based on an early and more reliable version of the original than now survives.⁶¹ For this reason, it has been useful in some places for establishing the original text where the direct transmission offers a degenerate version, although Anastasius unfortunately does not provide a full translation of his original.⁶²

Footnotes

57 Ed. C. de Boor, Theophanis Chronographia, v. 1 (Leipzig, 1883); recently translated with commentary by C. Mango and R. Scott, The Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor: Byzantine and Near Eastern History, AD 284-813 (Oxford, 1997).

58 Ed. C. de Boor, Nicephori Archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani Opuscula Historica, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1880). It is also edited in the version of I. Bekker, Sancti Nicephori Patriarchae Constantinopolitani Breviarum Rerum post Mauricium gestarum (Bonn, 1837; repr. Ann Arbor, 1988). This covers the seventh and eighth centuries from the death of Emperor Maurice. Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople (806-815), was a continuator of Theophylact Simocatta.

59 George Synkellos' Chronicle covers the history of the world from creation up to the rule of Diocletian. It is edited by C. de Boor, Georgii monachi chronicon, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1904; 2nd ed. with corrections by P. Wirth, Stuttgart, 1978).

60 De Boor, v. 2 (Leipzig, 1885).

61 De Boor, v. 2, pp. 401-435. Mango and Scott, op. cit., pp. xcvi f. draw our attention to the existence of two late ninth-century manuscripts of Theophanes, one of which was wrongly dated to the late tenth century by de Boor, and the other not used by him at all. These also offer an inferior text to that consulted by Anastasius.

62 De Boor, v. 2, pp. 413-415.