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Megas Chronographos

Background and Biography
Background and Biography

Excerpts, Chronology, Seismic Effects, and Locations
Holy Desert Quake

Excerpts

English from Whitby and Whitby (1989)

1. In the reign of Copronymus, an earthquake occurred in Palestine and the Jordan and all the Syrian land. And many tens of thousands, innumerable people indeed, are dead, and churches and monasteries are fallen.

And at the same time a pestilential disease, starting from Sicily and Calabria and spreading like a fire, crossed to Greece and the islands. ...12.

Footnotes

12 Earthquake in Levant and plague at Cpl. in 747; cf. Nic. 62. 24-64. 9; Theoph. 422. 25-424. 3; Cedr. ii. 7. 17-9. 1.

GC is closer to Theophanes than to Nicephorus in that it records an earthquake in the Levant before turning to the plague, but both the other two have more information than is preserved in GC (including an exact date for the earthquake in Theophanes). The earthquake is not mentioned by Nicephorus, but he regularly omitted information that was available in the chronicle source which he shared with Theophanes. This common source did record some major events in the near east, including the earthquake of 750 (Nic. 64. 22-65. 7, Theoph. 426. 16-26; see below on GC 13), so that it could have contained a reference to the earthquake of 747. Theophanes also had an independent eastern chronicle source, which has parallels with Syriac chronicles down to 746, and contained further information probably added by a writer in Palestine c.780 (see E. W. Brooks, 'The Sources of Theophanes and the Syriac Chroniders', BZ xv, 1906, 578-87), but the example of the 750 earthquake shows that not all eastern information in Byzantine chronicles should be traced to it.

GC 12, as it stands, cannot have been the common source of Theophanes and Nicephorus because of their fuller treatment (cf. Whitby, 'Chronographer' 11-12). However, GC's account of the plague is disordered when compared with the other versions, in that it mentions the burial arrangements for the victims before the apparition of oily crosses on the garments of the afflicted, and it does not contain any of the anti-iconoclast interpretations of the plague included by the orthodox authors. One must assume, therefore, either (i) that it is an inaccurate derivation from Theophanes by an excerptor who deliberately eliminated Theophanes' anti-iconoclast interpretation of the plague, although this would run counter to the excerptor's use of the epithet Copronymus for Constantine; or (ii) that it is an inaccurate and abbreviated version of the common source used by Theophanes and Nicephorus, the distortions being caused by the excerptor's belief that he was running out of space on folio 242r (cf. p.192 above). We find the latter assumption easier, but for the alternative, see Mango, Nicephorus' 546-7.

Note by Williams: Copronymus or Copronym is a play on words with the name of Constantine combining the greek words κόπρος (kopros) which means feces and ὄνομα (onoma) which means name. The hostility of the authors who use this epithet against "Emperor Poop-onymous" derives from bitter doctrinal disputes within Christendom such as disputes over iconoclasm.

Chronology

Karcz (2004) found this account chronologically tenuous because it places an account of a 746 or 747 CE earthquake after the 750 CE birth of Leo which was described in an earlier section.
Year Reference Corrections Notes
1 Sept. 745 to 31 Aug. 746 CE around the same time as the plague crossed from Sicily and Calabria to Greece none
  • In Mango and Scott (1997:585)'s translation of Theophanes, this is dated to the 14th indiction.
  • The 14th indiction went from 1 Sept. 745 to 31 Aug. 746 CE (calculated using CHRONOS)
1 Sept. 746 to 31 Aug. 747 CE ? A.M.Byz 6255 ? none
1 Sept. 746 to 31 Aug. 747 CE ? Indiction XV ? none
Seismic Effects
  • an earthquake occurred in Palestine and the Jordan and all the Syrian land
  • many tens of thousands, innumerable people indeed, are dead
  • churches and monasteries are fallen
Locations
  • Palestine
  • the Jordan
  • all the Syrian land

Online Versions and Further Reading
References