APPENDIX 551 brought down (Bk. 18) to the death of Justinian 24 (a.d. 565). Neither the first edition, which was used by Evagrius (who cites it under the name of Johannes rhetor) nor the second (used by the Paschal Chronicler, Theophanes, &c.) has come down to us ; but we have materials sufficient for an almost complete restoration of the second edition. (1) The chief of these materials is the abridgment of the whole work ; which is preserved in an Oxford Ms. of the eleventh century (Barocc. 182). The first pages of the Ms., with the title, are lost ; and the work was identi- fied by some passages verbally identical with passages which John of Damascus quotes from " John Malalas ". (2) Next best to recovering the original second edition would be the recovery of the Slavonic translation made by the Bulgarian presbyter Gregory (c. a.d. 900). 25 Luckily, large parts of this, in Russian form, are preserved. (3) Numerous excerpts and fragments have been identified, and enable us to supplement the Oxford text, (a) Four Tusculan fragments, published in Mai's Spicil. Rom., vol. ii., part 3, and identified by Patzig. (b) Excerpts from an anony- mous Chronicler (end of ninth century) who copied Malalas, published in Cramer's Anecd. Par. 2, p. 165 sqq. (c) Constantinian excerpts irepl i-nt$ovu>v published from an Esourial Ms. by Mommsen in Hermes 6, 366 sqq. (d) The preface of Malalas, with the beginning of Bk. 1, in Cod. Par. 682 (tenth century), publ. by A. Wirth, Chronographische Sptine, p. 3 sqq. (1894). (e) Excerpts in Cod. Par. 1336 (Cramer, Anecd. Par. 2, p. 231 sqq.). (4) The Paschal Chronicle (seventh century) and the Chronography of Theophanes (beginning of ninth century) extracted their material largely from Malalas, generally adhering verbally to the original. They are there- fore very important for the restoration. (5| Other writers who used Malalas have also to be taken into consideration : John of Ephesus, Evagrius, John of Antioch (see below), John of Nikiu, John of Damascus, George Monachus, Cedrenus (in- directly). Haury, in an article in Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 9, 337 sqq. (1900), has made it probable that Malalas is identical with Johannes Scholasticus, who acted as apokrisiarios of the Patriarch Antioch at Constantinople from some date between 545 and 559 to his death in 577. (Cp. Theophanes, ed. De Boor, p. 240. John of Ephesus, transl. Schonfelder, p. 76.) Haury also makes it probable that Malalas did not publish the first edition of his work before 548. The chronicle of Malalas gives the impression that it was compiled not by a rhetor but by a monk whose abysses of ignorance it would be hard to fathom. But though in itself a pitiable performance, it is, aB Prof. Krumbacher observes, enormously important for the history of literature. It is the earliest example of the Byzantine monastic chronicle, not appealing to educated people, but written down to the level of the masses. There is no sense of proportion. The fall of an empire and the juggling of a mountebank are related with the same serious- ness. Pages and pages are occupied with minute descriptions of the personal appearances of the heroes of the Trojan war. All manner of trivial gossip is introduced. The blunders are appalling; e.g., Herodotus is placed subsequent to Polybius. The last Books, from Zeno forward, are important, because they are written by a contemporary, and Bk. 18 is one of our chief sources for the reign of Justinian. In this chronicle the conventional style of historic prose is deserted ; popular idioms, words, and grammatical forms are used without scruple. Thus it is " the first monument of popular Greek, of any size, that we possess" (Krumbacher). It should be observed, however, that this style is not evenly preserved ; in many places Malalas has preserved the better style of his sources. In Bks. 1-17 prominence is always given to events connected with his native city, Antioch. Malalas -problems. When it was shown that the eighteenth Book of Malalas 24 Or, some think, to the ninth year of Justin, a.d. 574 ; because a Latin Laterculus of Emperors, taken from Malalas, comes down to that year. This document (compiled in the eighth century) is edited by Mommsen in Chron. Min. iii. , p. 424 sqq. It seems to me more probable that the last entry was added, on his own account, by the author of an earlier Latin epitome which the eighth century compiler used. 25 Krumbacher, on the authority of A. S. Chachanov, states that there is a Ms. of a Gregorian translation of Malalas at Tiflis (p. 329).
