Page:1909historyofdec04gibbuoft.djvu/625

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APPENDIX 557 Victor Tonnennensis, 33 an African bishop, wrote under Justinian and Justin II. a chronicle from the Creation to the year a.d. 566. We possess the most im- portant part of it from a.d. 444 forward. For Victor's life we have some notices in his own chronicle and a notice in Isidore's De viris illustrious, c. 49, 50. He took part with the western churchmen against Justinian in the Three Chapter Contro- versy, and was banished, first to the Balearic islands (a certain emendation of Mommsen in Victor, sub mm. a.d. 555) and after other changes of exile, to Egypt ; finally in a.d. 564-5 he was removed to Constantinople. He wrote his work during his exile. Mommsen has shown that he made use of Western Consularia from a.d. 444 to 457 ; of Eastern Consularia from a.d. 458 to 500 (except for a.d. 460, 464, 465) ; but of Western again from a.d. 501-563. In a.d. 563 he suddenly and un- accountably ceases to date by consulships, and begins to date by the years of Justinian's reign. It is to be observed that in marking the years after Basil's consulate a.d. 540 he departs from the usual practice ; he calls a.d. 541 not the first but the second year post consulatum Basilii. It is very curious that he makes a mistake about the year of Justinian's death, which he places in Ind. 15 and the fortieth year of his reign, though it really took place in Ind. 14, ann. regn. 39. [Edition : Mommsen, Chron. Min. ii. p. 178 sqq.] The chronicle of Victor was continued by a Visigoth, John of Biclarum. He too, like Victor, suffered persecution for his religious opinions. He had gone to Constantinople in his childhood, learned Latin and Greek, and had been brought up in the Catholic faith. At the age of seventeen he returned to Spain, c. a.d. 576, and was banished to Barcino by the Arian king Leovigild on account of his religious opinions. Exiled for ten years (till a.d. 586), he was released by Leovigild'6 Catholic successor Beccared, and founded the monastery of Biclarum (site unknown). After- wards he became bishop of Gerunda, and there is evidence that he was still alive in a.d. 610. His chronicle differs from most others in that it can be studied by itself without any reference to sources. For he derived his knowledge from his own experience and the verbal communications of friendB (ex parte quod oculata fide per vidimus et ex parte quae ex relatu fidelium didicimus). He professes to be the continuator of Eusebius, Jerome, Prosper, and Victor. At the outset he falls into the mistake which, as we saw, Victor made as to the date of Justinian, and places it in the fifteenth indiction. This led to a misdating of the years of Justin II., and he commits other serious chronological blunders. Mommsen, Chron. Min. ii. p. 209. His chronicle ends with the year a.d. 590. It is worthy of note that John always speaks with the highest appreciation of the Gothic king Leovigild, who banished him. [Ed. Mommsen, Chron. Min. ii. p. 207 sqq.~] Fragments of the Chronicle of Maximus of Caesaraugusta have been preserved in the margin of Mss. of Victor and John of Biclarum, extending over the years a.d. 450 to 568 (perhaps to 580). Mommsen, Chron. Min. ii. p. 221-3. Marius (c. a.d. 530-594), bishop of Aventicum (Avenches), wrote a chronicle extending from a.d. 455 to 581. Mommsen has shown that he made use of the Consularia Italica and the Chronica Gallica (cp. above, vol. iii., Appendix 1, p. 517). [Editions : Arndt, ed. maior, 1875, ed. minor, 1878 ; Mommsen, Chron. Min. ii. p. 227 sqq.] Isidorus Junior became bishop of Hispalis (Seville) c. a.d. 600-3, and died in the year a.d. 636. He wrote a history of the Goths, Vandals, and Sueves, coming down to the year a.d. 624. It is preserved in two recensions, in one of which the original form has been abbreviated, in the other augmented. The sources of Isidore were Orosius, Jerome, Prosper (ed. of a.d. 553), Idatius, Maximus of Saragossa, John of Biclarum. He used the Spanish sera ( = Christian sera + 38) ; Mommsen has drawn up a most convenient comparative table of the dates (Chron. Min. ii. p. 246- 251). Isidore is our main source for the Spanish history of the last hundred years with which he deals. [Ed. Mommsen, Chron. Min. ii. 241 sqq., to which are appended various Additamenta and Continuations. Monograph : H. Hertzberg, 33 He was bishop of the ecclesia Tonnennensis (or Tonnonnensis, or Tunnunensis) in the prov. Carthaginiensis. I follow the spelling adopted by Mommsen, which depends on a very probable conjectural restoration in an inscription (C. I. L. 8, suppl. 12,552). The termination of the local name from which the adjective is formed seems to be unknown.