Chronicon Paschale, A.D. 284-628

University of Pennsylvania Press
translated by Michael Whitby and Mary Whitby
ISBN: 085323096X
price: $19.95   paperback

Translated Texts for Historians
The Chronicon Paschale is one of the major constituents of the Byzantine chronographic tradition covering the late-antique period. It was composed at Constantinople, c. 630, by one of the clergy of St. Sophia. Its importance is twofold: for the fifth and sixth centuries, it provides a major supplement to the Chronicle of Malalas, a sixth-century history that survives only in abbreviated form; for the seventh century, it contains substantial independent evidence (including some transcribed official letters) relating to the empire's internal and external troubles--the riots, plots, and massacres of Phocas's reign; the financial difficulties; the Avar siege of Constantinople (626); and the triumph over the Persians (628) under Heraclius.